In the history of world culture, 1922 was a year of wonder. Einstein's "Theory of Relativity", Eliot's "Wasteland", Lu Xun's "A Q Zheng biography", Fraser's "Golden Branch", Malinowski's "The Navigator", Hesse's "Siddhartha" and many other works came out in this year. Of course, there is also a work that has influenced the world, and the irish national treasure writer Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses" was first published in this year.
On August 22, an event with the theme of "How the World's Hardest Novel Changed the World" was held at the Top of Shanghai Duoyun Academy flagship store. The most difficult novel to read refers to Ulysses. At the event site, writer Sun Ganlu, Joyce research expert and translator Dai Congrong, medieval aesthetics expert and Irish research expert Bao Huiyi, writer and book critic Yun Also retreated together to talk about the cultural charm of Joyce and Ireland, and explore how "Ulysses" changed the whole world. Not long ago, Yilin Publishing House launched the centennial edition of Ulysses. It is worth mentioning that in 1994, the first full translation of Ulysses Chinese invited by Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo was also published by Yilin Publishing House.
On August 22, Yilin Publishing House held an event entitled "How the World's Most Difficult Novel Changed the World" at the flagship store of Duoyun Academy at the top of Shanghai.
Ulysses describes the life of an ordinary Dubliner during the day and night of 16 June 1904. Joyce likens his master's day trip to the streets of Dublin to Odysseus's decade of overseas wandering, but Bloom is no longer a hero, but an ordinary man with a lot of problems. The book mixes stream-of-consciousness writing with multilingual, allusive and multidisciplinary knowledge, portrays people's senses, desires, words and deeds to the extreme, constructs a staggered and messy time and space, and shows people the epitome of human society. Because of its bold sexual depictions and offensive to religion, Ulysses was once banned in the United States, Ireland and other places, but after the ban was lifted, it gradually became popular around the world, becoming one of the most influential works of the 20th century.
Ulysses: Publishing the Centennial Edition (Popular Edition), by James Joyce [Ireland], translated by Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo, July 2021 edition of Yilin Publishing House.
Ulysses is a very elaborate work of weaving
"Joyce is a researcher of Irish literature, a writer and poet himself, and a very suitable interpreter." At the event site, Bao Huiyi believes that the reason why "Ulysses" is considered difficult to understand and has great depth is because this novel can also be considered a poetry collection, an epic of small characters, and a drama. If you think of Ulysses as a play, in which there are many voices, different people, speaking in different ways, sometimes one person himself is divided into several people, speaking inwardly, hearing a lot of voices, both the observation of the inner world and the observation of the external world, sometimes gathered together, sometimes separated, sometimes as if it were very worldly, sometimes very poetic. From this point of view, Bao Huiyi feels that "Ulysses" is a very exquisite weaving work.
Bao Huiyi said that just like "Remembrance of The Water Years" and "The Long Journey of the Long Night", every language and every different era has some different people who do not do what ordinary people do. Ulysses is written on 16 June 1904, when a little man traveled 18 hours a day in Dublin. But in fact, it has a lot of connotations. In Bao Huiyi's view, this book can be viewed in the historical context, in Irish literature, and in the context of Europe and even the world. Just like works published in the present, they must be looked at in the context of the epidemic, because this angle must be a fatal impact and decisive.
Yun also retreated that Ulysses was first published in France and was not published in the United States until 1932 through Random House. Joyce was plagued by diseases, poor eyesight, and troubles, and it wasn't until Ulysses was published in the United States that he was able to survive the rest of his life. In Yun Yehui's view, this is a very difficult and legendary history, which means that the parties are deeply involved in the writing of this book, and they rise and fall with its fate.
How did Ireland's special island geography influence the political, religious, artistic and social direction of Ireland as a whole, and how did it affect the creation and life choices of Joyce and other Irish writers? Bao Huiyi said that Ireland is a tear in the North Atlantic, and more than two thousand years ago, Herodotus and Tacitus said that Ireland is a winter country, and human action and civilization have come to an end. Irish writers have considerable resonance and expression for being on an island, this island, this closed feeling. Bao Huiyi believes that Joyce has struggled with this island or self-imposed nature all his life, and eventually became one of many literary figures who abandoned Ireland and never returned, which has something to do with Ireland's repressive and gloomy Catholic atmosphere. At the time of Ulysses' publication, Joyce was not popular in Ireland. Bao Huiyi said that Joyce is a cosmopolitan in his bones and a citizen of the world. Against this backdrop, Joyce's loneliness was predestined.
Here, Bao Huiyi and Sun Ganlu share the same view, Joyce himself is a poet, and before his novel Dubliners was published, he had already published a collection of poems called Chamber Music. And Joyce, in "Ulysses", also reflects himself as an intellectual poet. To say that he is a poet here is not to say that he writes lines of writing, but that he deals with and constructs them in a poetic way. He deals with urban experience, deals with the ills of modern civilization, and deals with the disintegration of all civilizations. This kind of mentality, in Bao Huiyi's view, is a poetic way, it is more like Podell and Beckett.
The unique style of Joyce's novels is encyclopedic
Why did Joyce put in all sorts of knowledge in his work, which was very difficult to read? Speaking about the way Ulysses was written, Dai Congrong believes that the unique style of Joyce's novel is encyclopedic, and this opens up a new pattern in the novel. Yun also put forward his own point of view on this, arguing that Joyce's fragmented and special way of writing suggests that in addition to the "correct" scientific facts of the new scientific framework, there is something else, there is another way of thinking, and there is another perspective to understand the world. Ulysses is not a Wikipedia encyclopedia, but an encyclopedia that has been recreated by incorporating the knowledge of various cultural systems in various languages.
