LOS
SUSCRIPTORES DEL ULYSSES DE JOYCE
Hacia
fines de 1920 se enviaron prospectos por todo el mundo a quienes se suponía
joycistas, anunciando que Ulises
sería publicado completo por Shakespeare
and Company, París, en el otoño de 1921. Estos prospectos eran muy
atrayentes, con un pequeño perfil del Joyce flaco y barbado de los días de
Zurich, fácilmente recortable para sus admiradores. Se anticiparon algunas
noticias de prensa, y una descripción de la futura edición, que se limitaría a
mil ejemplares: 100 en papel holandés, firmados; 150 en vergé d’Arches, y 750 ejemplares corrientes. Precio: 250 por los de
vergé d’Arches, 150 por los comunes y
350 francos por los ejemplares de lujo firmados. Era caro, no hay duda, al
menos así le pareció a Bernard Shaw. No supe de otras quejas, sin embargo, y
teniendo en cuenta los siete años que Joyce había empleado en escribir el
libro, y la pérdida de su vista, no me parecía tan caro.
Siguiendo
con los prospectos, y de paso, fue Adrienne Monnier quien los diseñó, porque yo
era enteramente inexperta en esa materia. El reverso tenía una fórmula en
blanco que había que llenar, firmar, recortar y devolver a Shakespeare and Company. Después había que esperar un buen rato.
Harriet
Weaver me había dado una lista completa de los lectores de su Egoist, joycistas desde que en 1914
apareciera en esa revista el Retrato de
un artista, en serie. Estas personas fueron, por supuesto, las primeras en
recibir nuestra “invitación a suscribirse” a Ulises, y muchas de ellas se
suscribieron a vuelta de correo.
¡Qué
cosa tan animada era ese Egoist, con
sus editoras Dora Marsdon y Harriet Weaver (ésta era todo lo contrario del
título), y sus co-editores Richard Aldington, H. D. y T. S. Eliot, con el
revolucionario Ezra Pound perturbando a los adormilados georgianos!
Creo
que fue Pound quien descubrió al escritor irlandés James Joyce, exilado allá en
Trieste... ¿y qué fue el descubrimiento de Moscovia, por Hackluyt, comparado
con ése? El Retrato de un artista
había sido toda una conmoción para los “Egoístas”. El mismo H. G. Wells lo
había encontrado muy interesante) y Miss Weaver tenía toda la intención de
publicar Ulises, la nueva novela de
Joyce. Cuando hubo objeciones en el sentido de que no era material apropiado
para una revista, decidió liquidar Egoist,
ya que en adelante no tendría sentido si no podía colaborar Joyce en ella. En
su lugar, abrió la editorial Egoist,
y anunció la publicación de Ulises en
forma de libro.
No
dispongo de espacio para exponer aquí las razones por las cuales los planes de
Miss Weaver se frustraron, ya que esto trata sólo de mis suscriptores, y de
“cómo aumentaron” — empezando por los “Egoístas”.
Había
bastantes suscriptores franceses. Además de su curiosidad por ver lo que Valery
Larbaud describía como la “reaparición sensacional y triunfante de Irlanda en
las Letras Europeas”, nuestros amigos franceses contaban con Ulises para fomentar sus estudios
ingleses.
Valery
Larbaud, uno de los más admirados escritores franceses, sabía varios idiomas
tan bien como el propio; hablaba español sin ningún acento, y también italiano;
respecto a su inglés, basta releer un número atrasado del Suplemento literario del Times
para ver que era capaz de discutir con eminentes shakespearianos el uso de la
palabra motley en Shakespeare. Pero
lo que más interesaba a Larbaud era la nueva literatura de todas partes, que
seguía atentamente.
