China's "Yes" to Molly Bloom

BOOK REVIEWS ies of Finnegans Wake are concerned. For one thing, Benstock anticipated current Marxist readings of the Wake. For another, McGee finds Benstock's interpretation of Joyce's use of Giordano Bruno and Giambatista Vico congenial to his own. Joyce borrows from Vico, for instance , not the principle of divine providence, but the phenomenon of incessant social change. Most interesting to me in this closing piece is McGee's argument about Joyce's position with regard to work, or rather Joyce's "refusal of work." McGee contends that after the sheets to Dubliners were destroyed in 1912 Joyce never engaged in conventional work again. Rather he purposefully produced materials with no exchange value according to established conventions of literature. By refusing to work in any conventional sense both Joyce and his products refuse to advance the capitalist project. This long chapter covers much ground concerning the forms of communism and Marxism implicitly advocated in the Wake. In sum, McGee sees the Wake again and again urging the redistribution of wealth and the facilitation of free time both of which potentially eliminate the "exploitative production of surplus value." As I read these compelling essays I always felt "in medias res." Virtually every form of Joyce criticism and numerous Joyce critics are invoked , embraced, or attacked. It is exciting to be pulled so completely into the fray. What's more, McGee helps me understand the terms of the various debates in ways that will facilitate my own teaching. This collection is a most appropriate addition to the Florida James Joyce series. Mary Lowe-Evans The University of West Florida China's "Yes" to Molly Bloom Jin Di. Shamrocks and Chopsticks: James Joyce in China, A Tale of Two Encounters. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, 2001. xxvi + 296 pp. $21.00 WHEN JAMES JOYCE first heard that a French translation of Ulysses was planned sometime in the late 20s, he summoned the translator to his room. Wryly, he warned her "not to alter a single word." Joyce also told his friend, Daniel Hummel, that the book could never be translated , as there was so much of Irish culture—its customs, history, rhythms, tales and speech—that could never be captured. Undaunted by Joyce's advice, Jin Di, a mainland Chinese translator and teacher who taught English literature in China for twenty-five years, has now braved the task of translating Ulysses—into Chinese. According to Jin 363 ELT 45 : 3 2002 Di, it took Joyce's masterpiece exactly 64 years, from its publication in Paris in February 1922, to gain a first foothold in China in the form of a Chinese translation of a selected number of episodes published in Beijing in February 1986. Jin's first full translation of Ulysses was published in 1996; another by the well-known journalist and translator, Xiao Qian and his wife, Wen Jieruo, appeared in the same year. Why Ulysses remained unknown in China after its publication, and why Jin's own work on Joyce was submerged, is explored in his new book, Shamrocks and Chopsticks. It is a collection of essays, some of them revised from Joyce symposia over the years, that have emerged with Jin Di's translation work over the past fifteen years, as well as contributions by Joyce scholars such as Mary Reynolds, Weldon Thornton and Robert Kellogg. The book consists of three parts: the first recounts the saga of Jin's own translation of Ulysses, which he began in 1979 after the Cultural Revolution; the second, his strategies in translating from the English language and culture into Chinese; the third, a critical exploration of why Leopold Bloom, the common man in the street, is "the most complete man" in literature with "an irresistible appeal" in China. In describing the progress of his translation of Ulysses, Jin Di also informs us of the intertwining of literature and politics in China that exerted a de facto ban on Ulysses. Joyce and Jin Di have shared the suppression of their work. Joyce's Dubliners was repeatedly rejected for publication. Ulysses was banned in February 1921 and then progressed to Judge Woolsy's famous verdict in December 1933. Similarly, Jin Di's...