Joyce Vs Proust

[WICKES]

If someone was trying to decide whether to devote their life to the complete works of Joyce or Proust which would you advise? Who was the greater and the more profound?
I once read an article in which around 40 or 50 of the worlds leading writers, literary critics and academics were asked what the greatest novel/ work of the 20th century was. It seemed to be between Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's Rememberence of things past. Though, if I remember right, Proust was the favourite.

I know it is ridiculous, but it is fun to debate it.

[kasie]

I would advise that person to go out and live. One author is not enough for a life, even if you are anticipating a very short life - you need as much literary experience, not to mention experience of Life, the Universe and Everything, as possible in order to make valid comparisons and worthwhile assessments and to give you perspective. There's a great big world out there, you will never see enough of it, get out there and let it start working on you.

[WICKES]

I would advise that person to go out and live. One author is not enough for a life, even if you are anticipating a very short life - you need as much literary experience, not to mention experience of Life, the Universe and Everything, as possible in order to make valid comparisons and worthwhile assessments and to give you perspective. There's a great big world out there, you will never see enough of it, get out there and let it start working on you.

:rolleyes: Oh ffs it is only meant to be a bit of fun. I'm not suggesting anyone lock themselves away for life with a copy of Ulysses. Who is the greater writer, that's all I'm asking. Both are complex, long and demanding and, since life is so short, I'd like to know who people think is the one to really immerse youself in.

[Jozanny]

:rolleyes: Oh ffs it is only meant to be a bit of fun. I'm not suggesting anyone lock themselves away for life with a copy of Ulysses. Who is the greater writer, that's all I'm asking. Both are complex, long and demanding and, since life is so short, I'd like to know who people think is the one to really immerse youself in.

Neither is the greater Wickes. I think kasie is trying to tell you what I was trying to tell you in your angst about about Chaucer's place in the canon. It takes a lifetime to drink in literature and be confident of one's own sensibility. I had six years of university courses, and then a variety of glass ceilings, and now I'm a useless middle-aged writer with two cats.

Joyce has his methodology: to make the mundane moments in life epic in scope by conflating it with Homer, who pretty much rings in the rise of Western civilization. Proust has his methodology: to focus on the minute details and the ontological processes of his character and others. Swann's Way is funny, and has such breadth and depth. The same can be said for Ulysses.

Readers have preferences for one or the other, dislike the masters of Modernism altogether, or appreciate both. To quote Henry James: "Live! Live all that you can!"

Once you do you won't have to solicit how others rank what.

[stlukesguild]

I do not dispute Joyce's stature as one of the giants of Modernism and I will admit to a true love of certain sections of Ulysses and passages of Finnegan's Wake... but he has never really clicked with me in the manner in which Faulkner, Kafka, Borges... let alone Proust have. My decision would be easy. I'd need to go with the Frenchman.

[JBI]

Heres more fodder for thought, Proust seems translatable, whereas Joyce is regarded as incredibly difficult for even native English speakers, and though I know of an actual time where like 20 people undertook a translation of Ulysses, he really cannot be read outside of English, and with extensive aids to help.

Another point is the fact that In Search of Lost Time is 3500 pages, whereas Joyce totals around 2000 (I'm doing the math in my head), including Dubliners, A Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, Exciles, Pommes Pennyeach, Stephen Hero, and Chamber Music.

As you can see, this is like comparing Don Quixote to the entire Shakespeare Canon. Who is to say Don Quixote isn't better than each individual play, but when all of Shakespeare is hurled together, how do we judge? The same is with Proust, he is far longer than Joyce. If we only take 3 sections of In Search of Lost Time, and compare them to Joyce, Joyce will probably win, but taken as a whole, the book is overwhelming.

Either way, if you study Joyce you must study his influences, and his detractions, in addition to his life, languages learned, and extensive notes (the ones he used for Ulysses, I believe, are now lost) in order to create an understanding.

With Proust you must do something similar, in addition to studying a work far longer than Joyce. It is far easier to remember everything in Joyce than it is to remember everything in Proust. There are far more passages to pull in Proust than in Joyce, and this is just one work. Joyce will most likely be studied book by book, and as a result, 600 pages is far easier to write about than 3500. I know in most starter university programs who do an introduction into world literature, and cover Proust, merely read Swann's Way, and ignore the rest, because they realize it is too daunting to cover in so little time.

As you can see, it is virtually impossible to say which one.

[Jozanny]

I know in most starter university programs who do an introduction into world literature, and cover Proust, merely read Swann's Way, and ignore the rest, because they realize it is too daunting to cover in so little time.

I was about 100 pages in to The Guermantes Way before I stopped visiting the library for a while. I own Swann, but thus far I find the growing pains in GW just as rich.

In his own way Proust is just as amazing as Joyce. I do not think their differences in technique truly tip the balance for one or the other, but like luke, Proust speaks to me, and really isn't as difficult and demanding as his contemporary.

An ex-flame told me they both met at a cafe and the dialogue went something like:

Proust: "I think I have a headache."
Joyce: "Shall I call a cab?"
Proust: "Yes, let's go."