Shakespeare and
Company,
una improvisación norteamericana, tenía el honor de ser ahijada de Valery
Larbaud. Él me trajo una pequeña “Casa de Shakespeare” de porcelana, que
conservaba desde niño; también unos soldados de juguete para custodiarla, un
séquito de hombrecitos de West Point, y varios oficiales del Estado Mayor del
General Washington, montados en finos caballos blancos o alazanes. Larbaud
había mandado hacer estos soldaditos, poniendo él mismo el exacto número de
botones, etc., de acuerdo con los documentos que poseía. Insistía en la
exactitud de los botones. Lo militar no me interesaba mucho, pero estas
criaturitas eran tan encantadoras que me enamoré de ellas y me gustaba
visitarlas todo el tiempo en el estuche de vidrio que ocupaban, junto con la
“Casa de Shakespeare”, en la puerta de entrada.
Larbaud
y yo teníamos el mismo gusto en materia de libros, y un día le dije que estaba
en París un escritor irlandés que yo suponía le iba a interesar. Así, Larbaud
se fue con el Retrato de un artista
bajo el brazo. Pocos días después volvió diciendo que lo había hallado
tremendamente interesante, y que le gustaría conocer al autor.
Acordé
la entrevista, que tuvo lugar en mi librería, en vísperas de Navidad, 1920. Se
hicieron amigos inmediatamente. ¿Quién —me pregunto— pudo haberse resistido,
tanto a Larbaud como a Joyce? Supe que la amistad de Larbaud fue una de las
mayores suertes que le cupo a Joyce. Así comenzó una relación que creo fue
única entre escritores, ya que a menudo suelen ser más bien intolerantes unos
con otros.
Larbaud
y Adrienne Monnier se unieron, entonces, para trazar los planes de una
conquista de Francia por Joyce. Larbaud decidió presentar a Joyce en una causerie en la librería de Adrienne, La Maison des Amis des Livres, y
traducir algunos extractos del Ulises
para ilustrar su charla.
La
lectura tuvo lugar en enero de 1921. El producto de las entradas estaba
destinado a Joyce, que en aquel momento soportaba una de sus crisis
financieras. El público era en su mayoría francés, estando América representada
por Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Djuna Barnes, Robert McAlmon, y uno o dos
amigos más pertenecientes a Little Review.
La
conferencia de Larbaud fue muy aplaudida; los párrafos de Ulises que había traducido causaron gran impresión. Jimmy Light, un
actor de Little Review, recitó un
pasaje de Sirens. (Me parece oírlo
ahora, repasando en mi trastienda ‘‘Bald,
Pater was a waiter — hard of hearing”...) Jimmy también fue muy aplaudido.
Joyce estaba escondido tímidamente tras un biombo en el cuarto trasero; Larbaud
lo arrastró afuera y lo besó en ambas mejillas mientras el público vitoreaba y
vitoreaba. Tales demostraciones eran raras en los franceses, sobre todo los del
sector de Adrienne Monnier, que juzgaban siempre muy prudentemente las obras de
esta índole.
André
Gide, por supuesto, se apresuró a suscribirse en cuanto se enteró de las
tribulaciones de su autor. Eso era típico de Gide. Era siempre el primero en
sacar cabeza entre los franceses.
Mientras
tanto, las suscripciones de mi país aumentaban, aunque no sé cómo creían estos
suscriptores americanos que iba yo a introducir sus ejemplares en el país. No
se me ocurrió que podrían surgir dificultades en el puerto de New York, tal vez
porque estaba tan atareada con los problemas de la publicación que no tenía
tiempo de pensar en el futuro.
Pequeñas
librerías —hay pequeñas librerías en todas partes— de Chicago, New York y otros
puntos, enviaron grandes pedidos de Ulises.
