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Wednesday, August 01, 2007
The Ideal Ulysses
Big things are happening over at The Institute for the Future of the Book. CommentPress v.1.1 is now available and relatedly, to my mind, two excellent posts on what Bob Stein calls the “ideal Ulysses." I highly recommend reading both posts in full, but the skeleton of Stein’s idea is thus:
1. beautiful text
2. copious annotations, easily hidden
3. integrated audio version
4. intuitive word/phrase glossary
5. explanatory references
6. close readings by experts
7. wiki and/or CommentPress functionality
I must say—and in so doing, disagree with those commenters who insist the book should be tackled naked—that this idea strikes me as nothing short of necessary. Some of Stein’s suggestions seem like they could be folded into each other—what would the annotations contain if not explanatory references, a glossary, and close readings by experts—but they should be separable, so that someone who only wants the phrases glossed need not be burdened by explanation and explication, &c.
To the objections of those who claim integrating Harrry Blamires’ Bloomsday Book and Don Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated would ruin the immersive experience of reading Joyce’s novel, I would only point to the ruinous effect of reading Mark Musa’s translation of Dante’s Commedia. Witness the disastrous first page—the invasive summary occludes the brilliance of the opening tercet:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Wait—that isn’t what Musa writes. This is:
Midway along the journey of our liffe
I woke to find myelf in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.
See how far removed we are already from the immersive experience of Dante’s original? Those who have read it in Italian, as I have, will testify to the superiority of the original. But I didn’t read it in Italian until years after having acquainted myself with Musa’s translation. The summary preceding each canto didn’t ruin it, nor did the explanatory notes following it. I could choose to read them if I so desired. And my first few times through the poem, I did.
But after sufficiently familiarizing myself with the poem’s narrative, I stopped reading the summaries; after sufficiently familiarizing myself with the poem’s religious, political, historical and literary context, I stopped reading the notes; and after sufficiently familiarizing myself with contemporary, then medieval Italian, I stopped reading the translation.*
Difficult texts require gloss, and the more convenient that gloss is, the more likely the reader is to find themselves capable of immersion. If Ulysses looked more like Musa’s Commedia, i.e. if it didn’t require three other books to read, more people would read it. Appreciation of the novel should not depend on a preexisting familiarity with early 20th Century Irish politics.
I conclude, then, with a ringing endorsement of Stein’s idea, and an intense desire to acquire the skills necessary to aid in its fruition.
*And after I stopped practicing my contemporary and medieval Italian, I stopped reading the original. Such is life.
Comments
Good luck dealing with Stephen Joyce. Michael Groden spent years on just this sort of project, only to be blocked by SJ.
Better to try with another book, something in the public domain. Trust me.
The 1922 edition of Ulysses is in the public domain though, isn’t it? The Stephen Joyce fiasco concerned later revisions, private papers and letters, I thought. I admit to not remembering all the twists and turns, but that said, even the contested ‘34 edition should enter public domain in 2009.
I think.
Still, the idea’s a good one, and Ulysses and other modern/postmodern works with substantial critical apparatuses the perfect fit for this model.
The potential of this kind of thing is infinite. I don’t have anywhere near the resources to do it, but I once blocked out a plan for historical work involving a multilingual online world atlas, a multilingual online world timeline and calendar convertor, and annotated historical source texts linked to the translations in the major languages. A combined atlas / calendar convertor would save people hours of work digging around in refencence books (especially in Chinese period of disunity, where each regime had a different calendar and city and province names were frequently changed.)
It’s very complicated and not all together clear what is OK to use and what isn’t when it comes to Joyce materials.
but that said, even the contested ‘34 edition should enter public domain in 2009.
Not if past precedent holds / if Disney can do anything about it. As far as we can tell at this point, 1923 is going to be the cutoff point after which nothing will ever enter the public domain again, lest you gain the ability to silkscreen your own mouseears t-shirts.
Go look up “Copyright Term Extension Act” on wikipedia… Because of the oddity of the way this Act passed, there was a brief period a few years ago when some of Joyce’s important work went public domain only subsequently to be yoked back under copyright. Movies were made during that period, for instance, that couldn’t be made today. Christ: public readings were given that can’t be given today. (See for instance the huge fiasco in Dublin during Bloomsday 2004).
(BTW - I’m not an expert on any of this. For a few good reasons, I keep low and plug my ears when this topic comes up… But this is my understanding of how it does and will continue to work with JJ...)
There was an article in the New Yorker several years ago about this. If you look up “Stephen Joyce” on their website, you should find it.
Basically, Disney doesn’t want to lose rights to Mickey Mouse, whose first appearance was in Steamboat Willy, in 1928. So they keep pushing the length of copyright back.
Some good news, though: The New Yorker article discusses a book by Carol Shloss about Joyce’s daughter, and Stephen sued Shloss since the book used letters by Joyce that were under copyright. The courts rules in favor of Shloss, however, so hopefully that sets a precedent that academic work does not need to be held to the tight restrictions Stephen Joyce wants.