British Isles Books

If you love the rewarding challenge of studying James Joyce and chasing through all of the required texts and commentaries, knowing there is infinite meaning and substance within his work, ever just beyond your complete and secure grasp, like Tantallus, though at times it sinks into mists and at others hits your tender toe like granite, at times disappears into a million jigsaw pieces into the breeze, and at others drawing all firmly together in total comprehension, then you will love this book.

At times as you read this, as with Joyce, you find yourself within an ornate rococo or baroque chapel of infinite height, glowing with intricately carved white marble, vaults so high and carefully carved that no human eye can perceive so high what God alone can see. So it is with this book, delightfully, incalculably beautiful and illuminating, yet written in a way that one feels it only half translated by the author from his native learned and lovely Italian.

Yet, there is much here that clarifies Joyce and explains the Joycean characters and their contexts, within and without the text; nevertheless, you must search and contemplate and reread and review and think, above all. You must think, as it is when you read Joyce; yet you assuredly discover any and all effort abundantly rewarded.

Let me quote for your consideration a few of the briefer sentences, as the author explains his purpose, from page 20:

"My aim in the present study is to write a Joycean chapter in the history of the irreducible separation between the existential experience of factical life and the ordinary representation of human existence. I show in my discussions of Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake that the mature Joyce-s renditions of "spectacle of redemption" fill some of the most banal, vulgar, prosaic, realistic actions of his protagonists with the negative core whereby human existence is made eccentric to the domain of the phenomenally experienceable. I show, more particularly, that Joyce bestows on his protagonists a distinct catalogue of messianic connotations informed by the Christic stations of death and resurrection, fall and redemption, burial and manducation, incarnation and transubstantiation; this catalogue evolves gradually through Joyce's successive writings, . . ." etc., etc., etc.

This learned tome presents a very substantial and powerful insight into the meaning of the writings of James Joyce. Once you have entered the reading of Joyce and grown comfortable yet curious and more thirsty there, please consider this book to find out what the heck is really going on within. You will not be disappointed.

Mind-burning erudition - how else can one describe it?
Roy Gottfried - long hailed as the foremost Joyce scholar of all time - has outdone himself again in this, the latest of his theses concerning "Ireland's Favourite Son," modern literature's loving uncle, James Joyce. Gottfried's intriguing exploration of Joyce in this work makes for a must-read literary analysis adventure!
Your head will hurt from the incredible knowledge that Gottfried's words effuse. START NOW.

With "Joyce's Rare View" Richard Beckman has added an important new look into the comic, cosmic, puzzling pages of James Joyce's most difficult yet, ultimately, rewarding text. Through a close reading of various sections of the "Wake," Beckman provides information and insights that are completely fresh, making it an instant classic to be included with the well-known scholarship of the last century. This work is clearly written as well, accessible to lay Wakeans such as I and not restricted to academicians. It offers valuable and welcome guidance through that amazing maze, the wonderful word world of "Finnegans Wake."

Okay, so I was wrong before. Get THIS one at a reasonable price here. In fact get two, one to mark up extensively and the other to keep on the shelf for reading with no pen in hand ever, or as back up, like that extra copy of Gabler's definitive edition of Ulysses, the one with the delicate spine but solid scholarly editting.

THere are several books out there about James Joyce and Ulysses of varying value, sort of like Shakespeare commentaries. A lot of Shakespeare commentaries are, to quote Bernard SHaw in his preface to Plays for Puritans "bardology" or BRitish cultural imperialism (by the way I learned all of that and more from the chapter here in Joyce's REvenge which discusses the famous SHakespeare debate in the library, and the true significance of just what is going on there) Just so with Joyce. A lot of what is sold as comentary for Joyce is junk, professors or adjunct assistant professors who must publish or perish no matter who has to get hurt. Much of what is published as commentary is quickly outdated or completed in the next generation, and thus disposable. But THIS book IS the best.

