Anyone who follows Joyce knows the copyright issues (byzantine, tangled, at times psychotic) – and also it is well-known the issues that pretty much every Joycean scholar has had with Joyce’s grandson who holds the estate. There was a great article in The New Yorker last year which details Stephen Joyce’s aggressive defense of the works of his grandfather (sometimes justified, other times completely insane, Type A bullshit that makes life difficult for Joyce lovers and scholars) – so aggressive that he’s made enemies all over the place. It’s almost like Joyce scholars need support groups and therapy sessions, to swap war stories about dealing with this dude.
This is a similar situation (until very recently) to any biographer who wanted to write about Sylvia Plath. Ted Hughes held the estate to her works – and that estate was watched over zealously (and, some would say, pathologically) by Olwyn Hughes, Ted’s sister – who never liked Sylvia. It was an antagonistic estate … and yet it took on personal overtones that drove Plath scholars mad. They didn’t just want to control the use of Plath’s words – they wanted to control the interpretation of Plath that was allowed (examples of this are legion.) Biographers had to submit manuscripts to the Hughes’ (which is par for the course) – but when the edits would come back, that’s when things would start to get really complicated. It was not about “please don’t quote that poem in its entirety” … it was “please do not ever suggest that Plath was bisexual – remove that paragraph”. (Actual example.) There are many interesting issues to discuss here – what is a biography? What is objectivity?
Janet Malcolm, journalist (love her) – wrote an entire book (The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
Back to Joyce. Stephen Joyce is the bogeyman to Joyce scholars – and things have come to a head yet again over the recent book about Lucia Joyce, James Joyce’s mentally ill daughter. (I wrote – perhaps I should say bitched – about that book here.)
The LA Times has a full rundown of what is going on now, and all of the complicated copyright issues. Stephen Joyce often claims ownership over things the Joyce estate actually does not own.
From the New Yorker article:
In 2004, the centenary of Bloomsday, Stephen threatened the Irish government with a lawsuit if it staged any Bloomsday readings; the readings were cancelled. He warned the National Library of Ireland that a planned display of his grandfather�s manuscripts violated his copyright. (The Irish Senate passed an emergency amendment to thwart him.) His antagonism led the Abbey Theatre to cancel a production of Joyce�s play �Exiles,� and he told Adam Harvey, a performance artist who had simply memorized a portion of �Finnegans Wake� in expectation of reciting it onstage, that he had likely �already infringed� on the estate�s copyright. Harvey later discovered that, under British law, Joyce did not have the right to stop his performance.
Way to totally antagonize the fanatics about your grandfather’s work, bro. As a committed Bloomsday participant through the years (just one example), I can only think:
What the HELL is your problem? Going after Bloomsday?
I’m surprised he hasn’t come after me, seeing as I go insane every June 16, and am looking forward to this year – especially since it’s a Saturday so I can spend the entire DAY in the company of drunk Joyceans, all of us shouting “YES I SAID YES I WILL YES” through the summery air. He would prefer to STOP that gathering and to stop us from shouting out lines from his grandfather;s novel that we love and that we have memorized.
And the fight goes on. The fight over James Joyce goes on.
I, for one, appreciate the geekery. :) I’ve always been curious about Bloomsday down at the Rosenbach after my dad mentioned it–he worked downtown for decades and has great affection for all things on Delancey St.) but I haven’t made it down there yet.
Threatened the Irish government with a lawsuit and tried to stop an actor from reciting a memorized piece of “Finnegan’s Wake”? He must be a very joyless man.
I know – it’s so bizarre. Like: dude. We LOVE this crap. Let us love it. Thanks!!
It makes me want to stand in Times Square, invite the media, and recite the entirety of Molly Bloom’s monologue – just to piss him off!
I think all the lurkers her at the Sheila Variations should pitch in for the travel costs so you can spend next Saturday in TS! But we want pictures.
And a copy of the arrest warrant.
Paul
Actually this whole post reminds me that I need to pick a good celebration to go to. The best one I went to was the all-day fest at a bar called (appropriately) Ulysses – and I was the only American there. It was all Irish. Hard core. Everyone with their copy of Ulysses. And everyone knew, by heart, the last paragraph of Molly’s monologue about the rhododendrons and the orgasm, etc. It was one of the funnest days EVER. We started drinking at around noon. And did not stop until 8 pm.
