Opening Letters with Claymores: James Joyce's Dubliners

When I had glanced over quite a bit of James Joyce's Dubliners, I took it upon myself to finally read the back cover of the book. In a quote which I assume is derived from Joyce's own head, he said that he wished to establish a kind of window through which his countrymen could get a good look at themselves. Now, I wholeheartedly agree with this; but it is within his choice of words that he conveyed it so properly. Notice his use of the word countrymen, which must still possess a certain haunting melody to it. It reminds me of the bucolic, of the ancient, and of the past. He could have easily said "chaps," as it was common in those days. Or he could have said "fellows," which is basically the same thing, more or less. He could have simply left it at "men," and no one would be the wiser-barring a small percentile of feminists who might scoff any mention of the male species as the obvious choice of a pronoun in literature.

Now, if Joyce had somehow whipped up an odds-and-ends time traveling machine and collected a variation of phrases we use today, would he have still used an eloquence in describing the nature of his book? I'd like to think so; as imagining a world where Joyce denounced his brothers as merely "guys" would be quite unbearable. Such a term is almost vulgar in every aspect; it is so condescending and useless, and not at all as graceful as the other terms I suggested. Addressing the country folk as "a couple of guys" would be an outright insult (as opposed to a hidden insult that Joyce wanted to get across.)

It's the need to be "fancy," or fanciful, that strikes me as something we should all look at. However, we shouldn't confuse this with purple prose-a needlessly contrite and pompous train of thought that more often derails from plot points than it helps to speed them up gracefully. What I'm saying is that I tend to lean towards a colorful representation of the world than I would opt for a simplistic one. And again, "simplistic" should be confused with tough, terse rumination. A good example of tough prose would be Hemingway, who makes it his own unique style. Paragraphs and bits of dialogue are stricter in their formation, unable to yield to the reader with its wooden body. In a way, I can see the allure in this kind of writing; it gives you the straight in the story and doesn't pull punches. And although I positively hate Hemingway and his faux machismo, and still appreciate what he experimented with. A better example I've come to admire would be Charles Bukowski, who's a more contemporary figurehead and might be better known to most people. He gives a good sense of the "toughness" that comes from straight-laced story pacing.

And then there is a more flowing style to writing: a way of frolicking throughout your vocabulary and gathering as many words as you want. Discarding frivolous writers who take this idea too far-I'm looking at you, Frost-I'll try to give you some good examples of what I mean.

Edgar Allan Poe, certainly one of the greatest American writers and maybe one of the greatest of all time, had a peculiar habit of getting lost in his words. Stringing you on for several sentences, he would attempt to describe dilemmas at hand, hypnotizing the reader into believing that he or she is also falling into the same madness. And then, as quickly as he begins, it ends; and he starts to fall back upon his ideas once more.

His vocabulary and way of describing even the most trivial things is nothing short of astounding, and the ways his narrative changes shape and becomes more and more heroic (and villainous) is interesting, to put it simply. Having almost invented the short story as a form of literature that could stand on its own, Poe wrote his tales with a vivid imagination-and more often than not, with a heroic triumph or defeat in mind. Though the age of his life was far beyond the surreal battles of the medieval times, you got a sense of struggle and even poetic justice from his stories. And poetic justice is indeed a word that is too true in Poe's own writing; though waxy with many details and fruitful with inventive, allegorical rambling, it serves as the benchmark from the equally troubled protagonists he created.

Taking this practice to an untouchable plateau is the aforementioned Irishman and renowned novelist James Joyce. Almost universally regarded as the greatest man to ever set pen to paper, Joyce is untouchable for his regard to the clustering and amalgamation of words. A writer who preferred to speak without quotation marks, Joyce often littered his tales with superfluous descriptions and brazenly honest memories of his homeland (though not all of them were very warm or inviting). What set Joyce apart from other absurdists of the postmodern era was his unwavering purpose without a purpose-that is, that the art of words came first and foremost, and plot came in a distant second. Hence, why many people tend to become frustrated when they migrate from Dubliners and proceed to the eternally challenging Ulysses.