He may have been feeding me a tall tale he gathered from Harvard, but it seems two of the greatest writers of the 20th century were a lot like normal people.:p

[JBI]

It wasn't a cafe, it was a party (I believe) and neither had read the other's work, so they kind of sat there saying yes and no. It would make no difference though, Proust died before Joyce had a complete Ulysses in print, and had increasingly poor health leading up to that. The Joyce Proust would have known, if he read Joyce, would have probably been the Joyce of the Portrait, and Dubliners.

[PeterL]

Between those two, Joyce would be the one to spend a lifetime on, because he didn't write all that much, so one would have time for useful pursuits. There are other authors who produced more and better literature that would provide more opportunity for scholarship, Thomas de Quincey for one.

[mortalterror]

StLuke mentioned Kafka, Faulkner, and Borges. I'd like to add to that list of writers who are better than Joyce and Proust: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Steinbeck, Marquez, and Bellow just in prose.

[tractatus]

If I was to read, better choice Joyce for myself but if i should advice, simply, by far the Proust.




..
Proust: "I think I have a headache."
Joyce: "Shall I call a cab?"
Proust: "Yes, let's go."

He may have been feeding me a tall tale he gathered from Harvard, but it seems two of the greatest writers of the 20th century were a lot like normal people.:p

I have heard a different story, search about it and find this link. (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-night-at-the-majestic-by-richard-davenporthines-525054.html) As far as I know/heard their only meeting.

[loe]

If I had to choose I would definitely take Proust.
I love In Search of Lost Time - it's one of my absolutely favorite works! :)

And I have to confess that reading Ulysses bored me. Maybe I should give it another try, because I was too young to understand, but there are so many unread books waiting for me so that I have no time so far.

Regards

[stlukesguild]

StLuke mentioned Kafka, Faulkner, and Borges. I'd like to add to that list of writers who are better than Joyce and Proust: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Steinbeck, Marquez, and Bellow just in prose.

I happen to love Kafka, Borges, Faulkner, and I might add Calvino... however I would think to suggest that they are greater writers than Joyce or Proust. Nor would I make the same suggestion of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Woolf, etc... By the same token I happen to love the paintings of Pierre Bonnard far more than the work of Picasso... but I would not make the mistake of confusing personal likes with actual merit of a work.

[mortalterror]

I happen to love Kafka, Borges, Faulkner, and I might add Calvino... however I would think to suggest that they are greater writers than Joyce or Proust. Nor would I make the same suggestion of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Woolf, etc... By the same token I happen to love the paintings of Pierre Bonnard far more than the work of Picasso... but I would not make the mistake of confusing personal likes with actual merit of a work.

What is interesting to me, in cases like these is why people would compare Joyce and Proust, two very different animals, when Hemingway and Proust are as alike as flip sides of the same coin. One is a master of compression, the other a master of stretching his material, and the two are arguably the greatest prose stylists of their era. There's far more profit to be found in such comparisons, and that the debate is between Joyce and Proust at all suggests the kinds of biases and errors it's debaters are prone to. Why Hemingway would not be on this short list of prose giants, speaks volumes about it's relative merit as a serious discourse.

[JBI]

I disagree, Hemmingway's prose style is in English, which changes everything. The French language style is nothing like the English one, and the French Proust style is different in translation. They cannot be compared.

[mortalterror]

I disagree, Hemmingway's prose style is in English, which changes everything. The French language style is nothing like the English one, and the French Proust style is different in translation. They cannot be compared.

Come on now JBI, I know I've seen you argue elsewhere that translation isn't a major obstacle to achieving a proper critical understanding of a work; especially not when it's prose translated from one Latin based language to another. Seriously, it's French to English, not Farsi to Mandarin. I think C.K. Scott Moncrieff did an admirable job.


Proust seems translatable,

[JBI]

His style is different in English, but not impossible. Joyce's is impossible. Finnegans Wake cannot be translated. Proust can be, though it is different. He can be read in English. Much of Joyce cannot be read outside of English.

Of course, the translation of Proust will make an inaccurate read, and if you are studying someone for a lifetime, you will probably need to know their native tongue, but I do not know how good an authority a native English speaker actually can be on foreign literature. Is it possible to be the number one without being a native speaker? Can someone like Harold Bloom carry any sway over top academics in Italian, or Spanish? Does he even have much of a right to be writing the introductions to translations of Dante, and "modern critical interpretations" of the work? The question ends up being how much of an authority someone who isn't a native speaker, or a specialist can hold.

If you are focusing on one book, you must try to be the most specialized type of person. I don't know how much Proust criticism there is, but I know of many major writers it is impossible to read everything that has been written about their work in one life time. You cannot really form anything without reading the French.

As I really meant to say, he can be translated of course, but his style cannot be. We, when we read translations, are reading the meanings (if it is a good translation) of a work, and a style of the translator. Proust's style cannot be translated, but his meanings perhaps can. Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and much of Ulysses' meanings really cannot be translated, and his style definitely cannot.

[mortalterror]

Considering the number of times Proust's book gets mentioned around here, it is rather surprising that I've never heard anybody mention Maugham and his book, which came out at the same time. Both are semi-autobiographical novels about rich young men obsessed with women who aren't very good for them. The contrast is self-evident, and raises as many questions about style, technique, and execution as my previous Hemingway example.

The problem is that nobody around here is really interested in critiquing or discussing Proust. They all just want to gush like teenage girls about their man crush.