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Thread: James Joyce's legacy

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    Registered User EmptySeraph's Avatar
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    James Joyce's legacy

    We all know him. Even if some of us have yet to dedicate themselves specifically to his works, at some point in their literary incursions the name of the Irishman must have stricken them, or some sentence of his. Dubbed the best writer of the 20th century by some, anathematized by others, considered a genius, classified as illegible sometimes, the truth is that James Joyce has enjoyed a tremendous, nearly menstruous notoriety, and, above all, he produced a work that was to shape many following works that ensued after other, very talented too writers read him.

    So, the question is, which authors are close to Joyce's style, for that's what is mainly at stake in any of his books, the style, that supreme interest... The early Beckett? Saul Bellow? Thomas Pynchon? Faulkner? Anthony Burgess?
    Who writes like Joyce? Who massacres the language seeking to make it ''speak''? Who pores endlessly over language, who gives style such attention that it becomes the main aspect of his book? Who is known to write in an arcane, indecipherable idiom? Whose books requires the same level of concentration and sustained effort? Who is an avant-garde master, or a veritable perpetuator, for that matter.

    Some excerpts to compare with Joyce's would be great!!

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    Registered User EmptySeraph's Avatar
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    I think Céline could be put in the same branch, as he too tormented the language in order to make it speak. Also Celan, especially his late poems--where he basically tore German apart. And there's also Heidegger who, even if he wasn't writing literature, came up with a terminology of his own...

    P.S. Virginia Woolf with the stream of consciousness, the late Henry James with the difficult language and strange syntax, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot with the literary allusions, and I think Henry Miller also has some Joyce about his works, some kind of frankness.
    Last edited by EmptySeraph; 03-05-2017 at 07:33 AM.

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    Maybe YesNo's Avatar
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    If you are looking for people who write in an "arcane, indecipherable idiom" or who torment their readers; oops, sorry, torment the language, check out some "experimental" current poetry. Pick out something that sort of makes sense, but when you are finished reading makes no sense at all. This should be easy to find.

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    Registered User EmptySeraph's Avatar
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    I'm rather interested in someone established. Some "modern classic". And I'm not looking for gibberish dressed as profundity. I'm looking for meaning beside the peculiarities of the language.

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    William H. Gass's The Tunnel.

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    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Some South American writers:
    Clarice Lispector (there is a recent translation of her novels into English)

    Oliverio Girondo (Argentina-poems)

    Júlio Cortazar (Argentina-novels and short stories)

    Vicente Huidobro (Creationism-poetry-Chile)
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

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    Maybe YesNo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by EmptySeraph View Post
    I'm rather interested in someone established. Some "modern classic". And I'm not looking for gibberish dressed as profundity. I'm looking for meaning beside the peculiarities of the language.
    That's a good way to describe it: "gibberish dressed as profundity".

    If the examples given so far are not adequate, could you describe more what you are looking for? Perhaps quotes from Joyce or the others that illustrate what you are interested in?

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