James Joyce

James Joyce might have been one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Although, many of James Joyce’s books that contain his new “stream of consciousness” type of writing are so confusing and hard to read that most people give up before they even finish the book. A site called Literary Kicks even says, “There cant have been more than three or four people who have ever read “Finnegan’s Wake” in its entirety from cover to cover, and its likely only one of them truly understood it. That would have to be its author, James Joyce.” They also said to “consider the ending, exceptional in itself for being one long run-on sentence that goes on for more than forty pages.” He wrote his books with the intent to belittle people and show them that he is so much smarter than they are. James Joyce was quoted as saying, “I’ve put so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” Joyce takes pride in the fact that he writes about things that no one but him can even begin to comprehend. I would never want to read any of his books just because they are so intimidating. Even the fact that I would have to dissect and think about every single word that he is saying, who it is being said to, and what he means by that is already way too much work than I am willing to put into reading a book. James Joyce just comes off as being arrogant and conceited and the thought of glorifying his work by reading one of his books is just ridiculous. In my opinion, a man to classifies his work as, “the demand that he makes of his reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading his works,” just comes off as being self centered and egotistical. James Joyce’s controversial books have been banned from school and cities and have been burned because the content of his books, and because during his characters “stream of consciousness” there are many sexual references and the mind of the character is very dirty, obviously since the main character is a man. While James Joyce and his wife, Nora Barnacle, were sending letters to each other that were said as being “quite pornographic.” I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, that James Joyce’s crude and boorish attitude got carried out into his writings. James Joyce may have been a revolutionary writer during his time but the way he acted towards his readers and towards his friends was just plain out of line. Since he was successful and made such an important contribution to writing he should be more humble and not as proud. James Joyce was a good writer but he should have been more respectful to his peers and to the people that went out and bought his books.