The problem here lies within how to best read Ulysses. Although it is true that Joyce loosely based the book upon the equally heroic Greek epic The Odyssey, it is meant to be taken in very liberal stride with regard to the true heart of the book. James Joyce's real quality of writing is not rooted in the great pains he took to make a somewhat abstract connection to the adventures of Odysseus and Telemachus. At best, that aspect of the book is overshadowed by the complexity of the story's texture. By this description, I mean to say that the construction of language and character is a far more overpowering part of Ulysses than the ambiguous chapter-by-chapter recreation of The Odyssey. By that statement, Ulysses is one of those rare works that shouldn't be judged as difficult due to its interweaving plot. It takes a broad mind to accept what Joyce has written; and what he has written is an incredibly raw core of literary experimentation and meanderings that deserve notice.

It's often said that the story The Odyssey is one of the best epics in Greek literature, if not the greatest. After reading the rather "heroic," or dramatic descriptions in Joyce's writing, it's not hard to understand why this serves as such a fantastic example to my overall point. And that overall point falls within reach of fairly modern tall tales and such. Take the life of Jack Churchill, for starters. A Lieutenant Colonel in World War II, Churchill fought his battles with only a bow, arrows, and a claymore blade-and he was rather successful. Taking out garrisons with only primal weapons while his comrades utilized modern rifles, Churchill is a testament to the drama of heroic action. His story is not well-known, I expect; but his adventures are surely all the more interesting thanks to his peculiar bravery and "old-school" brand of warfare.

But here is the question: Did he act upon mere bravado, or was his unorthodox approach to modern warfare truly a part of his character as a whole? He, like many characters in literature, carries a special sort of torch in his journey. My honest opinion of Fighting Jack is entirely optimistic; he was either extraordinarily courageous or deliciously mad. Maybe he was both-and it didn't matter, because when he played the old Scottish tunes on his bagpipes on the battlefield, he instilled a heroic fortitude in his allies and an ancient dread in his foes. Similarly, we can instill greater emotions in our target audience with the right choice of adjectives and words. Though it might be argued that these are simply synonyms with heightened pomposity, I think that there is a definite and recognizable difference in talking about an era, an eon, and an epoch.

In the statement of an era, we refer to a culture of time; a period not only counted in numerical significance, but in substantial change and enlightenment, as well. An eon simply refers to a mass cluster of years not unlike an epoch-but an epoch is more likely to reference almost basic pre-evolutionary days of Piltdown men and oafish beginnings. An eon seems to tell me that we are still rooted in the late B.C. or even young A.D., but at least we are in the middle of a semi-civilized period such as the early Greek and Roman culture. Yes, they happen to be synonymous with each other; but there are still entirely different implications to them. An epoch, then, is more "romantic" than an eon. For example, dilettante is less apt than an amateur, and perhaps more prone to clumsiness. Amateur seems to implicate one who has started quite recently, whereas a dilettante seem to carry an air of disdain. Therefore, if I wanted to choose between one of these words, I'd actually have to be quite careful in my decision.

It is fine to open your envelopes with a simple pocket knife. But is it not a grander spectacle to slice it free with a shining claymore? In this case, yes. But there are some especially fragile letters you might want to handle with care-hence, the difficulty in some decisions based upon the context of your tales.

I leave the choice to the writer in question. The essence of some literature lies within the romanticized verbiage, and whether the pages are indeed strong enough to heave the great language in face of the themes presented. It is entirely possible to become too "fancy" in certain branches and instances of writing, but I won't go into that. That is best left for the critics to decide, if the writers themselves cannot distinguish their left hands from their right hands.

For now, I'll end this extension with the plea that more people try to discern the bold from the bland. It certainly cannot help anyone if fiction is treated with boorish hands and stiff prose. I am not urging you to abandon your muskets and your Maxim guns for daggers-but at the very minimum, take with you a bow and a quiver of the finest arrows.