EM Forster on Ulysses as fan-fiction · 7:39pm Apr 25th, 2014
I came across this in Forster's chapter of Aspects of the Novel on Fantasy. (I also found the entire book online here.)
Among the devices in my list I mentioned "parody" or "adaptation" and would now examine this further. The fantasist here adopts for his mythology some earlier work and uses it as a framework or quarry for his own purposes. There is an aborted example of this in Joseph Andrews. Fielding set out to use Pamela as a comic mythology. He thought it would be fun to invent a brother to Pamela, a pure-minded footman, who should repulse Lady Booby's attentions just as Pamela had repulsed Mr. B.'s, and he made Lady Booby Mr. B.'s aunt. Thus he would be able to laugh at Richardson, and incidentally express his own views of life. Fielding's view of life however was of the sort that only rests content with the creation of solid round characters, and with the growth of Parson Adams and Mrs. Slipslop the fantasy ceases, and we get an independent work. Joseph Andrews (which is also important historically) is interesting to us as an example of a false start. Its author begins by playing the fool in a Richardsonian world, and ends by being serious in a world of his own--the world of Tom Jones and Amelia.
Parody or adaptation have enormous advantages to certain novelists, particularly to those who may have a great deal to say and plenty of literary genius, but who do not see the world in terms of individual men and women--who do not, in other words, take easily to creating characters. How are such men to start writing? An already existing book or literary tradition may inspire them--they may find high up in its cornices a pattern that will serve as a beginning, they may swing about in its rafters and gain strength. That fantasy of Lowes Dickinson, The Magic Flute, seems to be created thus: it has taken as its mythology the world of Mozart. Tamino, Sarastro, and the Queen of the Night stand in their enchanted kingdom ready for the author's thoughts, and when these are poured in they become alive and a new and exquisite work is born. And the same is true of another fantasy, anything but exquisite--James Joyce's Ulysses.[6] That remarkable affair--perhaps the most interesting literary experiment of our day--could not have been achieved unless Joyce had had, as his guide and butt, the world of the Odyssey.
[6] Ulysses, Shakespeare & Co., Paris, is not at present obtainable in England. America, more enlightened, has produced a mutilated version without the author's permission and without paying him a cent.
That's the end of his discourse on fan-fiction, but I can't resist continuing with some of his commentary on Ulysses. This is especially interesting because Forster wrote this before the last 5 chapters had been published in English, and so, I presume, before it was considered a great book. (I'm confused about the pirated American version he referred to; Wikipedia says the first English printing was the pirated Roth edition in 1929, yet Forster's book is copyright 1927.)
Anyone who's read about Ulysses "knows" that Forster's interpretation is completely wrong. But no one today can attempt what Forster did: to read Ulysses. Today, we use Ulysses as a mnemonic device for recalling the things Joyce said in his letters explaining Ulysses. The Ulysses acclaimed as a great book, I suspect, is not present within the book with Ulysses on its cover.
I am only touching on one aspect of Ulysses: it is of course more than a fantasy--it is a clogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, it is an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell. All simplifications are fascinating, all lead us away from the truth (which lies far nearer the muddle of Tristram Shandy), and Ulysses must not detain us on the ground that it contains a morality--otherwise we shall also have to discuss Mrs. Humphry Ward. We are concerned with it because, through a mythology, Joyce has been able to create the peculiar stage and characters he required. ...
Ulysses himself is Mr. Leopold Bloom--a converted Jew--greedy, lascivious, timid, undignified, desultory, superficial, kindly and always at his lowest when he pretends to aspire. He tries to explore life through the body. Penelope is Mrs. Marion Bloom, an overblown soprano, by no means harsh to her suitors. The third character is young Stephen Dedalus, whom Bloom recognizes as his spiritual son much as Ulysses recognizes Telemachus as his actual son. Stephen tries to explore life through the intellect--we have met him before in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and now he is worked into this epic of grubbiness and disillusion. ...
Does it come off? No, not quite. Indignation in literature never quite comes off either in Juvenal or Swift or Joyce; there is something in words that is alien to its simplicity. The Night Town scene does not come off except as a superfetation of fantasies, a monstrous coupling of reminiscences. Such satisfaction as can be attained in this direction is attained, and all through the book we have similar experiments--the aim of which is to degrade all things and more particularly civilization and art, by turning them inside out and upside down. Some enthusiasts may think that Ulysses ought to be mentioned not here but later on, under the heading of prophecy, and I understand this criticism. But I prefer to mention it today with Tristram Shandy, Flecker's Magic, Zuleika Dobson, and The Magic Flute, because the raging of Joyce, like the happier or calmer moods of the other writers, seems essentially fantastic, and lacks the note for which we shall be listening soon [in the next chapter, on 'prophecy', which Forster calls the deeper counterpart of fantasy].
