Letters

Sir:

In his review of Kevin Birmingham’s The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (JJQ, 50 [Spring 2013], 843-48), Michael Groden excuses the speculative portions of Birmingham’s narrative because the work is a trade book, not an academic one. Likewise he excuses the fact that “the text … does not acknowledge or even indicate the existence of most of the earlier scholarly work” (843). Groden attributes these scholarly deficiencies to the “inevitable incompatibilities between the two forms [of trade and academic books]” (843). But he cautions scholars not to depend on Birmingham’s text without also consulting his fifty-five pages of endnotes. Despite his reservations, Professor Groden has been too forgiving of the scholarly weaknesses in The Most Dangerous Book.

When reading a literary history, written by a Harvard scholar and presented as if grounded in copious research, the reader, whether a general reader or a scholar, ought to be able to trust the accuracy of the writer. It should not be necessary to wade through endnotes to determine which portions of the text are factual and which are only speculation. And when readers do wish for further information, clear endnotes should guide them directly to the original source of a given passage.

Groden has correctly perceived the problematic nature of Birmingham’s scholarship, but I think he has failed to grasp the magnitude of the problem (which I attempted to elucidate in my review of The Most Dangerous Book in the James Joyce Literary Supplement, [Spring 2015], 2-4). Simply going to Birmingham’s endnotes is not sufficient to determine the accuracy of his text. For that, scholars must search through Birmingham’s primary and secondary sources as well, then determine where Birmingham has failed to make needed distinctions—not only between speculation and fact but also between strong evidence and conclusive proof; between his own discoveries and those he has borrowed from his predecessors; and between truth and pure fabrication.

Kathleen Ferris

Sir:

Two readers have opposing objections to my work in The Most Dangerous Book: one is outraged that I would argue that Joyce had syphilis, and the other is outraged that I come to this conclusion through means other than her own flawed research. It is my pleasure to respond to them as a pair.

Richard Gerber’s letter (JJQ, 50 [Summer 2013], 1137-38) defends “Joyce’s reputation” by mischaracterizing my work in several different ways. Gerber notes that I identify injections Joyce received in 1928 as a medication called galyl (phospharsenamine), though he neglects to mention that this obscure medication was prescribed in France exclusively to treat syphilis. My research also excludes all other available arsenicals, including Dr. J. B. Lyons’s implausible assertion that Joyce was injected with a tonic called Fowler’s solution.¹ Gerber further neglects to mention my exclusion of the most likely alternative diagnoses for Joyce’s recurrent iritis: Behçet’s disease and Reiter’s syndrome, which was Lyons’s second doubtful assertion.² It’s perfectly fine if Gerber doesn’t consider this newsworthy, but then he should be writing to the Guardian instead of the JJQ. And when he distorts my quotations, he should at least cite the correct Guardian article.³

Contrary to what Gerber chooses to believe, I have consulted all of Lyons’s work on the subject. That’s precisely why my argument focuses not on the doctor’s 1982 Joyce Centenary Symposium paper, “Thrust Syphilis Down to Hell,” but on his 2000 article in the Journal of the History of Neurosciences, “James Joyce: Steps towards a Diagnosis,” which expands upon virtually everything in “Thrust.”⁴ In fact, the only argument Lyons chose not to repeat for his medical-science audience was his earlier analysis of Joyce’s autopsy, which Gerber finds so conclusive. In “Thrust,” Lyons claimed that the absence of plasma cells in Joyce’s aortic histology excludes the possibility of syphilis. In 1991, however, Dr. John D. Quin, a member of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, contradicted Lyons’s assertion in the Journal of the History of Medicine, saying bluntly that Joyce’s postmortem “does not exclude the diagnosis...