A Perfect Vacuum
“Ulysses condensed the Odyssey into a single Dublin day, made Circe’s infernal palace from the dirty laundry of la belle epoque, tied the bloomers of Gerty McDowell into a hangman’s noose for Bloom the traveling salesman, and with an army of four hundred thousand words descended upon Victorianism, which was demolished with all the stylistics that lay at the disposal of the pen, from stream of consciousness to trial deposition. Was this not already the culmination of the novel, and at the same time the monumental laying of it to rest in the family sepulcher of the arts (in Ulysses there is music, too!)? Apparently not; apparently Joyce himself did not think so, inasmuch as he decided to go further, writing a book that is supposed to be not only the focusing of civilization into a single language, but also an omnilinguistic lens, a descent to the foundations of the Tower of Babel. As to the brilliance of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, which attempts the infinite with double-barreled audaci...ty, we neither affirm it here nor deny it.MoreLess
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