Biography james joyce 1999

James Joyce (Penguin Lives)

By Edna O’Brien
Penguin, 1999

Review by Allen Ruch
28 December 1999

Edna O’Brien’s James Joyce is the latest installment of the “Penguin Lives” series, which matches a contemporary writer with an historical figure in an attempt to illuminate the subject’s personality and influence on the modern world.

Biography james joyce 1999

As such, James Joyce doesn’t aspire to the length or detail of Ellmann or Costello—it’s a slim, attractively-presented book designed as a “popular biography” for the casual reader.

Edna O’Brien certainly has some affinity for her subject.

An Irish novelist currently residing in London, where she had eloped to escape her rigid family, O’Brien has long cited Joyce as an influence, and her own fluid prose takes some experimental turns. Like Joyce, she’s suffered the frustrations of writing frankly about Ireland, and seven of her books—many of which take an unflinching look at Irish culture, women’s sexualit