Review – James Joyce: A Life

James Joyce (Penguin Lives)

By Edna O’Brien
Penguin, 1999

Review by Allen Ruch
28 December 1999

Edna O’Brien’s James Joyce is the latest installment of the “Penguin Lives” series, which matches a contemporary writer with an historical figure in an attempt to illuminate the subject’s personality and influence on the modern world. As such, James Joyce doesn’t aspire to the length or detail of Ellmann or Costello—it’s a slim, attractively-presented book designed as a “popular biography” for the casual reader.

Edna O’Brien certainly has some affinity for her subject. An Irish novelist currently residing in London, where she had eloped to escape her rigid family, O’Brien has long cited Joyce as an influence, and her own fluid prose takes some experimental turns. Like Joyce, she’s suffered the frustrations of writing frankly about Ireland, and seven of her books—many of which take an unflinching look at Irish culture, women’s sexuality, and abortion—have been banned in her native country. In fact, she was even tapped to provide an introduction to the Signet Classic Dubliners, one of Ireland’s most notorious “banned books.”

From the very first sentence we know we’re in for a different kind of biography:

Once upon a time there was a man coming down a road in Dublin and he gave himself the name of Dedalus the sorcerer, constructor of labyrinths and maker of wings for Icarus who flew so close to the sun that he fell, as the apostolic Dubliner James Joyce would fall into a world of words—from the ‘epiphanies’ of youth to the ‘epistomadologies’ of later years.

As might be expected from a novelist like O’Brien, her prose is unusually vivid for a work of nonfiction. O’Brien allows her voice to flow through the pages of Joyce’s work, and like a stream shaped by its channel, the narrative assumes aspects of Joyce’s style as it moves through his career, from the Portrait-like beginning to the wordplay of Finnegans Wake. While this makes James Joyce an enjoyable read, the approach is not without its drawbacks. For the most part, the narrative rolls along nicely, but some of O’Brien’s word choices are more jarring than harmonious, creating strange logjams and eddies in the flow. More critically, we’re never sure if a bizarre coinage or neologism comes from Joyce or from O’Brien herself. In fact, much of the book is comprised of quotes, some of which are unmarked, leading the reader to question whether O’Brien is using poetic license to assume the thoughts of Joyce, or whether she’s merely borrowing phrases from his novels and letters. A few spot-checks suggest the latter is more likely; but since some phrases are placed in quotes, and some are not, an uncomfortable ambiguity remains. Also, a few quotations about Joyce are offered without attribution; for instance, we know that Finnegans Wake was considered “linguistic sodomy,” but not by whom.

Like her protean style, O’Brien’s enthusiasm for her subject is another mixed blessing. It would be difficult to write a book about Joyce without having some degree of sympathy for the prickly writer; but O’Brien’s biography comes close to canonization. While Joyce’s genius is hard to contest, O’Brien’s apologies and special dispensations grow wearisome. She has no qualms about presenting Joyce’s “bad side”—his self-pity, his aloofness, his self-centered view of relationships—but she rarely lets them stand as the negative qualities of a complex human being. Instead, we’re treated to categorical apologia about the nature of genius, particularly when possessed by writers! According to O’Brien, great writers must also be monsters. While Harriet Shaw Weaver—who sacrificed so much for Joyce, and often thanklessly—may be “rife for beatitude,” O’Brien shows little sympathy for the many people Joyce used and mistreated, viewing them as casualties along the road to artistic greatness. This may be true in a sense, but it feels somewhat self-serving when offered without the cover of irony or even wry humor. One is constantly reminded that another novelist is behind the biography, one who’s had family problems herself, now lives alone, and admits in interviews that great writers require solitude and distance. It’s clearly a sympathetic perspective from which to write upon Joyce, but hardly an unbiased one. (O’Brien’s lack of objectivity recalls Joyce’s earliest biographer, Herbert S. Gorman, also a controversial novelist.)

O’Brien’s broad statements are another cause for consternation. Opinions are boldly presented as facts; for instance, we learn that Anna Livia Plurabelle “is the most accessible and indeed beloved character ever conceived by Joyce,” a ludicrous statement that borders on error rather than opinion. (One wonders whether Molly Bloom would just laugh this off, or dump her chamber pot on O’Brien’s head.) James Joyce also contains some genuine mistakes. (The first English edition contained even more errata; most of which have been corrected for this US release.) Henry Carr is said to have played a minor part in The Importance of Being Earnest, when in fact he was Algernon—a role that lead to a dispute which sparked an incident in Ulysses. An early encounter with Yeats’ father is only half-told, making Joyce’s rebuttal seem more arrogant than amusing. There’s also puzzling omissions, and important scenes from Joyce’s life appear as fait accompli later in the book: we never know when Portrait is published, or when James and Nora are finally married. Their children enter and leave the narrative with little continuity. Finally, O’Brien’s lurid descriptions make everything feel a little too novelistic. Joyce was not merely angry, he was “volcanic,” brothels are described as “seedy dungeons,” and Bloom is characterized as a “lecher.” Once again, the reader wonders whether this is fiction or biography—O’Brien is too comfortable bringing her own interpretations to historic events.

Having said this, for all O’Brien’s liberties—or perhaps because of these liberties—James Joyce remains an engaging and exciting book, and her delight in Joycean wordplay has an infectious, good-natured charm. She shows a great sensitivity to Joyce’s emotional life, particularly regarding his family. Nora emerges as a character every bit as fascinating as Joyce, a woman who loathed Ireland and embraced her earthy sexuality. The chapter on their sex life makes an interesting and colorful read; though reprinting words and phrases from Joyce’s notoriously smutty letters will certainly keep James Joyce off most high-school reading lists! One wishes, however, that O’Brien would present their long-distance relationship without commentary. Her explanations for Joyce’s pornographic language are laughable:

Joyce’s chaos is our chaos, his barbaric desires are ours, too, and his genius is that he made such breathless transcendations out of torrid stuff, that from the mire he managed to “bestir the hearts of men and angels.”

Uh-huh. Would we all be granted such an epitaph if our private letters were found!

In the end, James Joyce pleases more than it disappoints, but it’s best to consider it less a biography than a tribute to a thorny but beloved literary grandfather. For those lacking the time or inclination to tackle Ellmann’s magnum opus, O’Brien’s James Joyce offers a sympathetic portrait of the artist, a celebration of how Joyce illuminated the beauty of language and its infinite possibilities for generations to come.

Additional Information

James Joyce: A Life
You can purchase the book at Amazon.com.

Wikipedia: Edna O’Brien
Edna O’Brien’s Wikipedia page.

Author: Allen Ruch
First Posted: 28 December 1999
Last Modified: 4 August 2022
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