Must do a bit of research. Bloomsday is one of my favorite days of the year. It is completely whimsical!
Oh, and there’s a dude who strolls thru Times Square in his underwear – and he wears a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, and he plays guitar and he is known as the Naked Cowboy. And he is never arrested. So I imagine I’ll be safe having a Joycean orgasm in the middle of Times Square.
I mean, I’ll be safe from the NYPD – but probably not safe from Stephen Joyce!
There’s also the yearly “Bloomsday on Broadway” … where people like Malachy McCourt and Frank McCourt and Fionnula Flanagan and many others gather in a theatre and read the entirety of Ulysses – and it’s one of those things I WILL do one of these days.
i feel so uneducated right now; i’ve never read any Joyce.
[[also, apologies about the ridiculously long email yesternight.]]
amelie – that’s so weird, I was just emailing you back when you commented!
okay, and then this post begs the question, where do i start with joyce? ^_-
I guess I’d say The Dubliners – his collectino of short stories that ends with “The Dead” – which is the best short story ever written. If anyone wants to argue differently – they had better make a damn good case. It’s an AMAZING story. But there are a lot of little gems in the collection. The Dead is the last story in the collection and it almost seems like it comes from an entirely different author.
The Dubliners is a simple work – but lovely. It’s a bitchy book, a vicious book – he was very angry with Ireland. Said something like, “It will do Ireland good to have a dirty looking glass shoved up in their faces.” It was very controversial – because it told the truth. It shocked people. Ireland was pissed – Joyce was telling their dirty little secrets. He had a terrible time getting it published – even though he had major champions like Yeats on his side.
He actually didn’t write much in his lifetime – it took him 17 years to complete Finnegans Wake for example.
His first novel was Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – which is frighteningly brilliant and deep – I’ve read it probably 10 times and i am still discovering things.
After that came Ulysses which went off like a bomb thru the whole world – and then, 17 years later, came Finnegans Wake.
But the Dubliners is a non-scary collection of short stories – that all take place (naturally) in Dublin. All great stuff – I’ll get to it eventually in my daily book excerpt, and I’m already nervous about it!
This type of thing is not just related to Plath and Joyce by a long shot. Fortunately, however, there are writers out there whom we can read and write about without all of this legal b…s….
Paul, your comment is irritating. I chose to write about Plath because she immediately came to mind, the estate situations sound similar. Of course there are many other examples, but … uhm … I didn’t choose to write about those.
Also, my point here is: I am concerned and vicariously annoyed for Joycean scholars having to deal with this guy. I find THAT topic interesting – and that’s why I wrote about it. I find THAT topic engaging, enraging, fascinating – hence, the focus of my post. I’ve watched them grapple with Stephen Joyce for years – it’s an ongoing saga. You may feel like, “Phew, at least there are other writers I can read about” but that is completely not my view. At least not in THIS post which is (duh) about Joyce, who is my favorite.
To me it means you’re looking at what you think I left OUT rather than what I actually SAID.
Sorry to sound so annoyed. But whatever, I’m annoyed.
At the risk of drawing Red’s annoyance – I think you read Paul wrong, Sheila.
I think he’s saying that the legal stuff doesn’t need to impinge on ones’ enjoyment of them.
Or not.
Sigh.
At any rate, Sheila, I hope grandson doesn’t screw with Bloomsday TOO bad, since I think I’ll actually be in NYC for BD’08.
(Alas, not ’07…)
Yeah, that’s not how I read it. Obviously. He seemed to expect me to provide MORE examples than Joyce and Plath. But why? That’s his expectation – has nothing to do with me. Comments like that annoy me. Obviously.
But we move on. I’m not annoyed anymore.
It was a momentary annoyance – lots of comments are annoying. If it’s annoying enough, I will feel the need to answer back – but I don’t hold onto it.
Oh and I have a feeling that I will no longer be in NYC come June 16, 2008. Just an intuition!
I need to look up what’s going on at the Irish pubs I’ve gone to … see which celebration seems most hard-core.