Customer Reviews

A Reader's Guide to James Joyce (Irish Studies)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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Though not essential, this certainly is helpful in understanding Joyce, if that is possible. I did find myself referring to it less and less as I read more & more of Joyce. I was going to go back and reread this all the way through, but like many of my intentions..... Definitely worthwhile for a student, useful to the casual reader of Joyce.

Buy this one, and also seek out his "Reader's Guide to 'Finnegans Wake'". Pretty much essential, I'd say. Well written, informative, and strangely fun. Wish I could've met Tindall! "In risu veritas."

The book is a clear and compelling guide to Joyce's main works. Tindall's enthusiasm is contagious.

"...Ulysses offers something of value to someone. What part of this is received depends upon the capacity, experience, and taste of the receiver. Homeric similie: as a radio station of great power broadcasts in vain unless a receiver is there with the power on and all the tubes in order; as the power and quality of the receiver are the success of the broadcast; so with Ulysses and the reader."

"For me the significance of the form Joyce made and I all but apprehend is a humane and charitable understanding of mankind that makes me glad to be alive and part of it. Charity, for me, is the radiance of this great whole, this intricate harmony."

This is an excellent overall work- by- work survey of the prose writings of James Joyce. Joyce especially in 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegan's Wake' begs for the reader to use all resources possible to aid in the understanding of his work. The question is how much time the reader wishes to give. Joyce notoriously demanded that his readers give 'all the years of the nights' to his work. It is doubtful that many people will do that. This Guide can however be a way into understanding a world deliberately constructed as to forever hold the reader's interest by endlessly providing new puzzles and mysteries.