ABSTRACT
I have cited this commentary to show how many difficulties one encounters when approaching Joyce. These difficulties are three: the
thought, the expression, and the language are equally upsetting to penetrate. In studying the last two, we will be at the heart of our subject, but we will leave out one important aspect of the work: the ideological and thematic conception…
Thought, in Joyce, is no less complex than the expression. In Ulysses, for example, we could not say that it had a unique subject, on which the book was constructed. There are a certain number of subjects, super-imposed, overlapping, and intimately mixed, one upon another. A development will be on one level and in one sense, but also on another level and on another sense… It is, perhaps, a superhuman task [to unravel all the complexities], it is, perhaps, very simply absurd in the eyes of some, but it is a work which warrants our industry.
