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Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce
the author employs his skills as a composer to discuss the musical analogies in Joyce's work.
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
3 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Burgess
340 books4,197 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).
He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .
Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).
He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 16, 2025
Burgess on Joyce is always good.
April 22, 2019
With considerable expectation I finally arrived at a block of time for reading Anthony Burgess' 1973 book Joysprick, said to concern itself with the language of our hero, James Joyce. I'd heard plenty of promising things about this book and I had cause and hope to believe it would prove a more engaging reading experience than Burgess' other well-known Joycean book, ReJoyce, which was more targeted at a "popular" audience. Not entirely unlike that book though, Burgess here achieves mixed results.
Most off-putting is Burgess' tendency to carelessly lapse into quoting large, successive blocks of text from Joyce interspersed will small, generally unhelpful snippets of his own opinion informing you of what you just read. This is disappointing padding of a book which, elsewhere, contains what amount to essay-length discussions jam-packed with original insights. If that bloating had been cut, this book would be about half as long and twice as good.
Much of the first part of the book is concerned far more with Irish pronunciation, diction and syntax than with Joyce specifically. This foundation poured, Burgess seems to press a theory that reading Joyce in the author's native dialect controls how we understand his texts. This may be the case, or this may lead to new ways of reading, but I'm doubtful that a writer is necessarily thinking in a dialect while he is composing a text. To what degree is Ulysses, say, a different book depending on the native dialect of a person who happens to be reading it? Is it necessary or even advisable to try to impose a pronunciation filter between a written text and our reading of that text as we're struggling to grasp at meaning?
In both this book and in ReJoyce Burgess emphasizes that he's not setting out to write books of criticism but rather books of one reader's interaction with Joyce. Everyone who falls in love with Joyce's books wants to do the same, and we're also the market for a book like this. But Burgess ends up telling us little that we haven't already thought of or realized on our own. His time would have been better spent focusing more on critical analysis than on reveling in excessive fanboydom.
Most off-putting is Burgess' tendency to carelessly lapse into quoting large, successive blocks of text from Joyce interspersed will small, generally unhelpful snippets of his own opinion informing you of what you just read. This is disappointing padding of a book which, elsewhere, contains what amount to essay-length discussions jam-packed with original insights. If that bloating had been cut, this book would be about half as long and twice as good.
Much of the first part of the book is concerned far more with Irish pronunciation, diction and syntax than with Joyce specifically. This foundation poured, Burgess seems to press a theory that reading Joyce in the author's native dialect controls how we understand his texts. This may be the case, or this may lead to new ways of reading, but I'm doubtful that a writer is necessarily thinking in a dialect while he is composing a text. To what degree is Ulysses, say, a different book depending on the native dialect of a person who happens to be reading it? Is it necessary or even advisable to try to impose a pronunciation filter between a written text and our reading of that text as we're struggling to grasp at meaning?
In both this book and in ReJoyce Burgess emphasizes that he's not setting out to write books of criticism but rather books of one reader's interaction with Joyce. Everyone who falls in love with Joyce's books wants to do the same, and we're also the market for a book like this. But Burgess ends up telling us little that we haven't already thought of or realized on our own. His time would have been better spent focusing more on critical analysis than on reveling in excessive fanboydom.
December 10, 2008
Super awesome commentary/analysis/playing about James Joyce.
December 4, 2022
Mixed feelings about this one. As always, I love Anthony Burgess' command of words and meaning, of the 'deep magic' behind texts, and his erudite approach to Joyce. The fault is mine for being mostly lost in this text; having read both Joyce and Burgess, I was naive to expect Burgess to make Joyce more approachable and comprehensible to me. Alas-I think I now want a guide to make this book itself more comprehensible.
Apparently, in order to really understand and enjoy Joyce, I must have a good grounding in early 20th Dublin culture, a knowledge of the politics of Parnell, acquaintance with Greek, Latin, French, Gaelic, and a few dozen more, musical theory, an intuitive grasp of Catholic catechism, and a comprehensive understanding of Irish nationalism and its shortcomings.
Seemingly, Joyce only appeals to a few highly educated university dons and is not available to those of us who drink our tea over ice and listen to rock instead of Wagner.
Ah, me....
Apparently, in order to really understand and enjoy Joyce, I must have a good grounding in early 20th Dublin culture, a knowledge of the politics of Parnell, acquaintance with Greek, Latin, French, Gaelic, and a few dozen more, musical theory, an intuitive grasp of Catholic catechism, and a comprehensive understanding of Irish nationalism and its shortcomings.
Seemingly, Joyce only appeals to a few highly educated university dons and is not available to those of us who drink our tea over ice and listen to rock instead of Wagner.
Ah, me....
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews