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THE SCANDAL OF ULYSSES

THE SENSATIONAL LIFE OF A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MASTERPIECE

The amazing printing history of James Joyce's Ulysses and its editorial disasters. Novelist Arnold (Running to Paradise, 1983, etc.) does a fine job of setting before us the horrors of getting a true version of Ulysses into print—which apparently hasn't happened yet. Though much of Arnold's material repeats itself, the repetition is all part of the disaster bred by Joyce himself and recently complicated by the three-volume Hans Walter Gabler critical edition (1984) and Gabler's one-volume Ulysses: The Corrected Text (1986), both of which caused a mudfest among Joyceans. While writing the novel in Paris (1914-21), Joyce sold individual chapters to American collectors. Those chapters also acted as the texts for first publication in The Little Review. The chapters, which bore Joyce's corrections, were never returned to him, while his own carbons had not been corrected. When The Egoist Press printed Ulysses, Joyce made entirely new corrections inconsistent with the already published chapters, which he could not get hold of, and meanwhile added nearly a third to the novel's bulk on his galley proofs. Joyce, who was going blind, was a poor editor and even embroidered imaginatively on his Paris printer's errors, thus establishing a first edition not only aswim with errors and gaga sentences but also wildly inconsistent with his own manuscripts. Moreover, when Joyce began Finnegan's Wake, he lost interest in correcting Ulysses. Joyce did help in the French translation of Ulysses, which sometimes helps to make sense of his English. When Gabler came along to establish a corrected text, however, he threw out the first edition, assembled only manuscripts, corrupt magazine versions, etc., and intuitively put together a still newer Ulysses that has incensed Joyceans. But the problems are infinitely more complicated than this. Essential.

Pub Date: July 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-312-08288-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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