/lit/ - Literature

Just finished rereading it. A beautiful novel, in my opinion, and probably my favorite by Joyce. I nearly cried a few times while reading it this second time around, particularly at the exchange between Stephen and Cranly in the final chapter:

—You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave . And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.—
Cranly, now grave again, slowed his pace and said:
—Alone, quite alone. You have no fear of that.
And you know what that word means ? Not only to be separate from all others but to have not even one friend.
—I will take the risk—said Stephen.
—And not to have any one person—Cranly said—who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.—
His words seemed to have struck some deep chord in his own nature. Had he spoken of himself, of himself as he was or wished to be? Stephen watched his face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there. He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared.
—Of whom are you speaking?—Stephen asked at length.
Cranly did not answer.

Does anyone else have some favorite passages? Thoughts on the novel? Questions left unanswered by Father Arnall's burlesque descriptions of Hell?

ARSE

The average Irishman with the "artistic" temperament is a useless piece of garbage, trapped forever in a maudlin sheol potentiated by alcohol and self-pity. He is a labyrinth of internal contradictions, having no use for rationality, virtue, or restraint in any form. Along with his woman, labile termagent that she is, he is more disposed to debilitating mental illness and personality disarray than any other being on Earth, including the semisentient ones.

When you add in a genius IQ, however, along with a few key life events that can "flip the [creative]" switch, you get some of the most prolific and perplexing geniuses ever to make art. Not only is writing an effortless pastime for this virtuoso, but it is also substantiated by his own psyche. A priceless subject matter exists within his very body: the chaos of Eire rages inside him, making his highs stratospheric and his lows Abbadonic. He is, in a word, erumpent - other lands may have their poets and storytellers, but none can challenge that anarchic creativity which inheres in his doomed Irish soul. He is one of a kind.

>>12993276
>>12993377
>Hymnumber twentynine. O, the singing! Happy little girly-cums to have adolphted such an Adelphus! O, the swinginging hopops so goholden! They’ve come to chant en chor. They say their salat, the madiens’ prayer to the messiager of His Nabis, prostitating their selfs eachwise and combinedly. Fateha, fold the hands. Be it honoured, bow the head. May thine evings e’en be blossful! Even of bliss! As we so hope for ablution. For the sake of the farbung and of the scent and of the holiodrops. Amems.
>A pause. Their orison arises misquewhite as Osman glory, ebbing wasteward, leaves to the soul of light its fading silence (allah — lah lahlah lah!), a turquewashed sky.

Why did he write those fart letters?

ah fookinait grammar

that but scotus instead of camus

I have not read a single book by this author, but I have read his infamous fart letters.

How am I supposed to take him and his work seriously after reading those disgusting, fart fetish fantasies?

Was he real deal, or just gargantuan, century spanning prank?

>>11611212
it was me the whole time

>>11512407
James, please can you stop shilling your shitty meme book on here every single day? I'm not going to buy it!

You say when I go back you will suck me off and you want me to lick your cunt, you little depraved blackguard. I hope you will surprise me some time when I am asleep dressed, steal over to me with a whore’s glow in your slumberous eyes, gently undo button after button in the fly of my trousers and gently take out your lover’s fat mickey, lap it up in your moist mouth and suck away at it till it gets fatter and stiffer and comes off in your mouth. Sometimes too I shall surprise you asleep, lift up your skirts and open your drawers gently, then lie down gently by you and begin to lick lazily round your bush. You will begin to stir uneasily then I will lick the lips of my darling’s cunt. You will begin to groan and grunt and sigh and fart with lust in your sleep. Then I will lick up faster and faster like a ravenous dog until your cunt is a mass of slime and your body wriggling wildly.

Goodnight, my little farting Nora, my dirty little fuckbird! There is one lovely word, darling, you have underlined to make me pull myself off better. Write me more about that and yourself, sweetly, dirtier, dirtier.”

SAY. MY. NAME.

>>10942827
>Ireland's most beloved writer
>lifelong TEFLer