Richard Ellmann: "James Joyce"
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
1976 was the year that I began buying books in great numbers. Much of the spare money I had went into the till of a Birmingham bookshop whose name I have forgotten - did it begin with an 'H'? - but whose layout I can still remember.
In my final year at school, I developed the affectation of carrying 'Ulysses' with me in the capacious pockets of my jacket. Amazingly, this didn't get me soundly beaten at every opportunity by the less pretentious members of the school. A beating then may have saved me from years of believing that I had to compete with Joyce whenever I sat down to write.
On a trip to the Birmingham bookshop - adjacent to New Street railway station and so an easy trip from my Solihull home - I found a copy of Ellmann's biography of Joyce. It was an Oxford paperback in the same format as my Penguin copy of 'Ulysses' but with a cover that was basically white. In fact, the cover was the famous Brancusi 'Symbol of Joyce', which, to an impressionable teenager, seemed a radical departure from the over-decorated covers of so many other books. I had to have it. Over 800 pages of crucial Joyce information. In a book that felt great in my hands, looked good, and smelled of learning and of a life that I dreamed of living.
Unfortunately, it was too expensive. The sticker on the back read £2.50. Back then, when book prices changed, they tended simply to put a simple sticker over the previous price. I removed the sticker. The previous price was £1.25. That was more like it. It showed that the book had been on the shelf for a long time but it also meant that I could afford it.
I have never read a biography to match this one. The combination of Ellmann's writing and his research, his obvious admiration for Joyce and the love of his work, added to the events of Joyce's life and the work he produced, was bound to create something special. Originally published in 1959 - my copy even has a puff from William Empson on the back cover - it betrayed no sense of its age in 1976.
I don't remember how long it took me to read the book but it wasn't long. I read nothing else until I had finished it. One of the book's peculiarities is that the chapters are divided by year and there is a running header throughout which indicates Joyce's age at the time of the events being retold. (I have wished for this simple device to be repeated in other biographies I've read since, especially when I turn to the early chapters to remind myself of the year of birth and try to calculate how many years have passed.) I took careful note of Joyce's achievements in the years closest to my own age and, on many occasions in the years since that first reading, I have returned to measure myself against Joyce. Well, I did for some years. I think I stopped doing that around the age of 30, when it was clear that Joyce and I would not be following similar career paths.
In 1982 Oxford published a revised edition of the biography and I finally bought a copy of the paperback in 1984. The format was wrong and there was a picture of Joyce on the front instead of the Brancusi sketch. I read the preface and took note of
where Ellmann said the changes were but I never read the new biography. It felt wrong. Almost as a matter of principle I re-read the original instead.
The spine of the book is creased and broken and is held together by sellotape that is brown with age and crisp and has lost most of its adhesiveness. The page edges are grey with use and the rubbing against the inside of bags and jacket pockets. But something of the original smell remains and it still feels right in the hand. Best of all, it still carries with it something of the hope I felt when I found it in the bookshop. Joyce is long dead; Ellmann, too. But the biography reminds me that I thought serious writing was important and that there were few things in the world more important. A young man's belief and I can't honestly say that I hold that conviction still. But there's a part of me that regrets the loss of that ideal and, will all the usual caveats, I still think there's honour to be found in living a life like Joyce's - and Ellmann's - with a single-minded focus on producing a piece of literature the effects of which resound long after your death.
In my final year at school, I developed the affectation of carrying 'Ulysses' with me in the capacious pockets of my jacket. Amazingly, this didn't get me soundly beaten at every opportunity by the less pretentious members of the school. A beating then may have saved me from years of believing that I had to compete with Joyce whenever I sat down to write.
On a trip to the Birmingham bookshop - adjacent to New Street railway station and so an easy trip from my Solihull home - I found a copy of Ellmann's biography of Joyce. It was an Oxford paperback in the same format as my Penguin copy of 'Ulysses' but with a cover that was basically white. In fact, the cover was the famous Brancusi 'Symbol of Joyce', which, to an impressionable teenager, seemed a radical departure from the over-decorated covers of so many other books. I had to have it. Over 800 pages of crucial Joyce information. In a book that felt great in my hands, looked good, and smelled of learning and of a life that I dreamed of living.
Unfortunately, it was too expensive. The sticker on the back read £2.50. Back then, when book prices changed, they tended simply to put a simple sticker over the previous price. I removed the sticker. The previous price was £1.25. That was more like it. It showed that the book had been on the shelf for a long time but it also meant that I could afford it.
I have never read a biography to match this one. The combination of Ellmann's writing and his research, his obvious admiration for Joyce and the love of his work, added to the events of Joyce's life and the work he produced, was bound to create something special. Originally published in 1959 - my copy even has a puff from William Empson on the back cover - it betrayed no sense of its age in 1976.
I don't remember how long it took me to read the book but it wasn't long. I read nothing else until I had finished it. One of the book's peculiarities is that the chapters are divided by year and there is a running header throughout which indicates Joyce's age at the time of the events being retold. (I have wished for this simple device to be repeated in other biographies I've read since, especially when I turn to the early chapters to remind myself of the year of birth and try to calculate how many years have passed.) I took careful note of Joyce's achievements in the years closest to my own age and, on many occasions in the years since that first reading, I have returned to measure myself against Joyce. Well, I did for some years. I think I stopped doing that around the age of 30, when it was clear that Joyce and I would not be following similar career paths.
In 1982 Oxford published a revised edition of the biography and I finally bought a copy of the paperback in 1984. The format was wrong and there was a picture of Joyce on the front instead of the Brancusi sketch. I read the preface and took note of
where Ellmann said the changes were but I never read the new biography. It felt wrong. Almost as a matter of principle I re-read the original instead.The spine of the book is creased and broken and is held together by sellotape that is brown with age and crisp and has lost most of its adhesiveness. The page edges are grey with use and the rubbing against the inside of bags and jacket pockets. But something of the original smell remains and it still feels right in the hand. Best of all, it still carries with it something of the hope I felt when I found it in the bookshop. Joyce is long dead; Ellmann, too. But the biography reminds me that I thought serious writing was important and that there were few things in the world more important. A young man's belief and I can't honestly say that I hold that conviction still. But there's a part of me that regrets the loss of that ideal and, will all the usual caveats, I still think there's honour to be found in living a life like Joyce's - and Ellmann's - with a single-minded focus on producing a piece of literature the effects of which resound long after your death.
Labels: Birmingham, Brancusi, James Joyce, Richard Ellmann, Solihull
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