Y también lo hizo John Quinn, el del gran corazón, el irascible santo patrono
de los modernos, cuyo pedido venía acompañado por las más minuciosas
instrucciones para mandarle sus ejemplares. Quinn, poseedor entonces de los
manuscritos de Ulises y defensor de
Miss Anderson y Miss Heap en el juicio de Little
Review, cobró un interés paternal por todo lo concerniente al libro. Yo
recibía amonestaciones de Mr. Quinn increpándome por lo que él suponía mala
administración de la empresa, hasta que un día bajó de un barco y entró en Shakespeare and Company para echar un
vistazo a las premisas y a su tonta propietaria. Estábamos como él temía. La
librería quedaba entonces en la empinada callejuela Dupuytren, en un precioso
localito que había sido de una lavandera. Temo que los muebles de nuestra
oficina no fueran comparables a los de algunos de nuestros colegas neoyorkinos
en sus impresionantes rascacielos. Sin embargo, en su segunda visita nos
encontró en un local algo mayor, a la vuelta de la esquina, en la Rue de l’Odéon,
a donde nos habíamos mudado para estar trente al negocio de la hermana de
Adrienne Monnier. Mr. Quinn recalcó que se alegraba de que Ulises no apareciera en “esa choza”.
La
muchedumbre de Little Review me
ahorró mucho franqueo al venir a París a suscribirse personalmente. La
prohibición de la “Sociedad pro Supresión del Vicio” era más de los que ellos
podían soportar después de la reducción de tantos de sus placeres, y entonces,
con su Reina de las Abejas en el medio, se establecieron en enjambre en la
orilla izquierda del Sena. Escritores y editores, artistas y músicos, lectores
y bebedores de todos los Estados Unidos llenaban los cafés de Montparnasse, el
Saint-Germain-de-Prés de aquellos días de pre-Sartre. La mayoría entraban y
salían de Shakespeare and Company.
Tuve
algunos hábiles ayudantes para conseguir suscripciones, siendo el más activo,
naturalmente, Ezra Pound, quien obtuvo hasta la de Yeats.
También
estaba Robert MacAlmon, cuya vida social lo ponía en contacto con muchos
probables suscriptores de Ulises. Por
la mañana, antes de ir a su casa a acostarse, solía detenerse en la librería
para traerme otro “precipitado montón” de suscripciones, que algunas veces
ostentaban firmas bastante zigzagueantes.
Uno
de mis clientes favoritos, Thornton Wilder, que estaba entonces en París, y
John Dos Passos, que entraba y salía, como de costumbre, no necesitaban apremio
para suscribirse a algo de Joyce. Respecto a un joven escritor que se llamaba a
sí mismo “su mejor cliente”, título justificado, ya que nadie podía negar que
todos los días compraba algo en mi librería... bien, él hizo un buen pedido de Ulises, a juzgar por varias solicitudes
de suscripciones firmadas por Ernest Hemingway.
Todos
estos suscriptores eran gentes que podían pagar 150 francos por Ulises. No hacían más que cumplir con su
deber, como dijera Adrienne. Pero qué decir de tantos artistas pobres de
Montparnasse, que omitían gran número de comidas, manteniéndose con fondos
microscópicos, y que sin embargo eran suscriptores de Ulises. A veces un grupo compartía un ejemplar. Un día tres
artistas me trajeron una suscripción: cada uno iba a pagar el tercio del
precio. Parecían bastante enfermizos, “all
ganted up”, como solía decir el cowboy amigo de Cyprian. Me explicaron que
suprimían gastos permaneciendo en cama durante cosa de una semana, de vez en
cuando —así no tenían tanta hambre como al estar levantados y moviéndose.
Tonterías de su parte, tal vez, pero como yo de joven estuve tal como ellos,
comprendí qué sacrificios pueden hacerse por un libro.
Llegaron
suscripciones de lugares tan lejanos como Sarawak, las Colonias del Estrecho de
Malaca, China, Borneo, etc., y los chicos coleccionistas de estampillas
curioseaban con envidia las que yo tenía en mi mesa.
Joyce,
que había dicho: “No venderá ni un ejemplar de ese libro aburrido”, vigilaba
—tanto como se puede vigilar con un ojo tapado— el creciente flujo de
suscriptores, y estaba inmensamente reconfortado ante su evidencia.
Le
dije un día que iba a mandar una circular a Bernard Shaw. Me parecía, después
de lo que Desmond Fitzgerald me había dicho de su benevolencia, que todo lo que
tenía que hacer era ponerlo al tanto de Ulises.
