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James Joyce Research Paper

Decent Essays

La voie Joyce

The pity is the public will demand and find a moral in my book — or worse, they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honor of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it.
James Joyce, in an interview to Djuna Barnes, published in Vanity Fair (March 1922)

When I saw the January of my 60th birthday approaching, I had an insight: It was mandatory that I celebrate it in Paris. Why Paris? I’d never been particularly connected to the city; I liked the place, it is true, and haven’t been there since 1992, worse, plus grave, as Alan had well remembered, and my novel Hierosgamos well confirmed: I had never been there with a lover, I was never in love with anyone on the Seine riverbank, if you know what I mean. …show more content…

Even with all that Joyce, it was too much coincidence to bear. If before I had been unable to find a decent token of synchronicity on which to base my book of chronicles about Ulysses, now there were so many I couldn’t even choose the most relevant, was that a warning, a sign? I plunged into Bowker’s biography and could soon realize that, although the imposing, commanding worldwide marketing around Ulysses had created Bloomsday — incidentally, while Joyce was still alive, with his own delighted support — and even transported thousands of joycemaniacs to Bloom’s Dublin in order to repeat on a pilgrimage every step taken by the celebrated fictional character, including his encounter with the one-legged sailor, as you will discover reading the book… Ulysses, and then Finnegan’s Wake, had mostly been written in Paris, more specifically on the Rive Gauche, where Joyce lived most of his life.
Third epiphany: Here is why I had come to Paris! To relive every joy, every difficulty or sad thought Joyce had as he wrote, published and struggled to advertise his Ulysses, one week before the 90th anniversary of the original publication. And so I did.
I followed Bowker’s biography with a city map in hand, marking every idiosyncrasy to use on the following Sunday, my “day of Joyce in Paris,” when I would walk what from now on I will call Via Joyce, the Parisian via crucis of the Irish genius, seven crucial points in the life of the author in the city that took him in, or which he fought …show more content…

Station 3: Café Polidor, a Quartier Latin institution, the traditional restaurant where, for more than 200 years, artists and writers — from Verlaine to René Clair, including... James Joyce — fed their body and spirit — 41, rue Monsieur Le Prince.
Station 4: Hotel Lenox, where Joyce was living with his family when he concluded Ulysses. It was also in this hotel that he wrote much of Finnegan’s Wake, but the current manager has no idea of who James Joyce was, believe it or not. The narrow spiral staircase that Joyce must have walked up so many times, often tottering, half drunk, is still there, untouched — 9, rue de L’Université.
Station 5: Joyce’s apartment near the Eiffel Tower, where the writer used to live when he was barely above the poverty line, at the time when Ulysses was finally released, a quiet place, almost a court; to reach the Italian restaurant where J.J. celebrated with friends and family the costly publication of his book he just needed to cross the street — 7, rue Edmond

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