Quotes

[galia]

Ahah I do agree with most of what he has to say, I guess you're right...

[Faust]

I do too, for the record. I don't think people read him anymore though. I might be wrong.

[galia]

Jean-Claude Michéa revived interest in him over here these past few years (well I'm not saying it sells like 50 shades of Grey or whatever, but it's on the cultural radar).

[Faust]

I don't know who that is (obviously). In the US the problem with the guys like Lasch and Alan Bloom and others is that conservatives have taken parts of their thinking as intellectual underpinnings for their insanity, so now they are pigeonholed as conservative thinkers.

As post-modernist, PC bullshit is now being slowly washed away in the American academia it will still probably take some time for these guys to be rediscovered on a significant scale.

[galia]

well that's the whole problem. awful people embracing a body of work for the wrong reasons (and sometimes because they have misunderstood it or choose to misrepresent it purposefully) just poisons it for everyone else. although I think it says something about the intellectual cowardice of so-called intellectuals in general, that they are willing to let crazy neo-cons or whatever steal valuable insights from them, just out of pseudo-political conformity. that is probably one of the "left" 's biggest sins, in my opinion.

obviously, I'm talking about intellectual, not politicians. I think politicians are almost all bad. and the ones who seem nicer are usually actually worse in terms of the consequences of their policies (also because people are less likely to call them on their bullshit). but that's an other debate altogether.

[MJRH]

Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquillity sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms. —James Joyce

have just dipped into joyce properly now for the first time, leaving me feeling somehow like goldilocks: dubliners too dry, finnegans too porridgey, ulysses, ahh, just right!

[Faust]

No one in their right mind reads Finnegan's Wake ;-)

You absolutely must read The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. THAT is just right.

I do think that The Dead is a small masterpiece.

[MJRH]

yes! seconded. i read portrait, but many moons ago. i promise you i will be revisiting it as soon as i'm done ulysses, and i'm going to have another go at dubliners while i'm about it.

i want to point you at one of my favourite blogs, letters of note, and hg wells' well-spoken response to the wake:

Now with regard to this literary experiment of yours. It's a considerable thing because you are a very considerable man and you have in your crowded composition a mighty genius for expression which has escaped discipline. But I don't think it gets anywhere. You have turned your back on common men — on their elementary needs and their restricted time and intelligence, and you have elaborated. What is the result? Vast riddles. Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they will ever be to read. Take me as a typical common reader. Do I get much pleasure from this work? No.

continued. also found there, a "litter" to mister james joyce by an admirer:

in gutter dispear I am taking my pen toilet you know that, being Leyde up in bad with the prewailent distemper (I opened the window and in flew Enza), I have been reeding one half ter one other the numboars of "transition" in witch are printed the severeall instorments of your "Work in Progress".

i can actually understand that! it's clever, in flew enza... but finnegans is simply beyond me. or, as some frustrated readers might have it, i'm beyond finnegans.

[galia]

Sorry to be pompous but Finnegans Wake is spelled without an apostrophe.
It's a litterary pun of sorts that I've just found out about, and I couldn't pass the chance to flaunt this newfound knowledge. I hadn't even dared to hope the opportunity would arise, thank you Faust!

[MJRH]

that apostrophe was, in fact, stolen by the pataphysicists decades in advance...

and did you say litterary on purpose?

[galia]

Um no? I'm not a native speaker so I guess a subtlety is lost on me here

[MJRH]

oh! well it was very clever whether you know it or not! the letter i posted above was called a "litter" by its author, because the first line has "in gutter" instead of in utter and "(pig) pen toilet you know" instead of pen to let you know; literary is spelled with only one t and so i thought you were riffing on that by spelling it with litter, is all

goodness, start discussing joyce and there are even accidental puns!

[galia]

Ha amazing! Like Moliere's bourgeois gentilhomme writes prose, I make puns without knowing it! It's just my poor spelling, but I'm happy it turned out right in a way (although I hadn't seen your "litter" quote before posting)

[Faust]

Sorry to be pompous but Finnegans Wake is spelled without an apostrophe.
It's a litterary pun of sorts that I've just found out about, and I couldn't pass the chance to flaunt this newfound knowledge. I hadn't even dared to hope the opportunity would arise, thank you Faust!

my pleasure. Actually, I will readily admit that I suck at spelling.

[Fuuma]

well that's the whole problem. awful people embracing a body of work for the wrong reasons (and sometimes because they have misunderstood it or choose to misrepresent it purposefully) just poisons it for everyone else. although I think it says something about the intellectual cowardice of so-called intellectuals in general, that they are willing to let crazy neo-cons or whatever steal valuable insights from them, just out of pseudo-political conformity. that is probably one of the "left" 's biggest sins, in my opinion.

obviously, I'm talking about intellectual, not politicians. I think politicians are almost all bad. and the ones who seem nicer are usually actually worse in terms of the consequences of their policies (also because people are less likely to call them on their bullshit). but that's an other debate altogether.

Going beyond that, I don't see the point is labeling "conservatives" as bad and "liberals" as good, there are many conservative thinkers I find offer valuable insights on certain points and some conservative positions I agree with. I'm obviously not a big neo-con or ultra-capitalist fan but certain strains of moral conservatism (yikes!) I can be down it.