James Joyce, Irish writer, twentieth-century literary magnate, founder of postmodern literature. At an early age, he showed his talent for music, religious philosophy, and language and literature, and began to write literature. His masterpieces Ulysses, Dubliners, Finnegan's Vigil and their stream-of-consciousness ideas had a significant and far-reaching impact on world literature.
Dai Rongrong said that reading Joyce's work is actually reading a culture, not a simple plot reading. His approach changed one of the concepts we read about fiction: What is a novel? Does it tell a good story? Joyce quotes Shakespeare (drama is a mirror) as a mirror to think that fiction is a mirror and literature is a mirror. Fiction wants to bring us into our lives, into our real world, not to escape into a fictional world. And this means that when you read a novel, you can also make your own life and make your own view of the world change. Here, Dai recalls the first time he read the translation of Ulysses, "When I finished reading it, I couldn't forget it. As I lay on my bed in the school dormitory, my feeling was that the whole society, the whole life, unfolded in front of you, unlike any novel you read. I can feel that when you finish reading, when society unfolds, your mind, your vision is opened. ”
Dai Rongrong said that some novels can tell people a truth, a concept of good and evil, but Joyce's works do not tell us what we must do, will not tell us what our life goals are, on the contrary, his works will let us understand all aspects of culture. Inclusiveness is an evaluation of Joyce's work by Dai Rongrong. Joyce's work incorporates a large number of Irish ballads, while also quoting poems by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. In Joyce's works, there are both very noble and profound things, such as tracing Egyptian civilization, Indian civilization, etc., and will also pull back to the present, showing those everyday things, which is Joyce's real understanding of life, "He can completely present you with all kinds of cultures, regardless of country, high or low, even ancient and modern." Dai Rongrong believes that this expression is a recognition of all kinds of things in the world, and this is exactly the culture of Joyce, which can really change a person.
How the average reader should read Ulysses
Is it true that the average reader cannot read Ulysses? In the face of this question, several guests gave their own replies. Sun Ganlu believes that Ulysses is a complex book and a simple book. Ulysses is not a pedant, it is a book written with great joy, an author who is very excited in the middle of the language, a bit like drinking wine, and need not be afraid. In Sun Ganlu's view, the threshold of "Ulysses" is different for different people, and of course we may need to make some preparations to read this book, but we don't have to be completely ready to do this again.
Ulysses (all three volumes), by James Joyce[Ireland], translated by Wen Jieruo and Xiao Qian, Translated by Lin Publishing House, April 1994.
Sun Ganlu said that the literary work provides not only a novel, but also a work of color and fragrance, feeling the climate and humidity of that place, and vaguely feeling a little understanding of Joyce: Joyce is a very complex, very polyhedral, heroic and very secular person, "From his book, it can be seen that he is metaphorically metaphorically for something through the history of a very microscopic day." Sun Ganlu said that Joyce's likes and dislikes are full of all kinds of specific and subtle daily careful thoughts, including the application of folk songs, the sound of the city, conscious activities, associations, etc., if it is performed on the stage, it may be more conducive to understanding, "the so-called synaesthesia, smell, perception, taste, bring it together in a space to carry out." ”
"In fact, Joyce's work can be aimed at ordinary readers or researchers." Dai Calmly believes that Joyce is suitable for everyone. Starting from Joyce's reading experience, Dai Calmly said that although there are many cultural meanings behind each word, in order to let readers get that feeling, it directly appeals to the perspectives of various voices or characters, and directly appeals to literary language and literary imagery. Even if you don't know the History of Ireland behind it, or some of the allusions behind it, because the impression of literature he has created is extremely realistic and extremely emotional, he will still feel it.
Dai Rongrong said that Joyce's language is extremely expressive, completely the expression of a poet, not the expression of a simple novelist. Reading his works, all kinds of shocking and vulgar characters, but when we go in, we can feel the various desires of the characters, the characters can live and die, and as readers, we have no obstacles when feeling, and he can accurately grasp all aspects of the characters' emotions. At the same time, Dai Rongrong also believes that if you do simple reading and ignore the annotations, it is also possible to directly feel the flow of life, city, time and space in the work. Although to carry out in-depth reading, you need to make some preparation, but Dai Calmly said bluntly that "there is no need to make it so mysterious", Joyce is a writer who can deeply contain the ordinary, and his life is also, including life, and can feel its deep meaning from the ordinary.
In order to facilitate the reader's understanding, there are more than 5,000 annotations in the book "Ulysses", but Bao Huiyi said that people do not need to be afraid of these annotations, because reading the annotations can learn more. Even if you bypass the annotations, you can also get treasures, such as Joyce's quotations from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and other works in the text without quotation marks, and the average reader, even if they do not know that it is from Shakespeare, does not affect the reading experience, "It is a very natural encyclopedic reading, and there can be a variety of different ways to enter." Here, of course, Ms. Pao shared a little bit of readiness, and in 1982, National Radio Ireland asked the best radio actors of the time to perform and read Ulysses, "It's okay to enter through hearing, because Joyce is a very sensual writer." ”
Author 丨He An'an
Editor 丨Li Yang
Proofreading 丨 Zhao Lin