Joyce estaba seguro de que rehusaría, y me propuso una apuesta: un pañuelo
verde de seda contra una caja de Voltigeurs,
su cigarros favoritos. Yo estaba decidida a apostar cualquier cosa y a enviar
la circular.
Recibí
una carta que Mr. Shaw gentilmente me autoriza transcribir. Dice así:
10 Adelphi Terrace
London W. C. 2.
June 11th. 1921.
Estimada
señora:
He
leído varios fragmentos de Ulises en
serie. Es un asqueroso testimonio de un repugnante aspecto de la civilización;
pero es verídico; me gustaría poner un cordón alrededor de Dublin, encerrar en
él a toda persona del sexo masculino entre los 15 y los 30 años, obligarla a
leerlo y preguntarle si alcanza a ver algo interesante en toda esa irrisión y
esa obscenidad mal hablada y mal pensada. Es posible que a usted le parezca
arte. Usted es probablemente (ya ve que no la conozco) una joven bárbara,
embelesada por las excitaciones y los entusiasmos que el arte desata en sujetos
apasionados. Pero para mi es odiosamente real: he andado por esas calles y
conozco esas tiendas, y he oído y tomado parte en esas conversaciones. Escapé
de ellas a Inglaterra a los veinte años, y cuarenta después aprendo en los
libros del señor Joyce que Dublin es aún lo que era: que los jóvenes siguen
bobeando, y cometiendo, a mandíbula floja, las mismas picardías de 1870. Sin
embargo, consuela un poco encontrar al fin a alguien que lo ha sentido tan
profundamente como para encarar el horror de fijarlo por escrito, usando su
genio literario en obligar a la gente a que lo afronte también. En Irlanda
tratan de que un gato sea limpio frotándole el hocico en su propia mugre. El
señor Joyce ha ensayado el mismo tratamiento con el sujeto humano. Espero que
dé resultado.
Puedo
advertir otras cualidades y otros pasajes en Ulises, pero no me inspiran ningún comentario especial.
Debo
agregar, ya que el prospecto implica una invitación a la compra, que yo soy un
maduro caballero irlandés, y si usted se imagina que un caballero irlandés —y
mucho menos en la edad madura— pagaría 150 francos por un libro, es que usted
conoce muy poco a mis compatriotas.
Fielmente,
(firmado) G. Bernard Shaw
Miss Sylvia Beach.
8, Rue Dupuytren,
Paris (VI)
Traducción de MARÍA ELENA WALSH
Revista Sur, febrero de 1950, año XVIII
ULYSSES IN PARIS
Joyce’s chief concern at this time was the fate of Ulysses. It was still appearing, or
trying to appear, in the Little Review,
but the future looked dark for both the book and the magazine.
In England, Miss Harriet Weaver had already fought and
lost her battle of Ulysses. It was
Miss Weaver, pioneer Joycean, who had published in her review, the Egoist, A Portrait of the Artist, which first gained recognition for the
new Irish writer James Joyce. He had been discovered by Ezra Pound, a great showman
and the leader of a gang that hung out around the Egoist and included such suspicious characters as Richard Aldington,
H. D., T. S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, and others almost as bad.
A Portrait of the Artist made a
great impression in England. Even H. G. Wells came out in praise of it, and
Miss Weaver intended to give her subscribers “Mr. Joyce’s” second novel, Ulysses. Five instalments did appear in
the Egoist in 1919. It went no
further than the episode of the Wandering Rocks. Miss Weaver was having
printing troubles and, besides, she was getting letters from subscribers
complaining that Ulysses wasn’t suitable
for a periodical that had its place on the table in the living room with the
family reading matter. Some of them even went so far as to cancel their
subscriptions.
Since there were objections to publishing Ulysses in a periodical, Miss Weaver, rather
than give in, sacrificed the review. The Egoist
review turned into the Egoist Press, “overnight”, as she expressed it. Her sole
object in making this move was to publish James Joyce’s entire works. She announced
the “forthcoming publication of Ulysses”
but she was unable to carry out her plans.
