BACK PAGES:As minister for external affairs in 1949, Seán MacBride was invited to open a James Joyce exhibition organised by Maria Jolas in Paris. He declined in a stock reply and the Irish ambassador to France did not reply at all to an invitation to attend the exhibition. The display of official attitudes towards Joyce sparked off a correspondence in which this was one of the anonymous letters:
SIR, – MAY I, through your column, shake the hand of “T.C.T”? Stout work, old fellow, whoever you are. But God help you, you’ll be massacred. In your place I’d feel like the brave little mouse who set forth to bell the cat. Here’s hoping you will not lack supporters in your “Debunking Joyce” campaign . . .
On November 22nd a long letter from Maria Jolas repeats the sniffs ad nauseam. The second-last paragraph of this letter read as follows:
“The hundreds of visitors who are streaming daily through ‘La Hune’ Gallery in Paris are probably unaware that in the hearts of certain of his countrymen the great James Joyce, who, perhaps, more than any other Irish writer of this century has made Dublin and Ireland itself warm, living realities for countless foreign readers, is still an exile, still banned. The simple question that, as a personal friend of Joyce, I should like to ask is: Why, and for how long? . . .”
Well, Maria Jolas, that's not such a simple question to answer – at least in language that a respectable paper like our Irish Timeswould print.
Why? I suppose because here in Ireland we feel that there are certain human functions that should be performed in private. And for how long? Again, I suppose, just as long as we keep locks on the doors of our w.c.s – but, there, it’s not as easy as all that. It boils down to the fact that ignorant, uncouth Ireland did not want Joyce alive – nor does she want him dead. If, as Maria Jolas says, every other country in the world prostrates itself at the feet of our great and illustrious son, they are entitled to maintain that position, if they find it comfortable – but why whine because we don’t want to join them?
I have read every word of Joyce’s – including his play, “Exiles”, that I never hear his fans raving about. Is it because this is straight stuff – without the smokescreen? Or should I say straight muck – without the camouflage. Having read all (I do not boast with the fans that I understand all), I find myself in perfect agreement with “T.C.T.” that Joyce was either a “filthy-minded poseur” – or, a more charitable guess – a madman.
I protest strongly against the assertion that “Ulysses” presented Dublin and Ireland itself “as a warm, living reality”. If Poldy was a typical Irish husband, and Poldy’s wife a typical Irish wife, and the youngster so artistically seduced on the beach a typical Irish schoolgirl – well, then, I have lived here nearly half a century without meeting a single typical example in any one of the three categories. Of course, it is possible that the American, French and German literati and Maria Jolas are better equipped to judge what is the warm, living, real Ireland.
I cannot close without mentioning “Finnegan’s [stet] Wake”, though I would like to . . . I have read it – first to myself – and then aloud, as per instructions from the highbrows . . . Having little Latin and less Greek, I admit, frankly, I did not understand a word of it. But I have heard most of the highbrow arguments. I know the favoured few, the erudite, “those who know better” have swooned in ecstasy when “Eureka” through the smoke they detect a classical allusion, which perhaps nobody has discovered before . . . For the rest of us – the great illiterate mob – how can we expect to understand and appreciate this delicate work of art? Better leave it alone.
JOYCE terous, boisterous, roisterous, but not cloisterous Miggle wiggle ee lee . . .
Alright Joyce fans, I know. Not quite up to Jamesie’s standard . . . he’d take a few chapters to say it . . . but I find it much simpler just to say JOYCE WAS A LUNATIC . . . But, then, I am an ignoramus. – Yours, etc., “D.R.” Dublin.
This letter can be found at http://url.ie/2xl5 and the entire correspondence read at irishtimes.com/archive