Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

"Re:Joyce" and The African Queen

The author Frank Delaney explains a few passages from James Joyce’s Ulysses; actually, one small passage every week.
http://frankdelaney.com/
For the RSS feed or the podcast: http://rejoyce.libsyn.com/rss
I’m really enjoying his explanations and yearning for more after each podcast.

I turn to classics every now and then just to feel the soul and the beauty in their words. This weekend I borrowed The African Queen by C.S. Forester from the library. Hubby remarked. “Didn’t we already watch the movie umpteen times?” He’s right. We did. Who could forget Bogart getting his only Oscar for the role of Allnut, but the book is so much better. It reads like poetry in places, and the ending is quite different.

What I find in the writings of 70-100 yrs ago is soul and honesty. The stories of old times make me feel the ugliness, the pain, or the joy of their characters without resorting to clever tricks or faking it.

Sometimes I think those words, should they be written today, would never see a publisher’s approval. Some, not all, contain sentences that are too long, too complicated, and sounding slightly off with their relevance, and with narrators skipping all over the page, adding in their emotions and memories, and even lecturing in places. Unlike our contemporary writing, which is clever, competent, and constricted--while missing the point, at times--thanks to the present-day teachings.

For the sake of practicality, as writers, we have to adapt to what is approved in today’s tastes, but I still like to peek into the past, so I won’t miss the point of what true literature can be like.