Miss Weaver attempted to bring out A Portrait of the Artist in book form,
but was unable to find a printer who would set it up, English printers being
extremely wary of Joyce’s name. She made an arrangement with Mr. Huebsch, Joyce’s
publisher in New York, whereby he sent her sheets of his edition which were then
issued under the Egoist imprint.
Miss Weaver explained to me why English printers are
so finicky. Their prudence is indeed quite excusable. If a book is found objectionable
by the authorities, the printer as well as the publisher is held responsible and
must pay the penalty. No wonder he scrutinizes every little word that might get
him into trouble. Joyce once showed me the proofs of Mr. Jonathan Cape’s new printing
of A Portrait of the Artist, and I remember
my amazement at the printer’s queries in the margins.
Miss Weaver saw that the difficulties would be too great
if she persisted in her efforts to bring out Ulysses, and she saw no hope, at least for the present, of succeeding
in doing so. Moreover, she was warned by her friends that she would only let herself
in for a lot of unpleasantness. So Ulysses
had wandered overseas to the Little Review,
and was again in trouble.
A big fight was going on between the Little Review and the American authorities.
Joyce brought me disturbing news from the battlefield.
Three seizures of the magazine by officials of the United
States Post Office, on the grounds of obscenity, failed to break the spirit of
the editors, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap; but a fourth one, which was instigated
by John S. Sumner of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, put an end to the
magazine. Eventually, Miss Anderson and Miss Heap were tried for the
publication of obscenity. Thanks to the brilliant defense of John Quinn, they
got off with a fine of one hundred dollars, but by that time they were ruined financially.
Sad was the disappearance of the liveliest little magazine of the period!
Joyce came to announce the news. It was a heavy blow for
him, and I felt, too, that his pride was hurt. In a tone of complete discouragement,
he said, “My book will never come out now”.
All hope of publication in the English-speaking countries,
at least for a long time to come, was gone. And here in my little bookshop sat James
Joyce, sighing deeply.
It occurred to me that something might be done, and I asked:
“Would you let Shakespeare and Company
have the honor of bringing out your Ulysses?”
He accepted my offer immediately and joyfully. I thought
it rash of him to entrust his great Ulysses
to such a funny little publisher. But he seemed delighted, and so was I. We parted,
both of us, I think, very much moved. He was to come back next day to hear what
Adrienne Monnier, “Shakespeare and
Company’s Adviser”, as Joyce called her, thought of my plan. I always consulted
her before taking an important step. She was such a wise counselor, and she
was, besides, a sort of partner in the firm.
Adrienne thoroughly approved of my idea. She had heard
a great deal about Joyce from me, and I had no trouble convincing her of the importance
of rescuing Ulysses.
When Joyce came back the next day, I was glad to see him
so cheerful. As for me, imagine how happy I was to find myself suddenly the
publisher of the work I admired above all. I was lucky, I thought.
Undeterred by lack of capital, experience, and all the
other requisites of a publisher, I went right ahead with Ulysses.
***
Adrienne Monnier’s printer, Monsieur Maurice Darantière, came
to see me. He and his father before him were “Master Printers”. The
works of Huysmans and many another writer of the same period had been printed by
Darantière in Dijon.
Darantière was much interested in what I told him about
the banning of Ulysses in the Enghsh-speaking
countries. I announced my intention of bringing out this work in France, and asked
him if he would print it. At the same time, I laid bare my financial situation,
and warned him that there could be no question of paying for the printing till the
money from the subscriptions came in —if it did come in. The work would have to
be done with that understanding.
M. Darantière agreed to take on the printing of Ulysses on these terms. Very friendly and
sporting of him, I must say!
Joyce was now haunting the bookshop to keep in touch
with events step by step. I asked him for suggestions, and usually took them. But
not always; for instance, he thought that if a dozen or so copies were printed there
would be some left over. A thousand copies were to be printed, I told him firmly.
