The life of Irish novelist James Joyce has a lot in common with other writers of the early 20th Century (he too wanted to be a poet – before he focused on prose) and a lot of conflict. His childhood proved to be a fruitful resource for his writing as it was both idyllic (successful at first thanks to his father’s association with Charles Stewart Parnell, the staunch Member of Parliament who fought for Home Rule for Ireland) and tragic (after Parnell’s political downfall, Joyce’s family sunk into poverty). The duality of these formative years weighs heavily on most of Joyce’s works.
His academic success and acumen in Literature and Foreign Languages pushed him through University College Dublin, even exposing him to future artists, writers, and stage actors. The entire experience of collective happiness as a young lad and swerving to avoid penury as a young adult may have placed Joyce in conflict with himself. He had already proven his foresight in lauding the controversial plays of Norwegian Henrik Ibsen and criticizing the Irish National Theatre for only performing “nationalist” works. Joyce even mentioned a work banned by the Roman Catholic Church in his college paper – only to see it censored. All of this before graduating at the turn of the century.
So like his idol Ibsen, Joyce found himself “exiled” to Paris in 1902. Joyce went to Paris to study medicine, only to wind up reading late every night in the Bibliotheque Saint-Genevieve. Joyce was saying that he was attending medical school, mostly to fulfill the dreams of his father. Even though Joyce had won the support of the literary community (namely W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory as a sort of benefactor), some of his schooling had sunk his father further into debt. However, when his father, sensing the future financial independence of his children, cashed in his pension to purchase a house and drink the rest away – Joyce was forced to take odd jobs.
Roaming the streets of Paris by day, Joyce was deep in thought about his home and how he could prove his comfort and success to everyone there. Even reviewing the travels of other contemporary Modernist Irish writers, most only went to London to seek fame and fortune – not flee to Europe. By night, Joyce was enamored with the literature of Paris in its Bohemian days namely Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. Lady Gregory had secured him a job reviewing books for Dublin’s “Daily Express.” An opportunity for Joyce that became more jeremiads against the perils of traditional Irish Literature before the paper shows up briefly in both “The Dead” and “Ulysses.”
It is only fitting that Joyce’s letters home are focusing on his future – perhaps that was all he could think about while whiling away the hours in a cold, damp apartment. In addition to this, the powers that be were making medical school anywhere into a dimmer light at the end of the tunnel. Even Lady Gregory could not pull enough strings to set it in motion. So, Joyce has all of his hopes in the air. He tells his mother that his first work is now 10 years away.
This new alien world is beginning to make him long for home. While wallowing in doubt and misery, Joyce has no choice but to write home to reassure his wounded family about his time in Paris. At first, these detailed works are all about how little money he is spending and not just resisting large purchases – but using them as motivation to work harder. By the time he is supposed to be settling into his biology, chemistry, and physics classes – Joyce reports home that the winter is mild and he has secured work teaching English. After the poem he submitted for publication is turned down, Joyce writes “I now understand why there is no poetry in French Literature, for to create poetry out of French life is impossible.”
By the end of 1902, Joyce was back in Dublin for a brief holiday visit. Christmas was no celebration as Joyce had lost a friend and been betrayed. In addition to this time to recharge being denied, Joyce was now lonelier than ever and confided in Yeats that he was no longer attending medical classes. Even his time in Dublin’s libraries was marred by a feeling of not belonging.
Back in Paris, he dove further into Literature trading the typical study of Shakespeare for Ben Jonson and beginning his formulation of what separates and unites comedy and tragedy. In addition, Joyce also began his highly influential close reading of Aristotle – a factor that would weigh most heavily on his critiques and shape his writing. He interviewed for a position as a foreign correspondent for the Irish Times which did not end well (after behavior that Yeats would describe as “callow,” the editor said “Oh well Mr. Joyce, if that is your attitude, then I cannot help you. I only have to lift my window and stick my head out to get a hundred critics to review it.” Articles he wrote for other smaller journals, never appeared in print.
By February, Joyce was writing home about hunger as his main concern, still with an unpredictable nobility and the promise of paying loans back and future publication being within reach. His mother writes back in March full of vim and vigor about how he must press on knowing good things will happen and the warning “You cannot get along in your line without friends.” Entering another month in natty, threadbare clothes, Joyce began to attract fellow writers – although, he simply did not like their works. Given the choice between finally making connections (and even a little bit of money), Joyce chose to stay true to his opinions and beliefs. After the series of new acquaintances began to run thin, he wrote his mother on April 10, 1903. “Please write me at once and tell me what is wrong.”
After celebrating Good Friday at mass and with a healthy walk around Paris, Joyce arrived home to find a concise telegram from his father.
“MOTHER DYING. PLEASE COME HOME.”
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New This Week
KING TUFF – Smalltown Stardust [LP/CD/CS](SubPop/AMPED)
Since Kyle Thomas had his awakening on 2018’s “The Other,” King Tuff has continued to distance itself from the earlier years of buzzy, Psychedelic Rock. On his first album in five years, “Smalltown Stardust” is natural Power Pop. More fuzzy feeling (“Tell Me”) than sounding, “Portrait of God” is at times overtly religious and still questioning it. With the help of Seventies-sounding keyboards and warm, mellow drums, “Smalltown Stardust” continues the exploratory glow of “The Other” toward another album of tangible inspiration.
