The Red Bank. James Joyce: His Greek Notebooks dir. by Vouvoula Skoura (review)

James Joyce's engagement with the Greek language and culture has been the focus of a number of scholars, including Mantō Aravantinou, who was one of the first to examine Joyce's Greek notes from the time he was learning that language in Zurich.¹ Her work offered the springboard for Vouvoula Skoura and the linguist Vangelis Intzidis to create an experimental documentary on Joyce and his engagement with Greek culture. Intzidis wrote the script, which he called a "hybrid" since it contains lines from Ulysses, A Portrait, The Odyssey, Joyce's Greek notebooks, and his correspondence.² The film is an original work of art with myriads of visual and textual references to Joyce's writings, the geopolitical crises of his times, and the international financial crisis of the period in which the film was produced.

Such interconnections are highlighted in the film's title, The Red Bank. Intzidis and Skoura "created a pun, hopefully a Joycean pun," where the meaning of bank as river bank converges with the meaning of bank as a money depository (Doc). On the one hand, the phrase is found in Ulysses and refers to the luxurious restaurant the Red Bank, which is famous for its Red Bank oysters.³ On the other, the film's title relates to a hand-written letter dated October 1916 and found in Joyce's Zurich notebooks (see Figure 1). That letter, which Joyce used as learning material during his Greek lessons in Zurich, outlines a person's adventures within the Greek and Swiss banking systems. The addressee of the letter is the director of the National Bank of Greece, and its author complains that, before he left Athens in July 1916, he deposited 10,000 drachmas so that he could withdraw that amount of money from a Swiss bank upon arrival in Zurich. He paid a 1/4 percent commission and received a receipt, so that he could show this at the Credit Suisse bank and receive his money. When he went to Credit Suisse, however, he was informed that they had received no instructions from the National Bank of Greece. Later in August, he contacted the director of the National Bank of Greece but received no response. During that period, this person had to borrow money at a high interest rate, so he is writing to the director again and asking for his money. He also warns the director that he will charge the bank for the expenses incurred, including interest rates and postal and telegram costs. He ends the letter by writing that he awaits the director's actions. Instead of his signature, we find the names of Homeric heroes, Ajax and Menelaus, juxtaposed with the name of the tragedian Aeschylus, the verb πείθω, meaning to persuade—useful for someone who tries to persuade the director of a bank to transfer money to a certain account—and the word "Trojans."⁴

Aravantinou reproduces the letter in her book Ta Hellēnika Tou Tzaiēms Tzous and notes that the handwriting in the letter to the National Bank of Greece does not belong to Joyce but to Pavlos Phokas, a Greek friend of Joyce who taught him Greek in Zurich (292-93).⁵ She claims, however, that the signature names are written by Joyce (293). According to Aravantinou, "a commercial letter was signed by Homer's epic heroes, the leaders of the Achaeans, as well as all the Trojans, who by now have become merchants, bankers, estate agents, similar to all those he had met during his perambulations and with whom he had become acquainted in Trieste and in Zurich" (293). Joyce utilizes a letter to the National Bank of Greece in which the power of the contemporary banking system is connected with the mercantile ventures of the ancient Greeks, whose names he uses to sign the letter of complaint. Joyce believed that the Greeks launched a war against Troy because they wanted to...