[ExI] Joyce

[Damien Broderick]

At 07:50 PM 1/28/2008 -0800, Lee wrote:

> > But since you're offering us your literary criticism, John, it's fair
> > to ask for a list of the works of James Joyce that you read before
> > pillorying them.
>
>I am quite certain
>that if John and I forced ourselves to read Finnegan's Wake or
>Ulysses, we would be in the main merely confirmed in our lack
>of appreciation.

And that's your basis for excoriating the writings of James Joyce, 
eh. (John C. Wright, for all his stated detestation of ULYSSES, would 
be aghast at such a comfortable attitude, I feel sure.)

Anyone going cold into FINNEGANS WAKE would be in about the same 
position as a pre-calculus student trying to plough immediately into 
an advanced book on string theory. ULYSSES, not quite the same, but 
getting there. Only the most blindly solipsistic neophyte would 
grandstand, on that basis, about the worthlessness of deep physics. 
(Cranks do it all the time, of course.)

As Wittgenstein said so long ago, although in German: "If you don't 
know what you're talking about, just shut the hell up."

Damien Broderick