Wyndham Lewis, Time and Western Man
Ulysses, on the technical side, is an immense exercise in style, an orgy of ‘apeishness,’ decidedly ‘sedulous’. It is an encyclopaedia of English literary technique, as well as a general-knowledge paper. The schoolmaster in Joyce is in great evidence throughout its pages. (Lewis, 1957, p.76)
The method that underlies Ulysses is known as the ‘telling from the inside.’ As that description denotes, it is psychological. Carried out in the particular manner used in Ulysses, it lands the reader inside an Aladdin’s cave of incredible bric-a-brac in which a dense mass of dead stuff is collected, from 1901 toothpaste, a bar or two of Sweet Rosie O’Grady, to pre-nordic architecture. An immense nature-morte is the result. This ensues from the method of confining the reader in a circumscribed psychological space into which several encyclopaedias have been emptied. (Ibid, p. 91)
The method that underlies Ulysses is known as the ‘telling from the inside.’ As that description denotes, it is psychological. Carried out in the particular manner used in Ulysses, it lands the reader inside an Aladdin’s cave of incredible bric-a-brac in which a dense mass of dead stuff is collected, from 1901 toothpaste, a bar or two of Sweet Rosie O’Grady, to pre-nordic architecture. An immense nature-morte is the result. This ensues from the method of confining the reader in a circumscribed psychological space into which several encyclopaedias have been emptied. (Ibid, p. 91)
posted by Stephen Rowntree @ 1:03 AM
6 Comments:
The odd thing is, misreading as it may be, Lewis does make a few valid points. An 'immense nature-morte'? Well, perhaps ... 'a circumscribed psychological space into which several encyclopedias have been emptied'? Certainly ... one may differ with Lewis only in as much as one thinks this a positive or negative thing. For myself, it is part and parcel of Joyce's techne, and perhaps his most vital contribution to literature ... a procedure we see now in a bastardised and attenuated form in such writers as Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.
St Anthony/Malign Fiesta
The odd thing is, misreading as it may be, Lewis does make a few valid points. An 'immense nature-morte'? Well, perhaps ... 'a circumscribed psychological space into which several encyclopedias have been emptied'? Certainly ... one may differ with Lewis only in as much as one thinks this a positive or negative thing. For myself, it is part and parcel of Joyce's techne, and perhaps his most vital contribution to literature ... a procedure we see now in a bastardised and attenuated form in such writers as Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.
St Anthony/Malign Fiesta Foster Wallace.
St Anthony/Malign Fiesta
My Master's thesis, from which this was culled, would be in complete agreement; perhaps a grande-morte, on the level of an orgiastic techne...one misappropriated ad nausea; a petite-morte, or botched circumscision.
Had Freud and Joyce acknowledged one another, the evidence is sketchy, what a free-association verses stream-of-consciousness that would have been, dueling unconsciousnesses.
Miller, Henry wrote this very strange and envious_surprisingly so for Miller __ rambling long essay about Ulysses. it was a surprise to me when I read it... the hostility to Ulysses and to boot he takes on Proust... I thought this might be of interest to you all....
As for Lewis I always thought his reading had to be a misreading as he knew, I suppose, in his bones, that Joyce was destined for sure fame and fortune,wheras Lewis was courted by a different set of muses, i.e. those of disaster, financial ruin, and endless adversity. Yet what wonders he created in spite of it! . Cheers.
Regards Freud and Jung, I think artists always get there first ... Joyce and Proust arrived at certain conclusions about the inner workings of the human mind independently of the analysts ... Joyce was always a little cagey about his readings in psychoanalysis, to be sure.
Lewis must have suffered a certain amount of professional jealousy ... not artistically, as he regarded himself as Joyce's equal, but of Joyce's ability to gather around himself a circle of admirers and patrons.
Miller? it's a brave man ready to take on Jimmy and Marcel.
St Anthony/Malign Fiesta
Post a Comment
<< Home