Literary Allusions in
Finnegans
Wake 327
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Sandulescu-Literary-Allusions-in-Finnegans-Wake
I should have stressed that this was a work by a woman, and the womanly aspect of the thing didn't seem to me to be important.
I believe that the sex of an author is irrelevant, because any good writer contains both sexes.
But what we are hearing a lot of now, especially in American colleges, is the heresy that Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina can't be good portraits of women because they are written by men.
These are not aesthetic judgements: they are based on an a priori position which refuses to be modified by looking at the facts.
The feminists just don't want men to be able to understand women.
On the other hand, women are quite sure they understand men, and nobody finds fault with the male creations of the Bronte?
s or of Jane Austen.
Let's get out of literature and into life. I think I am quite capable of seeing the feminist point of view with regard to men's sexual attitude to women. I am strongly aware of the biological polarity, and it intrudes where women say it shouldn't. I am incapable of having neutral dealings with a woman. Consulting a woman doctor or lawyer, shaking hands with a woman prime minister, listening to a sermon by a woman minister of religion, I cannot help letting the daydream of a possible sexual relationship intrude. That this diminishes the woman in question I cannot deny. It depersonalizes her, since the whole sexual process necessarily involves depersonalization: this is nature's fault, not man's. Women object to their reduction into 'sex objects', but this
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 324
is what nature decrees when the erotic process gets to work. While writing this I am intermittently watching a most ravishing lady on French television. She is talking about Kirkegaard, but I am not taking much of that in. Aware of her charms as she must be, she ought to do what that beautiful lady professor of mathematics did at the University of Bologna in the Middle Ages - talk from behind a screen, meaning talk on the radio. But then the voice itself, a potent sex signal, would get in the way.
This awareness of the sexual power of women, I confess, induces attitudes which are, from the feminist angle, unworthy. At Brown's Hotel a woman porter proposed carrying my bags upstairs. It was her job, she said, but I could not let her do it. Old as I am, I still give up my seat to women far younger when on a bus or tube train. This is a protective tenderness wholly biological in origin. How can I apologise for it when it is built into my glands? Women are traditionally (but this is, I admit, possibly a man- imposed tradition) slower to be sexually moved than are men, and this enables them to maintain a neutral relationship with the other sex in offices and consulting rooms.
I believe what women tell me to believe - namely, that they can do anything men can do except impregnate and carry heavy loads (though this latter was contradicted by the girl at Brown's Hotel). Nevertheless, I have to carry this belief against weighty evidence to the contrary. Take music, for instance. Women have never been denied professional music instruction - indeed, they used to be encouraged to have it - but they have not yet produced a Mozart or a Beethoven. I am told by feminists that all this will change some day, when women have learned how to create like women composers, a thing men have prevented their doing in the past. This seems to me to be nonsense, and it would be denied by composers like Thea Musgrave and the shade of the late Dame Ethel Smyth (a great feminist herself, the composer of The March of the Women as well as The Wreckers and The Prison, which the liberationists ought to do something about reviving). I believe that artistic creativity is a male surrogate for biological creativity, and that if women do so well in literature it may be that literature is, as Mary McCarthy said, closer to gossip than to art. But no
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 325
one will be happier than I to see women produce the greatest art of all time, so long as women themselves recognise that the art is more important than the artist.
