A Brief Overview of James Joyce

James Joyce is the greatest author of fiction ever to have lived. By far. His books have transformed the world because he used his genius well. He wrote books that cultural elites would read to prove themselves elite, and he wrote them in ways that would transform their brains. He also picked incredibly important subjects to talk about in the process, and incredibly good ways to transform people's brains.

A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is a book about how the educational system is designed to prepare young people, just young men in Joyce's story since he went to an all boy's boarding school, for a lifetime spent in an oppressive world. It's about how the world trains young men to be ashamed about everything, so that they will never dare to defy authority. It begins to explore the mental fragmentation that comes from being oppressed and living in double binds, but it is a gentle introduction to Joyce's description of this experience.

Ulysses is about the oppression of women, and how that relates to sexuality and how it relates to the structure of society at large. It talks about how young men are able to escape from the cycles of oppression by just going rogue but how that freedom is denied to women. The most remarkable thing about this book is how well the last paragraph predicts the next 100 years of feminism. It starts with the raw anger of first wave feminism, that hadn't come into its own yet when Joyce wrote it, then it transitions into the sexual liberation of second wave feminism, and then it ends with the rejection of patriarchy and the idea that when life is working well men respect and adore the women they are close to instead of oppressing them. This is still in the near future of feminism. Ulysses was written in 1936, and it predicts the next 100 years that would come after it. This book continues to explore the way that oppression causes the fragmentation of the human mind.

Finnegans Wake is a book about colonization, particularly British colonization, especially the British colonization of Ireland. Joyce mentions with anger the colonization of other places, and the genocides of the Americas, but he doesn't focus on them. Finnegans Wake has not only fully accepted the idea that oppression causes the fragmentation of the human mind with decent into maladies like schizophrenia, it also embraces the fact that this gives people a way to talk about these things and share them with each other that they can discover, in among other ways, through their dreams. It is built around the idea that cryptic expression of ideas permits people to discuss things unspeakable. Finnegans Wake is a schizophrenic dream about Ireland. Its main character is the river Anna Liffey; she is a young girl who is raped by middle-aged Englishmen, and then the story of her deflowering is taught with exuberance as a voyeuristic delight to bawdy schoolboys. Colonization is a story of murdering men, raping girls, and defiling the land, and getting the colonized victims to begin abusing each other to cope with the abuse they themselves have suffered. Finnegans Wake is a popular drinking song of drunk Irishmen. Finnegans Wake is the funeral of an Irishman. Finnegans Wake is the lingering evidence of a boat defiling a river. Finnegans Wake is a book that only the most brilliant and literate elites who shape the culture of the English speaking world would ever read or understand. Finnegans Wake is a book that would not be understood when it was read, but that would come back to people and haunt their dreams until they began to understand it. Finnegans Wake is the book that brought down the British Empire. (It was distributed in installments long before the final book was finished and published.)

Apart from his impact on society and culture, James Joyce has radically improved art. After reading Portrait of an Artist, I decided to read the rest of Joyce because I wanted him to have an impact on my art. I wanted him to influence the way I wrote fiction, poetry, and lyrics. This was my original explanation of why Joyce was the greatest author of all time. He is inaccessible, but he is an author's author. You don't read Joyce for pleasure; you read him because you want to learn how to become a better writer, and you realize that writing a little bit more similarly to him and thinking a little bit more similarly to him will make you better at that. I'm convinced this is true. Finnegans Wake has had an enormous impact on the way I write poetry and lyrics, and Ulysses inspired one of my best songs.