Essays on Joyce

BOOK REVIEWS exchanges been that the Association has now designed a new series of short books bringing together the best of the discussions, and under the general title of "The Occasional Series" the first two titles have been published. Hardy's Emma Poems is the second of these and it provides what the President of the Association calls "a small sample of the intellectual energy that characterises the TTHA website." The subject is a good one. The poems written after the death of Hardy's wife, Emma, in 1912 are recognised as among his greatest, and it was to be expected that they would lead to a really worthwhile discussion—and they did. After a questioning and shrewd introduction by William Morgan the screen is open for a wide-ranging and always interesting exchange of views from a wide variety of contributors. Among the subjects discussed are Hardy's sincerity, his textual revisions, his vocabulary, his mastery of rhythm and metre, and the nature of his relationship with Emma during the thirty-eight years of their marriage. In one sense this internet meeting of minds is important in that it enables anyone to express opinions and exchange views with a worldwide audience without even leaving home. I have long thought that the questions asked after a formal lecture were either asked in order to exhibit the knowledge of the questioner or so profound that the exhausted lecturer has no possibility of providing a reasonable answer. Even the shy and timid can have their say on the internet and benefit from the response which their contribution attracts. This can be seen in Emma Poems where the "professional" and the "amateur" exchange opinions and argue as to the relevance and correctness of such statements as "Women struggle to become free from men all the time," or the rigidity or otherwise of the first three stanzas of "The Voice." I welcome the publication of this book as an important move forward in the teaching and understanding of literature. James Gibson ________________ Dorchester, England Essays on Joyce Patrick McGee. Joyce Beyond Marx: History and Desire in "Ulysses"and "Finnegans Wake." Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xii + 307 pp. $55.00 THIS ESSAY COLLECTION includes pieces nearly all of which have been or will be published elsewhere in different versions as well as 359 ELT 45 : 3 2002 a final essay intended to capstone a decade's worth of critical engagement with Joyce and his interpreters. Those familiar with McGee's work will not be surprised to find, among other preoccupations, McGee's commitment to developing readers who will radically historicize Joyce's works and recognize the imperative in those works to liberate desire. Also familiar is the spirit of critical debate that animates McGee's essays . He "takes on" a wide range of scholars and critics including, among others, Joseph Valente, Julia Kristeva, Emer Nolan, Enda Duffy, Mark Osteen, Margot Norris, Dominic Manganiello, Vicki Mahaffey, John Kidd, Christine Froula, Karl Marx of course, and finally Bernard Benstock . In some cases (for example with Joseph Valente) McGee is antagonistic to his fellow critic; in others he unequivocally concurs with his colleague (Benstock is a case in point). What's more important than McGee's willingness to engage wholeheartedly in critical debate, however , is the fact that he carefully and clearly explains why he positions himself inside, outside, or on the borders of another critic's ground. McGee claims to have taken special pains to make himself clear in these essays, pains that he has come to feel necessary if he is to reach an important segment of his audience—students. Having required my own students to read McGee's contribution to "Ulysses": A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism edited by Margot Norris (1998), I can attest both to the need for clarification in the original essay and his success at having accomplished it in the version included here. Additionally, to McGee's credit, long before it became trendy to rehabilitate the humanities, he believed and insisted that the work we do (and that Joyce did) is politically significant. Taken together the essays here elaborate that significance more effectively than any single essay does. In...