15a. Circe, Part I

[Lily]

Sue wrote: "Yes, Hilary…it made a big difference for me! So use this "crutch" and you will make it through! (better than throwing in the ole towel, me thinks! (especially being this far along))"

Another "crutch" that I came to use in these last chapters, and now rather wish I'd used more earlier, is http://www.joyceimages.com/.

I found I could use it in sync with the audio, at least much of the time.

[Hilary]

Thanks for this link too, Lily. All crutches gratefully received. :-)

[Hilary]

I'm not sure where I am according to our programme, but I've been listening and reading and I'm neither wiser not better-informed. According to the audio I have a way to go with Circe. Here's hoping I get there. I should certainly have given up without the audio so thanks again, Sue!

[Lily]

Hilary wrote: "...According to the audio I have a way to go with Circe...."

Hillary -- Trying to figure out a good metaphor for "getting through" Circes. It would be something along the lines of trying to swim the English Channel and realizing that one was going to have to mix semi-conscious concentrated swimming with floating for awhile on one's back, hopefully riding some stream carrying self rather mindlessly across for awhile. I'm just not convinced mindful concentration gets one through this section, although certainly at least snatches of it can be useful.

If one looks at it structurally or thematically, what is Joyce trying to accomplish with Circes?

[Hilary]

Thanks for the lovely metaphor, Lily. That describes the feeling I get beautifully.

I was snooping around trying to find out bits and pieces about Joyce, better to understand him I had hoped. I'm not sure if this has been said already, but when the legendary psychiatrist Carl Jung met Joyce he believed him to be schizophrenic. Jung treated Joyce's daughter Lucia for schizophrenia and catatonic episodes, but, in the end, he couldn't get enough space from Joyce's constant devotion to her. It seems that the family, particularly on his wife Nora's side, was dogged by mental illness. Sadly, Lucia died in a sanitarium in England after a long thirty years.

Jung wrote quite a scathing review of Ulysses in which he described it as full of emptiness and nothingness, though he praised Joyce's literary skill. In a letter to Joyce which was frank and sympathetic he said that he had not been able to cease from mulling over the novel for three years. He also confesses to pretending to understand it, but not really understanding it at all. I feel that I'm in good company!

[Thomas]

Hilary wrote: " I'm not sure if this has been said already, but when the legendary psychiatrist Carl Jung met Joyce he believed him to be schizophrenic."

Do you have a source for this? I remember it differently from Ellmann's biography of Joyce, but it's been a long time since I read it. I found this snippet:

Jung wrote that "Joyce's psychological style is definitely schizophrenic, with the difference, however, that the ordinary patient cannot help himself talking and thinking in such a way, while Joyce willed it and moreover developed it with all his creative forces..."

Though it is true that Lucia was schizophrenic, or at least quite mentally ill. Jung tried to treat her with psychotherapy but finally gave up due to Joyce's interference. Joyce never wanted to believe there was anything wrong with Lucia, but her violent behavior could not be controlled.

[Hilary]

Simply dear old Google, Thomas. I read a variety of articles all with slight differences, although not ridiculously so. A few contained descriptions of the relationship between Jung and Joyce. In one case Jung is said to believe that JJ has schizoid tendencies which in his mind were connected with Lucia's schizophrenia. In another case Jung does not seem to think that Joyce is mentally ill, but manages to reproduce on the page the ramblings of a mad man. This seems to be closer to what your biography is saying.

Yes, what you say about Lucia lines up with some of the articles I read. Jung's decision not to treat Lucia any longer is purported in one article not to be unrelated to Joyce's suspicion of the process of psychotherapy and also his constancy in visiting Lucia which tended to hamper progress.

There is also Jung's not entirely flattering review of Ulysses and his somewhat mellower letter to Joyce in receipt of which JJ was believed to be both upset and also proud.

Of course, with any and all articles there are likely to be inaccuracies, but I don't have the biography so I wished to find out what I could. I'm sure that your biographer will have taken great strides to be as accurate as it's possible to be. And no, Wikipedia was not one of the sources. :)

[Suzann]

Hilary wrote: "He (Jung) also confesses to pretending to understand it, but not really understanding it at all. I feel that I'm in good company! ..."

That suggests that Ulysses was not rife with Jungian archetypes! Jung certainly would have been able to identify ghosts of his own paradigm I would think.

[Hilary]

I'm sure that that's true, Susan, but then I suppose there is an awful lot of the book. It certainly seems that way to me. :O