THE ARCS – Electrophonic Chronic [LP/CD](Easy Eye/Concord)
This Dan Auerbach side project has been incubating for a while. Planned since 2015, “Chronic” is both a continuation of the band post-Richard Swift and a fond remembrance of his warm, lo-fi Funk/Pop (2009’s “Lady Luck” stays in Heavy Rotation). “Sunshine” feels as bright as a new day until the children’s choir comes in to light it up with “la-la-la’s” – and then you sadly remember Swift is no longer with us. Working with Dap-Kings Homer Steinweiss, Leon Michels, and more, “Electrophonic Chronic” is understated Soul. The effects hit just right on the middle of “Eyez,” while “Heaven Is a Place” benefits from crisp harmonies and a sailing guitar solo from Auerbach. Nonetheless, Swift’s farewell is The Arcs keeping his musical ideas out there for all to hear.
SAMIA – Honey [LP/CD](Grand Jury/Fat Possum/The Orchard)
There is an ongoing issue with the female singers of today. As much as they can manipulate their own image, bend it and shape it, it is the events of their life that make them not just understood but a voice for young females who have not yet found the way to speak their hurts, hopes, and dreams. Nashville’s Samia could easily fall into the hands of a Pop producer (Jack Antonoff helping Clairo for example). However, Samia is not interested in the easy way. “Honey” is a collection of dark songs that mask her pain in wisps (“Pink Balloon”) and mechanical beats (“Sea Lions”). When she finally hits on a “Pop” song per se on “Mad at Me,” Samia spins it in wild directions with the help of Rostam. “Mad at Me” is simply not content to be a hit single, it is her manifesto and we are all better for it.
REISSUES THIS WEEK
THE CURE – Wish [LP](Elektra/Rhino)
While we eagerly await the first Cure album since 2008 (“Songs of A Lost World” coming this year!) their biggest hit album is being reissued after a careful remaster from Robert Smith himself. As their pinnacle in 1992, their ninth album represents how skillful the band had become at managing the two poles of their music: buoyant Pop (“Friday I’m In Love”) and deep, brooding emotional exploration (“A Letter To Elise” and the underrated “From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea”). If “Disintegration” was all of their earlier work coalescing into one statement, “Wish” remains the band making space for how much depth could be achieved by spreading out all their different ideas over a third sprawling double album.
NEW ORDER – Low-Life Definitive Edition [LP/2CD/2DVD BOX](Rhino)
In the history of bands appearing on the BBC’s Top of the Pops, New Order are among the only ones whose appearance actually pushed their single down the chart. The question is too often why is New Order so reductively loved and underappreciated? As they move from their post-Joy Division beginnings (listen to how eloquently they continue it and weather the loss of Ian Curtis on 1981’s “Movement” and the single “Ceremony) into a danceable ElectroPop (1983’s classic “Power, Corruption and Lies”), New Order is a band whose confidence is growing. The moodiness of the early days has turned to beauty (“Your Silent Face”) and the sadness to a distant wanting in Bernard Sumner’s voice. So by 1985, New Order should have been on top of the world (much less Top of the Pops).
However, they were not nearly as Synth-heavy as the rest of the Brits invading the American Top 40. New Order’s music still bore the fragility of old. Some say they (and the others of their ilk) were “mopey.” 1985’s “Low-Life” was their message to the world that SynthPop could be tough and carry layers of sound from just the four members. “Love Vigilantes” is the dawning of the New Order blueprint cut. The poignancy of Sumner’s voice and the wistfulness of the melodica were a perfect human counterpart to the bathed-in-synths hits of 1985. “The Perfect Kiss” was even denser than their breakout single “Blue Monday.” As the band makes an album this time out, this new thorough edition. The alternate editions are crisper and benefit from tighter modern-sounding mixes. While the full-length version of “Elegia” (made famous from season one of “Stranger Things”), is the height of their dramatic composition. Finally, there are not one but TWO live DVDs with enough material to constitute seeing them still pounding these tracks out on stage today.
BOB DYLAN – Fragments: Time Out of Mind (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series, Vol.17 [2CD/4LP](Legacy)
On his 30th studio album, Bob Dylan finally begins writing about his place in this world and how it was (at the time) in fear of drawing the curtains. Inspired by the oldest, most primordial Blues of Charley Patton and others, “Time Out of Mind” starts raw and almost ragged. Dylan, in recovery from a fungal infection that caused inflammation around his heart, is almost tougher than he ever was. “Time Out of Mind” is Dylan in touch with himself and uncompromising. These “Fragments” and remixes demonstrate that our Poet Laureate was not merely afraid of confronting the end of his life, but losing all the lights of the world around him. “Love Sick” is a grizzled song of desperation. One who knows he shouldn’t – but he must. That force of will extends to everything he is confessing here. “Cold Irons Bound” is not a mere howl into the night falling before his eyes, it is his passion for all of those elements guiding him like a single candle until the light of tomorrow appears on the horizon. “Not Dark Yet” and “Standing In The Doorway” used to play as elegies. Now 25 years later with the man still touring, they are songs of defiance because he staved them off for another year.
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