Conversations with James Joyce

.

At that time, during the war years, Joyce was working in Zurich on his Ulysses. People often sat with him of an evening in the Pfauen, drinking light-gold Fendant, that strong Valais wine (candide et effronté, Colette calls it), and chatting about the events of the war, literature, music, and about the work in progress. Many of these talks I jotted down. Several may be put on record here.

Zurich, 1 August, 1917

J. J. thinks:

‘The most beautiful, all-embracing theme is that of the Odyssey. It is greater, more human than that of Hamlet, Don Quixote, Dante, Faust. The rejuvenation of old Faust has an unpleasant effect upon me. Dante tires one quickly; it is as if one were to look at the sun. The most beautiful, most human traits are contained in the Odyssey. I was twelve years old when we dealt with the Trojan War at school; only the Odyssey stuck in my memory. I want to be candid: at twelve I liked the mysticism in Ulysses. When I was writing Dubliners, I first wished to choose the title Ulysses in Dublin, but gave up the idea. In Rome, when I had finished about half of the Portrait, I realised that the Odyssey had to be the sequel, and I began to write Ulysses.

‘Why was I always returning to this theme? Now al mezzo del camin [sic – tr.] I find the subject of Odysseus the most human in world literature. Odysseus didn’t want to go off to Troy; he knew that the official reason for the war, the dissemination of the culture of Hellas, was only a pretext for the Greek merchants, who were seeking new markets. When the recruiting officers arrived, he happened to be ploughing. He pretended to be mad. Thereupon they placed his little two-year-old son in the furrow. In front of the child he halts the plough. Observe the beauty of the motifs: the only man in Hellas who is against the war, and the father. Before Troy the heroes shed their lifeblood in vain. They wish to raise the siege. Odysseus opposes the idea. The stratagem of the wooden horse. After Troy there is no further talk of Achilles, Menelaus, Agamemnon. Only one man is not done with; his heroic career has hardly begun: Odysseus. Then the motif of wandering. Scylla and Charybdis – what a splendid parable! Odysseus is also a great musician; he wishes to and must listen; he has himself tied to the mast. The motif of the artist, who will lay down his life rather than renounce his interest. Then the delicious humour of Polyphemus. “‘Olus’ [sic – tr.] is my name.” On Naxos the fifty-year-old, perhaps bald-headed, with Ariadne, a girl who is hardly seventeen. What a fine motif! And the return, how profoundly human! Don’t forget the trait of generosity at the interview with Ajax in the nether world, and many other beautiful touches. I am almost afraid to treat such a theme; it’s overwhelming.’

Zurich, 15 November, 1917

J. J. explains:

‘There are indeed hardly more than a dozen original themes in world literature. Then there is an enormous number of combinations of these themes. Tristan und Isolde is an example of an original theme. Richard Wagner kept on modifying it, often unconsciously, in Lohengrin, in Tannhäuser; and he thought he was treating something entirely new when he wrote Parsifal.

‘In the last two hundred years we haven’t had a great thinker. My judgement is bold, since Kant is included. All the great thinkers of recent centuries from Kant to Benédetto Croce have only cultivated the garden. The greatest thinker of all times, in my opinion, is Aristotle. Everything, in his work, is defined with wonderful clarity and simplicity. Later, volumes were written to define the same things.’

Zurich, 21 October, 1918

J. J. explains:

‘As an artist I attach no importance to political conformity. Consider: Renaissance Italy gave us the greatest artists. The Talmud says at one point, “We Jews are like the olive: we give our best when we are being crushed, when we are collapsing under the burden of our foliage.” Material victory is the death of spiritual predominance. Today we see in the Greeks of antiquity the most cultured nation. Had the Greek state not perished, what would have become of the Greeks? Colonisers and merchants. As an artist I am against every state. Of course I must recognise it, since indeed in all my dealings I come into contact with its institutions. The state is concentric, man is eccentric. Thence arises an eternal struggle. The monk, the bachelor and the anarchist are in the same category. Naturally I can’t approve of the act of the revolutionary who tosses a bomb in a theatre to destroy the king and his children. On the other hand, have those states behaved any better which drowned the world in a blood-bath?

‘In my works there is a good deal of talk about religion. Many people think I am a spoiled priest. I profess no religion at all. Of the two religions, Protestantism and Catholicism, I prefer the latter. Both are false. The former is cold and colourless. The second-named is constantly associated with art; it is a ‘beautiful lie’ – something at least.’

Zurich, 18 June, 1919

Sauntering up and down the promenades along the lake, J. J. says:

‘I finished the Sirens chapter during the last few days. A big job. I wrote this chapter with the technical resources of music. It is a fugue with all musical notations: piano, forte, rallentando, and so on. A quintet occurs in it, too, as in the Meistersinger, my favourite Wagner opera. The barmaids have the upper parts of women and the lower of fish. From in front you see bosom and head. But if you stand behind the bar, you see filth, the empty bottles on the floor, the ugly shoes of the women, and so on – only disgusting things. Since exploring the resources and artifices of music and employing them in this chapter, I haven’t cared for music any more. I, the great friend of music, can no longer listen to it. I see through all the tricks and can’t enjoy it any more.’

To this notion I object, and, pointing to the magnificent, deep-blue summer sky which overarches the city, observe that only music could render this sky for me. Whereupon J. J. softly speaks Verlaine’s immortal lines:

Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,
    Si bleu, si calme! 
Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,
    Berce sa palme.

I, on the other hand, think of night strolls by the Lake of Zurich and of those classically beautiful stanzas of J. J.’s:

The moon’s greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name – her name –
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

.

.

These reflections by James Joyce (transcribed by Georges Borach) originally appeared in the November 1954 edition of The London Magazine, alongside short fiction by Aldous Huxley and Alberto Moravia and poetry by W. H. Auden and William Plomer.

---

To discover more content exclusive to our print and digital editions, subscribe here to receive a copy of The London Magazine to your door every two months, while also enjoying full access to our extensive digital archive of essays, literary journalism, fiction and poetry.