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Conversations With James Joyce

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There are not many books dealing with Joyce's literary opinions and few are privy to what Joyce actually thought about modern literature or modern writers. Arthur Power (1891-1984) was just establishing himself in the Paris of 1922 when by chance he met Joyce at at dance hall, the Bal Bullier, after a young French 'blanchisseuse' stood him up. What followed was an intimate friendship where the 40 year old Joyce and the 30 year old Power talked and discussed many topics such as Russian Literature (with surprising comments by Joyce on Pushkin: 'He was born a boy, lived like a boy and died like a boy'), the merits of Thomas Hardy, modern, romantic and sentimental literature and even a topic Joyce eschewed, religion. Power's recreation of his conversations with Joyce are almost Boswell-like in their idiosyncratic moments and literary style, no doubt due to Power scribbling down what Joyce said to him every evening once gettnig home to his artist's garret.

This is a book to go alongside Budgen's own account of his frienship with Joyce and gives you a broader insight into Joyce as perceived by close friends in contrast to the distant, non-commital but polite evasiveness he often displayed when approached by strangers.