Now be true to yourself, you high and mighty literary person, and make a decision: which of James Joyce’s writings would you wish to spend time with on a desert island (provided that was your only choice)?
“Finnegan’s Wake“?
“Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen- core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface… “
OR, as I suspect (ah ha ha ha, your literary airs will do no good here), a volume of Joyce’s crude love letters?
“My love for you allows me to pray to the spirit of eternal beauty and tenderness mirrored in your eyes or to fling you down under me on that soft belly of yours and fuck you up behind, like a dog riding a sow, glorying in the very stink and sweat that rises from your arse, gloying in the open shame of your upturned dress and white girlish drawers and in the confusion of your flushed cheeks and tangled hair.”
Note: The excerpted letter above is from a book by R. Zacks, “An Underground Education.” (The original volume of Joyce’s letters is out of print but is available in some libraries.)