Two possibilities for his comment on the pirated American version spring to mind. He could have been making a joke, or he could have heard a rumor that he accepted as truth without properly checking it out. (After all, this is pre-Google by quite a few years)
I've heard Dante's Inferno cheekily referred to as fanfiction, too.
I'm not sure I agree with the author regarding why the fanfic impulse exists. After all, some fanfic writers[1] mostly write with their own characters.
A part of it is the desire to play around in a existing universe[2], sure, but there might be something else there. Perhaps writing fanfic is an interesting limitation, something to react against? I can't be the only one who, when told to write anything at all, pauses, paralyzed by possibilities. It's so much easier when you have something to grab a hold of.
[1] I can think of at least one.
[2] Which is not just because you like it or because you lack the creativity to make one of your own. Instead it could be said that it's because you are the sort of person whose life is mostly transacted over the top of a book (or a screen) and so writing what you know by necessity includes a lot of things written before you.
2046344
Paradise Lost, too.
2046344
What else would it be?
It could be worse:
bookofmormonresearch.org/files/2010/08/book-of-mormon3.jpg
I was considering buying Forster's book.
Was.
I am no longer.
Thanks for that.
I find this extremely relieving, because, much to my dismay, I don't find it particularly easy to create wholly original characters from scratch. Obviously this failing tends to war with any hopes I have of being a "good" writer. Perhaps it's why fanfiction appeals to me so much, even though I see what 2046565 said, in that there are many different purposes for fanfiction, and reasons for why one might write it. In fact, one such reason (the exploration of possibilities and scenarios not addressed in canon) is why I don't think "being in-character" is such an important necessity in fanfiction. But that's neither here nor there.
If you follow the policy of stopping reading a book when it says something you disagree with, you'll never finish anything worth reading.
2055355
I wasn't being sarcastic or anything.
You misunderstand--I meant that I was going to buy the book until you so graciously gave us a link to a pdf version. So now I'm not going to buy it. That's all.
2055449 Oh! I assumed it was because of his interpretation of Ulysses. It's considered a wrong interpretation today, but everybody who reads it, also reads a commentary written by somebody who read Joyce's explanation of the whole thing. I doubt that the standard interpretation is actually in the book on its own. Or if it is, nobody could find it, because they'd have to read the entire 700-page thing at a rate of about one line per minute without their eyes glazing over or skipping ahead.
2055476
It's all good bro.
I've only read the opening of Ulysses, and I have an ebook version on my desktop, but whether I ever attempt it this side of paradise...I'm really not sure. I know it exceeds nearly all definitions of difficulty, but a good friend listened to it via audio book, where different actors read for each character, and it's the version he recommends, seeing as how Joyce weaves stream of consciousness in and out of the prose with absolutely no indication of whose thoughts they are or that they're even thoughts at all. I've also heard it recommended the best way to read it is in little pieces every day, like a couple of pages.
I believe it's possible to read, but whether it's worth all the effort is another matter entirely. And as an author (or a growing one) I question the worth of writing a novel so hard to understand or even read.
2055517 A few years ago I took a high level college class that turned into a semester-long study of Ulysses with a dozen other students and a professor who was obsessed with his vision of "what it all means" – or really what Joyce actually meant by it all – and with identifying the uncountable number of themes that seem to run through it.
And it was hard for me, being the first piece of literature I truly delved into and gave some serious thought to (yeah, start small!). But in the end it really was a blast, and it is one of the most hilarious, biting works I've ever read, definitely one of my favorites. Keep Google handy while reading, and yes, going slow would probably be a good idea.
If you can find it, look into the Gabler Edition, or at least another one that they've gone through and corrected some serious "corrections" made by editors and typesetters over the years. This edition seems to be the academic standard these days, for what that's worth.
2059371
Haha don't worry I rarely start off small--I mean, what's the fun in that? xD
Though in all sincerity, I'm a little surprised that starting with such a behemoth didn't outright kill your desire for literary analysis. But despite the tough subject matter, it does sound like it was a fun course. My favorite classes were always the ones that were more focused in topic and discussion-based, allowing you to deeply explore a few topics instead of lightly touch on many.
I have a random ebook version, and it gives no details as to which edition it is, other than the fact it was apparently published in Australia...and is no longer copyrighted there. But, since the gabler edition you linked me to (thanks for that btw) is pretty cheap, I might just go ahead and get that one and avoid reading the book with the constant fear in the back of my mind I might possibly somehow have a tainted version.