I see that most, if not all, of what I say above is likely to cause feminist rage and encourage further orders to pink-pig manufacturers (did the Virago Press search for a woman confectioner? ). But, wearily, I recognise that anything a man says is liable to provoke womanly hostility in these bad and irrational times. A man, by his very nature, is incapable of saying the right thing to a woman unless he indues the drag of hypocrisy. Freud, bewildered, said: 'What does a woman want? ' I don't think, despite the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Caroline Bird, Sara Evans, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Janeway, Kate Millett, Juliet Mitchell, Sarah B. Pomeroy, Marian Ramelson, Alice Rossi, Sheila Rowbotham, Dora Russell, Edith Thomas, Mary Wollstonecraft and the great Virginia herself, the question has yet been answered, except negatively. What women don't want is clear - their subjection to the patriarchal image, male sexual exploitation, and all the rest of it. When positive programmes emerge - like the proposed 'desexualization' of language - we men have an uneasy intimation of the possible absurdity of the whole militant movement. I refuse to say Ms, which is not a real vocable, and I object to 'chairperson' and the substitution of 'ovarimony' to 'testimony'. And I maintain (a) that a virago is a detestable kind of woman and (b) that feminist militancy should not condone bad manners. If that pink pig had not been thrown in the garbage bin I should tell the women publishers of Britain what to do with it.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 326
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 327
? ? ? ? ? ? We have so far published in this James Joyce Lexicography Series:
Vol. 1. The Romanian Lexicon of Finnegans Wake. 45pp. Launched on 11 November 2011. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu. lexicon-of-romanian-in-FW. html
Vol. 2. Helmut Bonheim's German Lexicon of Finnegans Wake. 217pp. Launched on 7 December 2011. http://editura. mttlc. ro/Helmut. Bonheim-Lexicon-of-the-German-in-FW. html Vol. 3. A Lexicon of Common Scandinavian in Finnegans Wake. 195pp. Launched on 13 January 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/C-G. Sandulescu-A-Lexicon-of-Common-Scandinavian-in-FW. html
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Vol. 4. A Lexicon of Allusions and Motifs in Finnegans Wake. 263pp. Launched on 11 February 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/G. Sandulescu-Lexicon-of-Allusions-and-Motifs-in-FW. html
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Vol. 5. ALexiconof"Small"Languages inFinnegansWake. 237pp. Launchedon7March2012.
Dedicated to Stephen J. Joyce. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-small-languages-fw. html
Vol. 6. A Total Lexicon of Part Four of Finnegans Wake. 411 pp. Launched on 31 March 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-total-lexicon-fw. html Vol. 7. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The First Hundred Pages. Pages 003 to 103. 453pp. Launched on 27 April 2012.
Dedicated to Clive Hart. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-one. html
Vol. 8. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The Second Hundred Pages. Pages 104 to 216. 280pp. Launched on 14 May 2012.
http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-two. html
Vol. 9. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. Part Two of the Book. Pages 219 to 399. 516pp. Launched on 7 June 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-three. html
Vol. 10. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The Last Two Hundred Pages. Parts Three and Four of Finnegans Wake.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? From FW page 403 to FW page 628. 563pp. Launched on 7 July 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-four. html Vol. 11. A Lexicon of Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake. 327pp. Launched on 23 July 2012.
Dedicated to Memory of Anthony Burgess. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-literary-allusions. html You are kindly asked to address your comments, suggestions, and criticism to the Publisher: lidia. vianu@g. unibuc. ro
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Let's get out of literature and into life. I think I am quite capable of seeing the feminist point of view with regard to men's sexual attitude to women. I am strongly aware of the biological polarity, and it intrudes where women say it shouldn't. I am incapable of having neutral dealings with a woman. Consulting a woman doctor or lawyer, shaking hands with a woman prime minister, listening to a sermon by a woman minister of religion, I cannot help letting the daydream of a possible sexual relationship intrude. That this diminishes the woman in question I cannot deny. It depersonalizes her, since the whole sexual process necessarily involves depersonalization: this is nature's fault, not man's. Women object to their reduction into 'sex objects', but this
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 324
is what nature decrees when the erotic process gets to work. While writing this I am intermittently watching a most ravishing lady on French television. She is talking about Kirkegaard, but I am not taking much of that in. Aware of her charms as she must be, she ought to do what that beautiful lady professor of mathematics did at the University of Bologna in the Middle Ages - talk from behind a screen, meaning talk on the radio. But then the voice itself, a potent sex signal, would get in the way.
This awareness of the sexual power of women, I confess, induces attitudes which are, from the feminist angle, unworthy. At Brown's Hotel a woman porter proposed carrying my bags upstairs. It was her job, she said, but I could not let her do it. Old as I am, I still give up my seat to women far younger when on a bus or tube train. This is a protective tenderness wholly biological in origin. How can I apologise for it when it is built into my glands? Women are traditionally (but this is, I admit, possibly a man- imposed tradition) slower to be sexually moved than are men, and this enables them to maintain a neutral relationship with the other sex in offices and consulting rooms.
