6.15.2006
Stately Plump Bucks from Joyce
Though the recent hullabaloo over the Joyce estate's refusal to allow certain writings of his to be published smacks a bit of academic novelism, it's easy to appreciate Carol Shloss' point of view as a reasearcher. She has completed an entire volume concerning Joyce's inspiration for Finnegan's Wake and now finds herself in the unenviable position of being censored by his successors. Do they really have that right? While they argue that her work is defamatory to Joyce's image because it focuses on the influence of Lucia Joyce, James' mentally ill daughter, Shloss claims that her use of copywrited material is legitimate because it works in "a scholarly transformative manner." Regardless of where you fall on this issue, there's one claim in the article that we can all definitely disagree with: that Finnegan's Wake is "impenetrable." That's clearly baloney -- Joyce is renowned for being an easy read.
