Winner of the American Conference on Irish Studies' Robert Rhodes Prize for Books on Literature Part of James Joyce's genius was his ability to find the poetry in everyday life. For Joyce, even a simple object like a table becomes magical, "a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move more for enchantment." How might we learn to regain some of the child-like play with language and sense of delight in the ordinary that comes so naturally to Joyce? The Joyce of Everyday Life teaches us how to interpret seemingly mundane objects and encounters with openness and active curiosity in order to attain greater self-understanding and a fuller appreciation of others. Through a close examination of Joyce's joyous, musical prose, this book shows how language provides us with the means to revitalize daily experience and social interactions across a huge, diverse, and everchanging world. Acclaimed Joyce scholar Vicki Mahaffey demonstrates how his writing might prompt us to engage in a different kind of reading, treating words and fiction as tools for expanding the boundaries of the self with humor and feeling. A book for everyone who loves language, The Joyce of Everyday Life is a lyrical romp through quotidian existence.
Industry Reviews
"A brilliant, lively guide to the joys of reading Joyce for intellectual stimulation and personal growth. With characteristic verve and lucidity, Mahaffey reminds us how Joyce's words make us come alive to life and language as we glimpse ourselves in his nicely polished mirrors. Both new and veteran readers will benefit from Mahaffey's deep, witty engagements with Joyce's fictions." -- Robert Spoo * author of Modernism and the Law *
"An ode to the necessity for interpretive autonomy, Vicki Mahaffey's The Joyce of Everyday Life joyfully explores the networks and coincidences and echoes and repetitions of James Joyce's texts. Where other literary critics tell what a book is about, Mahaffey shows readers how to move through Joyce's language. They could not have a better guide." -- Katherine O'Callaghan * editor of Essays on Music and Language in Modernist Literature: Musical Modernism *
"At once a primer for reading Joyce and a parallactic rereading of familiar places in Joyce's work. It is also a model of great reading and writing, eloquently conveying a practice of encounter, as its title suggests, with everyday subjects such as beds, love, fat, letters of all kinds, etc., through which Mahaffey brings Joyce down from the rarefied air. The book is rich with critical surprises. Don't miss them." -- Marilyn Reizbaum * author of Unfit: Jewish Degeneration and Modernism *
"Mahaffey shows that there is much to be learned about everyday life in Joyce's fiction. However, Joyce does not drop chestnuts of wisdom for readers along a primrose path. Instead, he forges trails of potential self-discovery through a dense and thorny thicket of words. Mahaffey is the perfect guide to the rich forms of everyday self-reflection available to readers when navigating the language of Joyce's selva oscura." -- David Rando * author of Hope, Form, and Future in the Work of James Joyce *
