Never Too Young to Start Reading James Joyce

Books have always been part of my life. I do not know when I was given my first book, but I know they are always there. My earliest memory is of a brightly illustrated version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. There was also at some point an Atlas of the World with illustrations of animals. I remember going over it, page by page, for years. So when my first child was born, I passed this love of books on to her. And the same with her brother three years later. They were barely a few weeks old and they would get to listen to stories, and hold the books and play with them. Meg and Mog were favourites. So were the Billy Goats Gruff. As they got older I was given the chance to catch up on the classics of English language children’s literature (having missed out of them as a child since I was brought up in the French language): the original Winnie the Poo (not the sanitized Disney version), the genius of Roald Dahl, the fabulous Narnia Chronicles (I have been slowly savouring those again in the last few months) but to name of few.

So when Cathal was born, the magic was passed on by his parents, and myself, and books appeared around him within a very short time. In a way, they became quite important for him, especially when he was very sick in hospital after his open-heart surgery. I noticed that reading to him a short book, pointing out to the picture, getting him to “touch & feel” were ideally suited to him at that time: easy activities as they required little physical effort, and just enough to get his mind off the pain for a while.

I have kept one of the books his mother and uncle particularly liked. I consider it a little treasure. We read it every time Cathal comes to my home for a sleep-over (this is our thing, just the two of us, with no one else involved). It is the Cat and the Devil, originally a letter written by James Joyce himself to his grand-son Stephen in 1936 and put into book form, with wonderful illustrations, with Stephen Joyce’s blessing.

As I read it to Cathal, he listens with great attention, as if enraptured by the rhythm of the long and musical sentences, and by the sounds of the language, or languages, as French appears in the end, spoken by the Devil himself. I am not sure if he understands the story, or if he gets the wonderful humour present at every page – as any good story, humour is as much at the level of the 4 year old to whom the letter was addressed, as at the level of the adults who must have read it out loud to him. I mean the Lord Mayor of a little French town is called Alfred Byrne (true, just like a very famous Dublin Lord Mayor), and the Devil when very angry “can speak quite bad French very well… with a strong Dublin accent”. Wonderful.

And then, once I am finished reading, Cathal invariably takes the book and reads it back to me.

This has reminded me of the inspiring Karen Gaffney, a young woman who just happens to have DS. Last year, at the World Down Syndrome Congress in Dublin I heard her say that her favourite reads were Macbeth and Harry Potter. And I then thought, nothing is impossible for Cathal, all it takes is encouragement. So there it is:

Didn’t I tell you? Never too young to start reading James Joyce.



And have you noticed that at the end he says “more” as he wants another book? Just like me, can’t put them down.

BBBBook!

Ireland. Land of Saints and Scholars.

I am not much into Saints. Scholars are more my thing. Actually more novelists and playwrights.

If I was playing the Word Association Game and asked to give the first name that came into my head for “Irish playwrights”, my answer would be Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde. In particular I would think of a powerful interpretation of Beckett’s En Attendant Godot (which Beckett himself translated, giving us “Waiting for Godot”) in a 100 seater theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris (gosh, that was about 35 years ago! Before I moved to Ireland) that had me in a daze for ages afterwards. The first time I saw the Importance of Being Ernest – it was on TV, a BBC production if I remember right – introduced me to Wilde’s humour just as I had acquired enough English to understand all the words, sentences, repartees, double meanings. I was hooked.

Continuing this game, say “Irish novelist” and I answer James Joyce. I have been brave enough to make my way through most of Ulysses… not all, mind you, but I will get there, in time. Only a few months back I re(re-re)read Dubliners. And once again I was struck by how many people I currently know who could so easily have been the models of some the characters in these short stories. To me, the mark of a true artist is the ability to reveal the timeless core of the human psyche.

Strangely, both Joyce and Beckett left Ireland to set up life in France. Strangely both Wilde and Beckett died in France.

This brings me to my other side: French writers. There the choice is harder for me, because, instead of chancing on works and appreciating them for what they bring up in me, I was steeped into French literature from an early age. Hard to distinguish the tree from the forest. Yet if the game went along the lines of “favourite novel” I would shout Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos. A master piece of construction, a web spun through letters going back and forth between the various characters, each presenting a very different interpretation of the events. And a master piece of exploration, dissecting and exposing the very best and the very worst of human motives. Still so real today!

Now say to me “French Playwright” and I answer: Molière. Of course! The one and only! Again what has always appealed to me is the seemingly simplistic universality of his characters. Some feat when we consider that all of his work is very firmly set in a specific period of time, the 17th century France of the Sun King Louis XIV.


I might be accused of playing it safe, coming up with such predictable giants. Sometimes the “giantness” is indeed justified. And I would not play the game with more recent or current writers. So many to choose from, the choice would be so influenced by my most recent reading!

Because I love reading. I love books. Always have, since I first learnt to read. And I have passed this on to my children. As tiny babies, a few months old, I would place books on their laps and read stories to them. Anything with colourful pictures and a bit of a plot, irrespective of the book not being for “that” age group. I have read to Cathal too, from early on. I find this is a special time for the two of us, quietly sitting side by side, close. I read and he listens, most of the time. He turns the pages, back and forth. It’s nice.

And then he takes matters into his own hands and does a critical review of today’s serving:


Genetically, Cathal is 75% Irish, 25% French (if there is such a thing). As you can see, I strongly encourage the scholarly side of his heritage! In particular I am keeping safe in my home a book I have salvaged from his mother and uncle’s childhood, a beautifully (and funnily) illustrated copy of Joyce’s letter to his grandson Stephen, The Cat and the Devil… can’t wait to read this one to him soon. The language is simply too truculent!

BBBBook! Indeed!