James Joyce

By: Edna O'Brien

Narrated by: Donada Peters

One of Ireland's best current novelists provides a thumbnail sketch of Ireland's greatest writer. A passionate and sensuous portrait, James Joyce is a return to the land of politics, history, saints, and scholars that shaped the creator of the 20th century's groundbreaking novel, Ulysses. O'Brien traces Joyce's early days as a rambunctious young Jesuit student; his falling in love with a tall, red-haired Galway girl named Nora Barnacle on Bloomsday; and his exile to Trieste where he found success, love, and finally, despair. Joyce's raucous life as well as thoughtful commentary on his major writings is presented without the academic accoutrements that have made other Joyce biographies so difficult to read. O'Brien captures with simplicity the brilliance and complexity of this great master.

©1999 Edna O'Brien (P)2000 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"O'Brien's triumph is that while celebrating Joyce and his ecstatic quest to lay image on counterimage...she has drawn the desperation and sadness of the man whose name means joy." (The New York Times Book Review)

"It is swift, moving, and brimming with the author's enthusiasms and her well-earned affection for a difficult colleague." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

"Both the author and narrator Donada Peters handle the language of Joyce's major works, especially Ulysses, exceptionally well....Peters is unusually good at using inflection and maintaining an appropriate pace....Perfect for Joyce novices and devotees alike." (AudioFile)

Enthusiastic and insightful

Edna O'Brien's short biography of James Joyce packs a lot in: Joyce's many changes of residence (sometimes pursued by landlords to whom he owed rent); his long, intimate relationship (and finally marriage) with Nora Barnacle; their two children, Giorgio and and the sadly doomed Lucia; Harriet Weaver, one of Joyce's major financial props and a long-suffering friend; Sylvia Beach, the bookstore owner in Paris who first published "Ulysses"; and Joyce's many illnesses, ocular and otherwise, ending with surgery for a perforated duodenal ulcer that resulted in his death.

It's a lively, raucous story, told with enough detail to make it memorable but not so much as to make it exhausting. O'Brien is particularly good at weaving references to the work into the narrative, and she includes outstanding summaries of many of the chapters of both "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake."

There are a couple of places where I think O'Brien is less charitable than she could have been. She says that Harriet Weaver began to get "cold feet" as the writing of "Finnegans Wake" dragged out for 5, 10, and 15 years. The implication is that somehow she let Joyce down when he needed it most. But there was plenty of subtext: O'Brien mentions, but doesn't dwell on, Joyce's extravagant living - first class hotels, European spas, fancy restaurants, gallons and gallons of fine wine - all of it on Weaver's dime. He was constantly burning through the money she sent him and asking for more. And it wasn't just her who had doubts about that final project: as he continued plowing through "Wake" and publishing segments of it here and there, many of the champions of "Ulysses" began to wonder about his judgment if not his sanity. (On the other hand, I should note that elsewhere O'Brien nominates Weaver for literary sainthood.)

All in all, it's a great listen; Donada Peters (= Nadia May = Wanda McCaddon) keeps the pace brisk and the tone warm. Gordon Bowker's new biography of Joyce would make a good audiobook as well (one can only hope), but even if that were to happen, this one would still be valuable: it hits all the high notes with enthusiasm, humor, and insight, and it never drags.

Excellant book. Poor narration

I found the book to be what I expected, a potted history of Joyce. Edna O' Brien gives a good account of Joyce's life and I would recommend it gladly. Only in book form however.
The reader spoiled it for me. When you bear in mind that twice in the book it's mentioned that Joyce claimed that if Dublin needed to be rebuilt his works could serve as a blueprint then it's inexcusable that time after time the reader mispronounces place-names. For example; howth, clongowes, caple street, finglas, chapelizod. I'm sure Joyce would have been horrified to hear it. Also, the 1950's Hollywood style Irish accent that was used was frankly insulting. I can't believe that an Irish narrator couldn't have been found. This is a fine example of wrong reader/wrong book. It spoiled an otherwise good book and hence my low rating. I'm contemplating whether or not to return it for a refund.