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This is the view from Fritz' seat. We see ready at hand the symbols of his efficacies: a watch, two cameras (film and digital), a crystal bell to restore order, a shillegag, and an authentic pandybat for lazy idle little schemers. (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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This is a view of the Limmatquai taken from across the river. Some of us stayed at the Hotel Krone, which was very convenient. |
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To find the ZJJF from the riverside is easy: walk towards the steeple with the large quadrant, it is the church of St Peter, just up the hill from the ZJJF. There are lots of churches in Zürich. Every day at 11am and 7pm (what time is it?) they toll for several minutes. We had then to take 'workshop breaks'. The 11am bell ringing was profanely followed by the din of 'dead men' being dumped - probably for recycling. |
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Standing in front of #9 Augustinergasse, Anna Blume and Thomas Gurke. Anna is from Stuttgart. English is her third language, it sounds very pretty when she speaks German. She is doing her MA on Oxen & Plato's Symposium. She used a bicycle to get around, and parked it at the door. She got to Ravi's faster than the bus. |
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Day 1 (Sunday the 3rd). Most people arrived and converged onto the ZJJF. We were introduced to each other over beer and red wine, cold cuts, and 2 styles of potato salad. Fritz printed colorful place names that were taped onto our tables. |
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Matthew Creasy, Sam Slote, Ivana Milivojevic, Jolanta Wawrzycka, and Anna Blume. Sam and Ivana got engaged in Dublin in March. The ZJJF has wifi, and Ruth kindly connected those who had laptops. You can see crumbs of a delicious cake, made by Michelle Witen with chocolate brought back from Amsterdam. (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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Thomas Gurke, Aida Yared and Teresa Caneda Cabrera. (Photo by Sam Slote) |
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Clive Hart, Kay Stevenson, Jolanta Wawrzycka and Stephanie Nelson. (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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Day 2 (Monday the 4th). In the morning Fritz Senn introduced the workshop, its topic, purpose and format. He proposed it be a 'jam session': each will have a solo part, but everyone should be playing all the time. He stated that Joyce was one of the first writers to make errors central to his work. In real life, errors are the norm and 'getting it right' the unusual. What goes wrong is worthy of highlighting (e.g. news events) or becomes memorable; mistakes are pathways to insight (e.g. Freudian slips) or discovery (e.g. disease in medical research). He gave numerous examples/types of 'errors' in Joyce, all potentially deliberate and "portals of discovery" (U9.229). He coined the verb 'to correctify' meaning 'to correct a perceived error' intended by the author. Lots of audience comments followed on errors, mistakes, licks, anachronisms, reference and intention. (Photo from Fritz' personal collection, I hope he gives me permission to use it) |
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In the afternoon Judith Harrington presented "Smirky Dainty and other musical mishaps". She explained and commented on the references to classical musicians in FW 359.31-360.16. She presented Bloom's (gaps in) knowledge about classical music in Cyclops (U12.1804) and Eumeus (U16.1733-1769). She gave us the English and Latin texts of the Stabat Mater (set into music by countless composers), and of The Last Seven Words of Christ. We listened to Rossini's Stabat Mater (U16.1744), a work in which Madam Marion Tweedy made a hit, a veritable sensation, though Judith holds it likely was well beyond her vocal range. |
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Stephanie Nelson spoke of "Leopold Bloom and his Night Errant". Starting from the 2 definitions of 'to err' as 'to make a mistake or be incorrect' and 'to wander from a direct course or go at random'. Stephanie charted in Portrait and Ulysses various examples of wandering reminiscent of the Homeric Odysseus. She then reviewed the mythology of wandering: Wandering Aengus with its connotations of transcendance and augury, as opposed to the Wandering Jew or Odysseus (who turned down the immortality offered by Calypso to remain a wanderer). She suggested that Stephen and Bloom may respectively be examples of those two types of wanderers in Joyce's works. (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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Day 2 (Tuesday the 5th). Aida Yared (here with Thomas Gurke) talked about the "Montmartre Scene in Circe". Its various artistic cabarets (e.g. Heaven & Hell, Moulin Rouge, le Cabaret du Néant) provide the background for Stephen's parleyvoo performance in U15.3874-94. (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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Clive Hart asked "When is an Error not an Error?" He informed us that Joyce had initially set the Bloom household in #8 Eccles street, then later changed it to #7 with major consequences. He reviewed some obvious 'errors' in Ulysses, both in time (e.g. the Mirus Bazaar took place in May; the song "Has Anyone Here seen Kelly" was written after 1904) and in place (e.g. Bray's Head cannot be seen from Sandycove; two addresses for Hely's are given, both wrong and impossible). All are too blatant not to have been deliberate, so should we approach them as errors? (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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In the afternoon, Jörg Drews presented "Mistakes Joyce did Not Make". He gave a nice historical overview of 'the novel' focusing on a paradigm shift in its content and role that occurred between the 19c. and 20c. During the Victorian era, there was a canon and a defined format for the novel; certain aspects of human existence could not be mentioned (except in pornography and "Tristam Shandy"). In the 20c. all could be included (errors, mental illness etc). One could no longer speak of 'masterpieces', and Walter Benjamin went as far as to say that all works are 'tentative' - it became risky to be a writer. Joyce took unprecedented risks in Ulysses (showing the fallibility of humans, including errors), and even more in Finnegans Wake. Jörg likened Ulysses, with its changing styles, to Raymond Queneau's "Exercises de Style" (1947). A lively discussion followed on topics including: the readership of novels (women a majority), that most book bought remain unread, 'Great Unread Books', whether the idea of 'progress' in literature is tenable (David), and whether "Tristam Shandy" just dead ended the novel (Sam). (Photo by Michelle Witen) |
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David Spurr talked about "Stutter, stammer, clutter, clamour". He proposed that stuttering is not simply a speech impediment (as defined by the OED). It is a form of language that is cleft or polyphonic (my words), heard in Ulysses but more fully explored in Finnegans Wake. In that, language is usually a bodily function that allows the speaker to assert its power; in stuttering, the body intrudes into the production of language hence a doubling (explored by Freud as the intrusion of the repressed, or a divided ego), a stalling or perforation, a risk of 'capsizing' (Deleuze), and an excess or clutter (akin to radio static). David gave a handout with several examples he expounded. The intrusion of the body is clearly seen for example in the "stuttering hand" of Bygmester Finnegan (FW 4.18). |