"Remember the lightning-struck? Those who experienced something profound and rare, so they sought out others who had felt what they felt? Other than the coded messages of their newsletter, there’s nothing conspiratorial to their organization. What it really is is a community. And a community, after all, is just a conspiracy everyone’s aware of, in on, participants in. Sure, the bigger communities become, the more complex their problems and the more corrupt their leaders. But in these niche groups that are only nominally conspiracies, because no one knows who they are, you can find the teeny-tiny instance of grace that can make our meaningless trajectories tolerable, even beautiful: the intimacy of sharing ourselves with another person. Although the lightning-struck have modest aims and probably zero influence, their club has given them a method by which they can communicate to their cabal, their little conspiracy of no importance, and share with others what the lightning gave them, because the only reason Those Who Know, know, is because somebody, somewhere, let them in on the secret…"
(from a recent Esquire article on the 50th anniversary of Gravity's Rainbow)
New York Times: "Peter Quadrino, another member, said that reading Joyce created an urge to discuss his work with others."
The Guardian: "Peter Quadrino, 38, joined Fialka’s group around 2008 or 2009. He would drive up three hours from San Diego, where he lived, to attend the meeting. “If you’re really interested in Finnegans Wake, it’s kind of hard to find people who will talk about it with you.”"
Washington Post: "“It’s a giant friend group, and it’s like you’re reading a poem — basically a multilingual, multi-referential poem — with so many different people,” said Quadrino."
Smithsonian Magazine: "For many readers, Finnegans Wake isn’t a text to master or a puzzle to solve. Instead, it’s something of a psychoactive agent. The question of what it means is less interesting than how it affects the reader."
"I have always been grateful for what I call the Joyce community, however you define it. It was initially a scattered bunch of readers who shared a common interest. I wouldn't be where I am without all those contacts. In my isolation I needed kindred spirits. Harmless maniacs like the Joyceans tend to flock together, and flock we did, after extended correspondence gave way to more and more gatherings. What I refer to here is not a common or overlapping interest but the many friendships that grew out of it; they can last even if Joyce is given up, as has happened in some cases. I think I am not the only one who feels that in case of a real emergency, material or emotional, there would be Joyceans friends to turn to, and this is reciprocal. Maybe some of us share an underlying despondency as well as some built-in irony. I am not talking about our views on the works or the author, but the people."
- Fritz Senn, Joycean Murmoirs (2007), pg. 50
No comments:
Post a Comment