The Freeman’s Journal returns! This feature has been on hiatus since last Christmas but returns now, along with the original author, to challenge, puzzle and sometimes even educate the faithful reader of this blog with passing mentions of all things Ulyssean from across the web. Let me know which, if any, strike a chord and I’ll endeavour to find more such gems over time.
Remember, you can always find the Freeman’s Journal via the category links to your right. The random image above is from an eBay sale – don’t worry – you missed it already!
This first feature is a little short due to a malfunctioning keyboard. Bear with me and if you spot any missing characters – they’re mine, all mine! Read all the good stuff after the break …
From a blog post ‘Things Fall Apart‘ by Quenby Moone comes this rather pleasing paragraph:
I pulled out James Joyce’s Ulysses and set it aside, a book I’ve never read despite its profound effect on my father. It’s the same copy I remember migrating through our house, shelf to shelf, to table, to shelf again, bound in blue cloth, worn gold lettering, no dust jacket. Dad read it so many times that he knows parts of it by heart; it lives in my pile now. Maybe I’ll read it.
That’s just the part that brought it to my attention but the rest of the long post is a perfectly wonderful read on a theme close to my heart. It makes the writing of this feature worth my while.
Over fifty years ago senior executives at Bell Telephone of Pennsylvania thought their managers could do with a little inspiration in the old upstairs education department. The story of how they did (or didn’t) get a return on this investment is detailed in this fascinating article from The Context: Our politics, history and future.
It is not my purpose to get involved in any criticism here – just to search and report back on the things I might find. Sometimes though I can’t help but get engrossed in the reading of things quite beyond me. Long time Joyceans might know all about this single page I found – a small part of a book inside a vast project which only makes me want to find the rest of the small piece archived here – but I think you have to join!
Do modernist masters make great mixtapes? They do here apparently. Being of a certain age I didn’t realise that the links are YouTube codes you can copy and paste yourself to see if the tracks really do stand up to the argument. As usual I’ll admit that my enjoyment of Kate Bush never suffered from being made aware of any link with the work of James Joyce.
Here’s a fun albeit time-wasting link that comes to me via quite a few people who obviously got the answer “You write like James Joyce” with perhaps the funniest response here. I got the answer “You write like David Foster Wallace” which is uh, uncanny, er, I think! Don’t even think about lying abut your own results okay?
Now if there’s one thing I know less about than the life and work of James Joyce it has to be the subject of wine. Parse those two things together and you might have an article on what drink might suit which novel about which I can say less than nothing. Except to say it exist here. Bottoms up!
Lastly, if you’re not in the mood for joyce, then firstly why are you here? And secondly neither is Photographe à Dublin.
More next week in our new regular slot of Sunday – it’s a real portal to your Joycean week!!!
