"Seidel has written an admirable brief introduction for the general reader. Obviously the product of many years of teaching Joyce, it′s concise, fresh and very accessible."
Ronald Bush, St John′s College, University of Oxford
"Entering the Joycean labyrinth whether for the first time, or the twenty–first one could not wish for a wiser, more gracious, better–humored guide than Michael Seidel. He ranges over the full spectrum of Joyce′s writing with a lightness of touch and a sureness of direction that makes being his student an unmitigated delight." Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Southern Illinois University
"In James Joyce: A Short Introduction, Michael Seidel has pulled off one of the most difficult feats in current publishing. Seidel manages to capture anew what it is that makes Joyce′s writing unique, and to elucidate even his most abstruse of abstrusities with a directness, clarity and infectious pleasure which reminds one all over again why one loves Joyce." Jeri Johnson, Exeter College, University of Oxford
"In James Joyce: A Short Introduction, Seidel has provided a clear and accessible distillation of the biographical and historical background to Joyce′s work as well as a set of methodological tools designed to help the ′general reader′ understand and interpret Joyce′s use of language and narrative form. Resisting the urge to ′decode′ Joyce′s style by appealing to content, Seidel has done an admirable job of demystifying some of Joyce′s techniques without dismissing or devaluing their importance." Irish Studies Review
1. Introducing Joyce.
2. Master Plots.
3. Dubliners.
4. Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man.
5. Exiles.
6. Levels of Narration.
7. Homer in Ulysses.
8. Three Dubliners.
9. Reflexive Fiction.
10. Strategic Planning.
Notes.
Index.
Michael Seidel is Jesse and George Siegel Professor of Humanities at Columbia University. He has written widely on narrative form and his previous publications include Epic Geography: James Joyce′s Ulysses (1976), Exile and the Narrative Imagination (1986), and Robinson Crusoe: Island Myths and the Novel (1991). He is associate editor of the Columbia History of British Fiction and co–editor of the first two volumes of The Complete Works of Daniel Defoe (2000, 2001). He also serves on the editorial board of The James Joyce Studies Annual.
The difficulties that students face when tackling Joyce′s works are often addressed by focusing on plot, implying that the "real" books are hidden behind the author′s complex language and style. This reader–friendly introduction offers an alternative approach, suggesting that close attention to Joyce′s words, phrases, and sentences is the best route to reading his works with insight and pleasure. Seidel demystifies Joyce′s style, demonstrating that everything students need to know in order to read his works may be discovered in the books themselves.