Each page I find myself agreeing with Gibson's observations, expressed more fully and eloquently that I had yet formulated. And my own insight is greatly increased by many magnitudes by Gibson's condensed yet comprehensive treatment. I am finding much ground for further research here.

I truly recommend this book for anyone who wants to get a good grasp of just what is going on in Joyce's Ulysses. Basically Joyce's revenge is grabbing the anglo-saxon tongue by the throat (am I mixing metaphors yet?), that tongue that was shoved down our lyrical Irish throat (gross) at the point of a sword and rifle and cannon, kiling off our own ancient language and imposing the imperialist oppressor's tongue upon us, and JOyce throttles it and beats it into submission and exposes its shortcomings as a means of communication. THus we have all of the virtuoso stylistic extravagances throughout Ulysses, and parodies of the most earnest and popular BRitish literature of the day, and the destruction of the British imperialist claim to SHakespeare above mentioned.

Please get this book. Great for those new to Ulysses in order to open up this fatholmless novel, and excellent for people like myself who re-listen to it constantly (on Donnelly's excellent unabridged recording) and whose bedroom bookshelf is dedicated to Joyce alone, as there is no other.

Kindly get this book. I'm going back for another one to leave virgin and unmarked for later reading, because of all the underlining and highlighting and marginalia I insert helplessly into the present copy.

Just one formatting note: I love the way footnotes are at the bottom of the SAME PAGE they are referred to, rather than searching at the end of the book or at the end of chapters (this is the WORST!). I just wish the print were bigger!

Get this book. There are only four books in the whole history of western European literature: Homer's Odyssey, The Bible, Dante, and James Joyce's Ulysses. All else is elaboration of or commentary on the above. This present commentary is the key to opening your eyes (is that a mixed metaphor? Perhaps as in King Lear one's eyes want not be opened with key nor thumb) to this dazzling and incomprehensible jewel, just as the Reverend Father John Dear opens up the Bible, or Dorothy L. Sayers Dante.


In order of involvement with Ulysses, begin for a surface reading only with the GIfford Annotation, which presents merely the accidents of geographical and some literary references, etc. Then try Schwartz`s Reading Joyce`s Ulysses, and Sicari`s Modern Allegory and perhaps Bell`s Jocoserious Joyce. Read as much of Hugh Kenner as you can get, and see the curiously superficial analysis by Joseph Campbell. Then get this as a fountainhead and a summary of most of the latest criticism. It will point you in all of the right directions.

And when you are fully able to contemplate, to meditate, to wordlessly adore in the intricate and infinite temple of Joyce`s Ulysses, get Joyce`s MEssianism, whose terms must remain ever undefined as the author weaves and carves and filigrees the upper unseen vaults, collonades, capitals, buttresses and elaborations of Mr. Joyce. The commentary in Joyce`s Messianism is truly a Book of Kells, full of breathtaking and somehow brilliantly illuminating while incomprehensible wonders. A must have for any complete Joyce commentary shelf, along with Chen and Semicolonial Joyce, Batkhin and Lacan, etc., etc.

It is a lifetime of study of which I begin far too late.

Wow. What a great read. I especially liked where the dwarves were lost in the forest and the cyborgs told them how to find the beach party. When Frankie Vallee showed up, I was blown away! You gotta get this one. A must have!

Let not the reader become deceived by the apparently smaller size of this very substantial and brilliant and comprehensive work of great depth. At about eight by five inches and 150 pages it may seem smaller than other more ambitious or specialized commentaries on Joyce, many of which come from the publish or perish school of academic publications. In this case, a great thing comes in a highly portable package.

The more you look into this small book, the more there is to see, as with its infinite subject.

This second edition of Sherry's book (first published in 1994 and republished with updating and expansion in 2004 for the great centenary celebration) serves as part of Cambridge University Press's Landmarks of World Literature series, which also examines Dante, Homer (twice), Chaucer, Virgil, Camus, Shikibu, etc. (thus far no Shakespeare).