(There were none left over.)
A prospectus was printed announcing that Ulysses, by James Joyce, would be
published “complete as written” (a most important point) by Shakespeare and Company, Paris, in “the
autumn of 1921”. The prospectus stated that the edition was to be limited to a
thousand copies: one hundred printed on Dutch paper and signed, at 350 francs;
one hundred and fifty on vergé-d’Arches,
at 250 francs; and the remaining seven hundred and fifty on ordinary paper, at
150 francs. There was a postage stamp-sized photo of the author, gaunt and
bearded —the one taken in Zurich— and excerpts from articles by those critics who
had spotted Ulysses on its first appearance in the Little Review. On the back of the prospectus was a blank form to be
filled in with the subscriber’s name and his choice of the kind of copy he
wanted. Adrienne, who had done some publishing herself, initiated me into the
mysteries of limited editions, on the subject of which I was totally ignorant.
It was thanks to her also that my prospectus was professional-looking; you
might have thought I was an experienced hand at this sort of thing. Monsieur
Darantière brought me samples of his finest paper and a specimen of his famous
type, and I learned for the first time the rules that govern de luxe editions.
As yet I was only in the apprentice stage of
bookselling. I had the lending library, too, and the place was swirling with young
writers and their budding enterprises. Now suddenly I found myself a publisher
as well, and of what a book! It was time to look around for an assistant. A
charming Greek girl, Mademoiselle Myrsine Moschos, a member of the library, said
that she would like to help me. The job would be ill-paid, and I did my best to
dissuade Mlle. Moschos from accepting it, pointing out that she could do much better
for herself in something else, but she had made up her mind and still wanted to
come, luckily for Shakespeare and Company.
Joyce was delighted to hear of my Greek assistant. He thought
it a good omen for his Ulysses. Omen
or no omen, I was delighted to have someone to help me now, and someone who was
a wonderful helper. Myrsine worked side by side with me for nine years. She was
invaluable as an assistant, as interested as I in everything going on, not
afraid of manual work, of which there is a great deal to be done in a bookshop,
or of the still harder and more delicate job of dealing with the customers and
understanding the needs of the members of the library, which required a lot of
understanding.
One of Myrsine’s great assets was her large family of sisters,
on whom we could always fall back in time of need. Helene, the youngest of the
Moschos daughters, acted as messenger between Joyce and the bookshop. She would
set off in the morning with a brief case stuffed with mail, books, theatre tickets,
and other things, and return with a load just as heavy. Joyce awaited what he
called her “t’undering step” —she had rather a heavy step for such a small
person. When all her messenger business was done, he would perhaps detain her
to read something in a magazine aloud to him, and he was probably more
interested in Helene’s pronunciation, for instance, of “Doublevé Vé Yats” (W.
B. Yeats), than in the article itself.
Myrsine’s father, Dr. Aloschos, was a nomadic medical
man. He had wandered almost as much as Odysseus, and had had nine children in
as many countries. Dr. Moschos introduced to me a man who had outdone Ulysses
in cunning, but whose cunning had turned out to be somewhat of a boomerang.
This man was stone deaf, but had not always been so. To evade the draft when he
came up for military service, he pretended to be deaf. He was exempted, but to
be safe he kept up his deafness for some time. Then, when it was no longer
necessary to continue his strategy, he found he had completely lost his
hearing, and for good. I don’t know whether this astounding case was ever reported
to learned bodies, or whether or not an ear specialist would believe it, but it
is true.
Myrsine had a good many friends from oriental
countries. Among these was a young prince, heir to the throne of Cambodia and a
student at the Medical School in Paris. This young man changed his name from
Ritarasi to Ulysses in honor of Joyce’s masterpiece.
