David Pierce – författare

`Is there one who understands me?''

So wrote James Joyce towards the end of his final work, Finnegans Wake. The question continues to be asked about the author who claimed that he had put so many enigmas into Ulysses that it would `keep the professors busy for centuries'' arguing over what he meant. For Joyce this was a way of ensuring his immortality, but it could also be claimed that the professors have served to distance Joyce from his audience, turning his writings into museum pieces, pored over and admired, but rarely touched. In this remarkable book, steeped in the learning gained from a lifetime''s reading, David Pierce blends word, life and image to bring the works of one of the great modern writers within the reach of every reader. With a sharp eye for detail and an evident delight in the cadences of Joyce''s work, Pierce proves a perfect companion, always careful and courteous, pausing to point out what might otherwise be missed. Like the best of critics, his suggestive readings constantly encourage the reader back to Joyce''s own words.

Beginning with Dubliners and closing with Finnegans Wake, Reading Joyce is full of insights that are original and illuminating, and Pierce succeeds in presenting Joyce as an author both more straightforward and infinitely more complex than we had perhaps imagined. T. S. Eliot wrote of Joyce''s masterpiece, Ulysses, that it is `a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape''. With David Pierce as a guide, the debt we owe to Joyce becomes clearer, and the need to flee is greatly reduced.

`Is there one who understands me?''

So wrote James Joyce towards the end of his final work, Finnegans Wake. The question continues to be asked about the author who claimed that he had put so many enigmas into Ulysses that it would `keep the professors busy for centuries'' arguing over what he meant. For Joyce this was a way of ensuring his immortality, but it could also be claimed that the professors have served to distance Joyce from his audience, turning his writings into museum pieces, pored over and admired, but rarely touched. In this remarkable book, steeped in the learning gained from a lifetime''s reading, David Pierce blends word, life and image to bring the works of one of the great modern writers within the reach of every reader. With a sharp eye for detail and an evident delight in the cadences of Joyce''s work, Pierce proves a perfect companion, always careful and courteous, pausing to point out what might otherwise be missed. Like the best of critics, his suggestive readings constantly encourage the reader back to Joyce''s own words.

Beginning with Dubliners and closing with Finnegans Wake, Reading Joyce is full of insights that are original and illuminating, and Pierce succeeds in presenting Joyce as an author both more straightforward and infinitely more complex than we had perhaps imagined. T. S. Eliot wrote of Joyce''s masterpiece, Ulysses, that it is `a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape''. With David Pierce as a guide, the debt we owe to Joyce becomes clearer, and the need to flee is greatly reduced.

`Is there one who understands me?'

So wrote James Joyce towards the end of his final work, Finnegans Wake. The question continues to be asked about the author who claimed that he had put so many enigmas into Ulysses that it would `keep the professors busy for centuries' arguing over what he meant. For Joyce this was a way of ensuring his immortality, but it could also be claimed that the professors have served to distance Joyce from his audience, turning his writings into museum pieces, pored over and admired, but rarely touched. In this remarkable book, steeped in the learning gained from a lifetime's reading, David Pierce blends word, life and image to bring the works of one of the great modern writers within the reach of every reader. With a sharp eye for detail and an evident delight in the cadences of Joyce's work, Pierce proves a perfect companion, always careful and courteous, pausing to point out what might otherwise be missed. Like the best of critics, his suggestive readings constantly encourage the reader back to Joyce's own words.

Beginning with Dubliners and closing with Finnegans Wake, Reading Joyce is full of insights that are original and illuminating, and Pierce succeeds in presenting Joyce as an author both more straightforward and infinitely more complex than we had perhaps imagined. T. S. Eliot wrote of Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, that it is `a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape'. With David Pierce as a guide, the debt we owe to Joyce becomes clearer, and the need to flee is greatly reduced. 

This concise new work shows that James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is as fresh today as it was when first published over a century ago. And why.   Its special character lies in its appeal to successive generations of readers, who take from it what they need to understand themselves and the changing world around them.   Joyce, the invisible artist, insisted on keeping separate text and interpretation, so we can never be sure how to proceed, or how to proceed with certainty.  For the general reader and the student textual annotations may help. But the reader who enjoys reading does not want to be unduly distracted by notes. So in this new book the seasoned critic David Pierce focuses on the contemporary appeal of A Portrait and on the original contexts and comparisons with other writers. In doing so, he explores with clarity the distinctive contribution Joyce has made in particular to our understanding of consciousness and narrative. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  was James Joyce ’s first novel to be published, two years after his short story​ collection Dubliners (1914). In a  modernist , experimental style it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus , who shares much as a character with his author and whose name reminds us of  Daedalus , the craftsman of  Greek mythology . With this novel Joyce found a way of writing about his past, his city and country, his determination to succeed as a writer, and his ideas about history and politics as well as art and aesthetics.  The work used techniques that Joyce developed more fully in  Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939), and its publication earned Joyce his place at the forefront of literary modernism. 

This concise new work shows that James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is as fresh today as it was when first published over a century ago. And why.   Its special character lies in its appeal to successive generations of readers, who take from it what they need to understand themselves and the changing world around them.   Joyce, the invisible artist, insisted on keeping separate text and interpretation, so we can never be sure how to proceed, or how to proceed with certainty.  For the general reader and the student textual annotations may help. But the reader who enjoys reading does not want to be unduly distracted by notes. So in this new book the seasoned critic David Pierce focuses on the contemporary appeal of A Portrait and on the original contexts and comparisons with other writers. In doing so, he explores with clarity the distinctive contribution Joyce has made in particular to our understanding of consciousness and narrative. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  was James Joyce ’s first novel to be published, two years after his short story​ collection Dubliners (1914). In a  modernist , experimental style it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus , who shares much as a character with his author and whose name reminds us of  Daedalus , the craftsman of  Greek mythology . With this novel Joyce found a way of writing about his past, his city and country, his determination to succeed as a writer, and his ideas about history and politics as well as art and aesthetics.  The work used techniques that Joyce developed more fully in  Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939), and its publication earned Joyce his place at the forefront of literary modernism.