It’s a funny birthday day – two of my favorite writers have their birthdays today, and they’re soooo different! It’s Ayn Rand’s 105th and James Joyce’s 128th!!!! Since I'm not feeling particularly controversial today I’ll leave Ayn alone, but Joyce deserves a few words.
I think that some writers are macro-writers: those who write a story that sweeps you along, although you might be hard pressed to remember a particular word or sentence. Dickens seems like this to me – he has his sentences ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," etc.) but overall it’s the story that counts.
On the other hand, there are the micro-writers: those who have obviously carefully considered every word and sentence. This category includes nearly all poets, and most bad modern writers. Joyce also falls into this category, but on a scale unsurpassed except by the giants, such as Shakespeare and, of course, Homer, who were his only competition.
Of course, writing like this often takes focus and patience to read, and it goes without saying that Ulysses - which is Joyce’s masterpiece and may be the greatest novel ever written – is incredibly draining. Anyone who says they burned breathlessly through it from cover to cover is either putting you on, or inhabits a mysterious world entirely their own. It is simply not a page turner. But sentence for sentence, James Joyce was probably the best there has been in the last 500 years.
From Ulysses:
“The void awaits surely all of them that weave the wind.”
I think that some writers are macro-writers: those who write a story that sweeps you along, although you might be hard pressed to remember a particular word or sentence. Dickens seems like this to me – he has his sentences ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," etc.) but overall it’s the story that counts.
On the other hand, there are the micro-writers: those who have obviously carefully considered every word and sentence. This category includes nearly all poets, and most bad modern writers. Joyce also falls into this category, but on a scale unsurpassed except by the giants, such as Shakespeare and, of course, Homer, who were his only competition.
Of course, writing like this often takes focus and patience to read, and it goes without saying that Ulysses - which is Joyce’s masterpiece and may be the greatest novel ever written – is incredibly draining. Anyone who says they burned breathlessly through it from cover to cover is either putting you on, or inhabits a mysterious world entirely their own. It is simply not a page turner. But sentence for sentence, James Joyce was probably the best there has been in the last 500 years.
From Ulysses:
“The void awaits surely all of them that weave the wind.”
– My vote for the most beautiful sentence in English.
Also, “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”
Also, “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”
– Many other people’s vote.
And
“In motion being each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of neverchanging space.”
And
“In motion being each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of neverchanging space.”
– If you’ve made it to chapter 17, you know what I mean!!
Plus, of course, the last sentence : )
Finally, from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
– Which is great on the page or from Chris in the Morning:
Happy Birthday guys!!!
2 comments:
Love this post! It seems to go nicely with me and Jack howling at the moon for some reason. I'll never be nearly as eloquent as Joyce, nor as determined as Rand, so I just howl. Kind of like Chris in the morning.
What a great comment to get sweetheart - love you!!!
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