Joyce among Homer and Dante discovers himself in familiar and friendly company, arising as a newer landmark among the old. His work, Ulysses, once banned from sale in England and America, now forms a cornerstone, or even capstone, in modern English language writing, as Sherry himself comments. Nothing after fails to feel its influence. Ulysses was voted greatest novel in history by the New York Review of Books last century.

I ever enjoy beginning a book at the back and working forward, and this one is no different. The final section, before the appendix and suggestions for further readings, is entitled "P(ost) S(criptum) U(lysses)," using Ezra Pound's famous acronym to indicate that all writing, poetic and novelistic, after Ulysses, cannot help but be informed by its influence.

Truly Ulysses serves as landmark, after which there is no turning back in later literature, no turning aside, but merely its extension and redundant elaboration, of which, as Sherry writes, only "the quality of influence merits critical consideration."

It would be impossible within this present format to examine fully every aspect of how very well this commentary serves in opening all aspects of Ulysses and its critical history of criticism, both to the initiate and the seasoned Joycean scholar. There is always something new to consider,
and, as Sherry points out, subsequent schools of criticism, although contradicting one another, each find substance and strength in Ulysses.

Please get this excellent, comprehensive and very inexpensive commentary. It replaces the need for at least one or two shelfloads of other commentaries, itself humbly occupying only the space of a jacket pocket, and indicates further research for several future shelves.

Small yet substantially comprehensive. Well worth the price, and the joy of reading, and the insight it brings us into Ulysses, and the three fields of its criticism: structural, linguistic and socio-historical.

Two apsects strike me in reading about Holmes. First is his life. What a great subject. Holmes is almost as exciting to read about as Lincoln. The second is his jurisprudence. White does a fine job covering both. I like White's style. Somewhat loose but never inaccurate, his biography is very readable.

Two chapters: The Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the "Progressive Judge" are so wonderfully written that they deserve to be read twice.

I read the book over a period of four months which is something I rarely do. This is because the subject and content are so important that the philosophy of Holmes takes some time to perculate. White's description of Holmes influenced my perspective greatly.

I would recommend the book to any person interested in law or simply about America.

The madcap stories and parodies in this collection will have you sputtering with laughter. Any fan of Jane Austen will be guaranteed to adore this book.

But, there is a bonus benefit to this particular edition. When I received my copy in the mail, I was a little startled, because the book weighed a ton, and each of its pages was thick and nearly laminated. The cover looked like it was produced on a dot-matrix printer from clip art, and it had the overall appearance of being a pre-release edition. There was even an apologetic note from Amazon, saying that this was the best available edition, and if I didn't like it I could return it, etc. But, I soon realized that this 'bad' plastic edition had a wonderful advantage - I could take it in the bath with me, and it didn't even get damp. There's something very zen about laughing like a maniac while in a hot bathtub. I wholeheartedy recommend the experience to you.

Katherine Mansfield, who died in 1923 of tuberculosis while still a young woman, gave us many glimpses into her private psyche when her celebrated "Journal" was published. But editor Margaret Scott, in assembling "The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks" gives us a more intimate perspective by supplementing the already famous journal entries with poems, half-finished stories, and even recipes and shopping lists. The result is an addicting mix of literary divinity and the charming mundane.

These faithfully reproduced writings reveal Katherine Mansfield to have been a highly strung, creative genious with an obession about her own mortality. Equal parts tragedy and comedy, reading "The Notebooks" is the closest that any of us will ever come to knowing Mansfield herself. It's an advantage that not even her husband, J. Middleton Murray, experienced during her lifetime.

If you're new to Katherine Mansfield, this is a good book to start with. Smith opens some doors for the novice or scholar. You might want to buy Vincent O'Sullivan's recent anthology published by Norton to use as your reading copy of KM's works. It's easy to find Antony Alper's excellent full length biography. It's essential reading too. If you are serious about your reading, Alpers also edited her works (Oxford U Press), and it's worth tracking down a copy -- not just for the logical arrangement of the text, but for his excellent notes.