James Joyce

Uh, s- some of the, some of the biggest I'm afraid aren't going to get much of a, of a look in.

I mean, one biggie that we're going to be skating by is James Joyce's Ulysses.

Uh, um, it's not really going to make an appearance, though here just to, uh, uh, give a plug for Jonti's podcast, um, Secret Life of Books, uh, he has done James Joyce's Ulysses-

Ulysses-In a recent three-parter, uh, on SLB, as they call it, Secret Life of Books.

Um, so if, if you're desperate for the Joycean angle, go to that.

And how do you follow it so that you look at...

I mean, I guess James Joyce's The Dead is the all-time great party scene, and then there are great party scenes in Anna Karenina.

So you just take a party scene and you go, "Okay, how did," you know, what's the camera eye, in a way, following people around this party scene, and who's talking and when are they talking, and how do you know when the guests arrive, and how do you know? So you just use them as models.

I mean, the, the, those how to write books, you know, in general, how to write things.

Can you tell me more about party scenes? What makes for a good party scene?

[laughs] Well, since I mentioned Anna Karenina, you know, Anna is dancing with Vronsky, right? She's met Vronsky on the train, and there's this instant attraction, and, and Kitty, who is in love with and, I guess at that point, s- still engaged to Vronsky, is, uh, is the one who would most notice the two of them are dancing.

So wisely, Tolstoy chooses to write big parts of the scene from her point of view because no one else at that party is really particularly interested in the, that particular couple dancing, but she's the one who would focus in on it, right? I mean, the Joyce's The Dead is more a sort of cacophony of voices, but, but pretty soon you learn who everybody is.

I mean, y- you know, again, without going through the story line by line, it would be pretty soon you learn who everybody is, and you learn what the concerns are, and also this story's called The Dead, you know, so you know there's some, [laughs] you know there's something going on having to do with death and, and, and of course the hostesses are ancient, so everyone at the, everyone at the party is m- at some point thinking, uh, how many more of these parties are they going to give? And then there are all these sort of themes that are going through the party like Ireland, Irish history, I- Irish politics, music, um, religion.