Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Don't Take It Out On James Joyce, Dude


Hey, I saw a guy on TV tonight who was sad because he went to Princeton and it was just awful. And I was like, "Okay." But then he had to go and pick on James Joyce! He called James Joyce "unintelligible" and told the TV host that no one at Princeton understood James Joyce, not even the professors who taught him about James Joyce, and I found that kind of hard to believe, because I bet some of those professors studied James Joyce pretty hard and got some enjoyment out of the process and attempted to share it with their students but I don't know because I wasn't at Princeton. Back then I was a young person in Alabama just digging on some James Joyce in a non-academic way because I didn't know any better and it was fun. So that's my advice to you young kids who are influenced by what you hear on television: give old James Joyce a chance! Start off with "The Dead," that's a good one. And it's "intelligible," like most of everything else I read by James Joyce. Nobody's saying to crack open FINNEGANS WAKE, but can you blame a guy (James Joyce; some professor) for trying? I'm pretty sure James Joyce doesn't need me to take up for him, but whatever, this is a "blog." (Hey, look at this picture of James Joyce! He looks bummed out about what that guy said about him on television.)