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The genius of James Joyce

Authors come with different styles, influenced by their own experiences, environment, visions and most importantly their perception of the world around them. Some authors have conquered the mind of the readers in whatever style they deploy and even sometimes put forth a notion that leads to several scientific discoveries or gone on to revolutionise literature as a whole. I’d like to draw your attention towards James Joyce, an Irish novelist, poet, literary critic and a short story writer best known for Ulysses.

Born in 1882, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce spent the first 20 years of his lifetime in and around Dublin, an important city as his books, though vastly different from each other, share one similarity, Dublin.

1914 was the year of breakthrough for Joyce and he went on to push the limits of language and literature for 23 years till his unfortunate demise in 1941. Joyce wrote Ulysses, named after an ancient Greek story following Ulysses returning home after his siege of Troy.

Though the name of the book followed a hero, Joyce’s Ulysses was about Leopald Bloom, a representative of our fragile yet interesting selves. Joyce, through the book, conveyed the message that even our seemingly boring lives, through a different lens can be interesting and that though we seem like no traditional hero, we’re all minor legitimate heroes in our own ways. (edited)

Joyce also did not follow the traditional way of representing thoughts in books, he opened the door into our mind and showed us how we actually think, words crossing over each other pondering complex ideas and also simple ones, breaking down every interesting thing we see and reminiscing. If there was a door we can open and read the thoughts in people’s minds maybe then we’ll understand what it’s like to be human, think about that for a moment. Many modernists, including James himself have followed that idea, breaking the unrealistic representation of thought in books.

The most peculiar book by Joyce in Finngans wake, wanting to bend language to his own will, James wrote this book in a language he created! Words in the book join together to represent the speed of the mind in action, like “hereweareagain” which is “Here we are again” or the words could also join together to create a new one entirely like, “funferall” meaning “fun funeral” or “fun for all”. Though interesting, the book itself is completely and utterly unreadable.

From creating his own language to revealing the thought flow of one’s mind, James Joyce’s works have revolutionised literature in many ways and will not be forgotten anytime soon.