Reflections On James Joyce: Stuart Gilbert's Paris Journal

Reflections on James Joyce: Stuart Gilbert's Paris Journal

Review"This is a slim book, very easy to read, with copious notes, a brief and informative introduction, and some interesting photographs. Gilbert's distinctive perspective will be of interest to those concerned with the ongoing relativisation of the Joycean biography and to anyone who enjoys a sweet slice of literary gossip, motivated, in this case, by a rather classical form of jealousy." (James Joyce Broadsheet)"... fascinating reading." (James Joyce Literary Supplement)Stuart Gilbert's friendship with James Joyce began in Paris in 1927 after Gilbert read several pages from a forthcoming French translation of Ulysses in the window of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company book shop and went in to tell Beach that the translation was poorly done. She reported the encounter to Joyce, who subsequently sought out Gilbert. Their meeting began a literary collaboration and friendship that lasted until Joyce's death in 1941. This journal is a chronicle of that remarkable and productive friendship. Stuart Gilbert records many amusing anecdotes and provocative opinions regarding Joyce's social life, his relationship with his wife, Nora, and his compositional techniques for Finnegans Wake. Also included in the book are some of Joyce's previously unpublished letters to Gilbert (also reproduced in photographs), numerous unpublished photographs, and a typically dyspeptic 1941 essay on Joyce, Paul L