***
Subscriptions for Ulysses
began coming in fast, and were piled up according to their nationality. All of
my customers and many of Adrienne’s were among them; nobody escaped from the
rue de l’Odéon without subscribing. Some of Adrienne’s French friends amused me
very much when they admitted that their English vocabulary was limited but that
they were pinning their hopes on Ulysses to enlarge it. Even André Gide, the
first of our French friends to rush to my bookshop and fill in one of the
subscription blanks, must have had some difficulty in reading Ulysses, though he always carried some
English book or other in his pocket. I’m sure, however, that Gide came
immediately not so much to subscribe for Ulysses
as to show a friendly interest, as he always did, in any of our rue de l’Odéon enterprises.
He was always sure to give his support to the cause of freedom of expression,
whenever the occasion arose. Gide’s gesture none the less surprised me, and I
thought it very touching. Adrienne said it was characteristic of him.
Ezra Pound made a sensation when he deposited on my
table one day a subscription blank with the signature of W. B. Yeats on it.
Ernest Hemingway was down for several copies of the book.
Then we had Robert McAlmon, who was untiring. He combed
the night clubs for subscribers, and every morning, early, on his way home,
left another “Hasty Bunch” of the signed forms, the signatures shghtly zigzag,
some of them. When Ulysses came out,
I met people who were surprised to find themselves subscribers, but they always
took it cheerfully when McAlmon explained it to them.
As time went on, I began to wonder why Bernard Shaw’s name
was not on the list of subscribers for Ulysses.
There were two reasons why I thought Shaw would subscribe: first, the revolutionary
aspect of Ulysses should appeal to
him; and, second, knowing Joyce’s circumstances, as he certainly couldn’t help
doing, he would want to come to the help of a fellow writer with a contribution
in the shape of a subscription. I had reason to think that, in such matters,
Shaw was kind; Mrs. Desmond Fitzgerald, who had been his secretary for a time,
told me that his generosity when appealed to was extraordinary, but that he
kept it very quiet.
I told Joyce that I intended to send a prospectus to
Shaw, and that I was sure he would subscribe immediately. Whereupon Joyce
laughed. “He’ll never subscribe”, said be.
Still, I thought he would.
“Will you bet on it?” Joyce asked. I took him up. It
was to be a box of Voltigeurs, the
little cigars he liked, against a silk handkerchief (to dry my eyes on?).
Presently I received the following letter from Shaw —which
he gave me his permission to print.
Dear Madam,
I have read fragments of Ulysses in its serial form. It is a revolting record of a
disgusting phase of civilization, but it is a truthful one; and I should like
to put a cordon round Dublin; round up every male person in it between the ages
of 15 and 30; force them to read all that foul mouthed, foul minded derision
and obscenity. To you possibly it may appeal as art; you are probably (you see I
don’t know you) a young barbarian beglamoured by the excitements and
enthusiasms that art stirs up in passionate material; but to me it is all
hideously real: I have walked those streets and know those shops and have heard
and taken part in those conversations. I escaped from them to England at the
age of twenty; and forty years later have learnt from the books of Mr. Joyce
that Dublin is still what it was, and young men are still drivelling in
slackjawed blackguardism just as they were in 1870. It is, however, some consolation
to find that at last somebody has felt deeply enough about it to face the
horror of writing it all down and using his literary genius to force people to
face it. In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own
filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject. I hope it
may prove successful.
I am aware that there are other qualities and other
passages in Ulysses; but they do not
call for any special comment from me. I must add, as the prospectus implies an
invitation to purchase, that I am an elderly Irish gentleman, and if you
imagine that any Irishman, much less an elderly one, would pay 150 francs for
such a book, you little know my countrymen.
Faithfully,
G. Bernard Shaw
So Joyce was right. And he won his box of Voltigeurs. I thought the letter from Shaw
quite characteristic and very entertaining. His description of me as a “young barbarian
beglamoured by the excitements and enthusiasms that art stirs up in passionate
material” made me laugh. It seemed to me that he had taken a great deal of
trouble to express what he felt about Ulysses,
and as for his purchasing it, he wasn’t obliged to do that. But I must confess I
was disappointed.
Shakespeare and Company
Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1959
