3 ms·
"puerile" https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nora-barnacle https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nor...
by rooneymcnibnug 4y ago
"puerile"
https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nora-barnacle https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nor...
- wk_end 4y agoThis is very silly. I don’t think private correspondences ought to be held to the same standards as a writer’s published fiction; even bringing them up is nonsensical. Beyond that, I’d encourage you to look up the definition of “puerile”, which is as much about being juvenile or silly as it is about sexual or scatological - say what you will about those letters or Joyce (or Nora’s!) particular fetishes, there’s nothing that suggests that they weren’t in earnest. As a sibling comment at least alludes to, it’s much fairer to point out that Ulysses has plenty of its own sexual or scatological humour, and that someone might easily describe it as puerile. And fair enough; as to why it doesn’t personally strike me that way compared to Pynchon, all I’ll do is rest on the de gustibus defense.
- rokkitmensch 4y agoI would go so far as to say these are downright Joycean love-noodlings!
- olddustytrail 4y agoI don't think these letters are puerile. There's not much childish about them. Maybe poo-rile.
- rokkitmensch 4y agoMy good * or *! I'd sell an unprintable to pen my beloved so! Such poetry for an intimate, the breath does catch in my throat...