I believe what women tell me to believe - namely, that they can do anything men can do except impregnate and carry heavy loads (though this latter was contradicted by the girl at Brown's Hotel). Nevertheless, I have to carry this belief against weighty evidence to the contrary. Take music, for instance. Women have never been denied professional music instruction - indeed, they used to be encouraged to have it - but they have not yet produced a Mozart or a Beethoven. I am told by feminists that all this will change some day, when women have learned how to create like women composers, a thing men have prevented their doing in the past. This seems to me to be nonsense, and it would be denied by composers like Thea Musgrave and the shade of the late Dame Ethel Smyth (a great feminist herself, the composer of The March of the Women as well as The Wreckers and The Prison, which the liberationists ought to do something about reviving). I believe that artistic creativity is a male surrogate for biological creativity, and that if women do so well in literature it may be that literature is, as Mary McCarthy said, closer to gossip than to art. But no
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 325
one will be happier than I to see women produce the greatest art of all time, so long as women themselves recognise that the art is more important than the artist.
I see that most, if not all, of what I say above is likely to cause feminist rage and encourage further orders to pink-pig manufacturers (did the Virago Press search for a woman confectioner? ). But, wearily, I recognise that anything a man says is liable to provoke womanly hostility in these bad and irrational times. A man, by his very nature, is incapable of saying the right thing to a woman unless he indues the drag of hypocrisy. Freud, bewildered, said: 'What does a woman want? ' I don't think, despite the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Caroline Bird, Sara Evans, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Janeway, Kate Millett, Juliet Mitchell, Sarah B. Pomeroy, Marian Ramelson, Alice Rossi, Sheila Rowbotham, Dora Russell, Edith Thomas, Mary Wollstonecraft and the great Virginia herself, the question has yet been answered, except negatively. What women don't want is clear - their subjection to the patriarchal image, male sexual exploitation, and all the rest of it. When positive programmes emerge - like the proposed 'desexualization' of language - we men have an uneasy intimation of the possible absurdity of the whole militant movement. I refuse to say Ms, which is not a real vocable, and I object to 'chairperson' and the substitution of 'ovarimony' to 'testimony'. And I maintain (a) that a virago is a detestable kind of woman and (b) that feminist militancy should not condone bad manners. If that pink pig had not been thrown in the garbage bin I should tell the women publishers of Britain what to do with it.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 326
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bucures? ti 2012
C. George Sandulescu, Editor.
Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake 327
? ? ? ? ? ? We have so far published in this James Joyce Lexicography Series:
Vol. 1. The Romanian Lexicon of Finnegans Wake. 45pp. Launched on 11 November 2011. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu. lexicon-of-romanian-in-FW. html
Vol. 2. Helmut Bonheim's German Lexicon of Finnegans Wake. 217pp. Launched on 7 December 2011. http://editura. mttlc. ro/Helmut. Bonheim-Lexicon-of-the-German-in-FW. html Vol. 3. A Lexicon of Common Scandinavian in Finnegans Wake. 195pp. Launched on 13 January 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/C-G. Sandulescu-A-Lexicon-of-Common-Scandinavian-in-FW. html
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Vol. 4. A Lexicon of Allusions and Motifs in Finnegans Wake. 263pp. Launched on 11 February 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/G. Sandulescu-Lexicon-of-Allusions-and-Motifs-in-FW. html
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Vol. 5. ALexiconof"Small"Languages inFinnegansWake. 237pp. Launchedon7March2012.
Dedicated to Stephen J. Joyce. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-small-languages-fw. html
Vol. 6. A Total Lexicon of Part Four of Finnegans Wake. 411 pp. Launched on 31 March 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-total-lexicon-fw. html Vol. 7. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The First Hundred Pages. Pages 003 to 103. 453pp. Launched on 27 April 2012.
Dedicated to Clive Hart. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-one. html
Vol. 8. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The Second Hundred Pages. Pages 104 to 216. 280pp. Launched on 14 May 2012.
http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-two. html
Vol. 9. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. Part Two of the Book. Pages 219 to 399. 516pp. Launched on 7 June 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-three. html
Vol. 10. UnEnglish English in Finnegans Wake. The Last Two Hundred Pages. Parts Three and Four of Finnegans Wake.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? From FW page 403 to FW page 628. 563pp. Launched on 7 July 2012. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-unenglish-fw-volume-four. html Vol. 11. A Lexicon of Literary Allusions in Finnegans Wake. 327pp. Launched on 23 July 2012.
Dedicated to Memory of Anthony Burgess. http://editura. mttlc. ro/sandulescu-literary-allusions. html You are kindly asked to address your comments, suggestions, and criticism to the Publisher: lidia. vianu@g. unibuc. ro
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