A Portrait of Memory as the Artist grows Older and Dies

Transcription

1 A Portrait of Memory as the Artist grows Older and Dies Robert Fulton, Jr., independent scholar, Belgium Citation: Fulton, Robert Jr. (2009), "A Portrait of Memory as the Artist grows Older and Dies", mediazioni 6, ISSN In order to reflect on the topic I have chosen for this Dossier on Joyce and memory memory and death within the works of James Joyce it is important to first consider the subject of memory as a vehicle and as a catalyst for providing the reader with an insight into the Artist. A chronological overview of the works of Joyce reveals a shift from an internally driven passive memory of the Artist towards a call for an external, active memory of the Artist by the reader. The syntactic dilemma of the of is solved here in that the former is either a direct or indirect memory that the Artist has, while the latter is the reader s memory about the Artist 1. By passive, I mean that the memory is either a real or fabricated memory that the Artist, in this case, Joyce, has concerning one who has died, and that this memory is not actively involved with the reader. In other words, the reader only vicariously experiences the memory of a character at the hands of the writer, unlike one who lived at the same time as Joyce. Nora, for example, as a possible reader might actively experience the memory of Michael Bodkin or Feeney, given the suggested idea that Michael Furey may have been modeled on one or both of these young men. In addition, does it change the nature of the reading if we do know that perhaps this character was based on a real person? An example can be found in The Dead when Gretta remembers Michael Furey. The reader does not know what exactly 1 I will refer to Joyce as the Artist when discussing the persona of the author for the most part. For Martin Heidegger, art cannot be really separated from authorship: the artist is the origin of the work. The work is the origin of the artist. Neither is without the other. Nevertheless, neither is the sole support of the other (Heidegger 1977: 149). 1

2 Gretta s memory is, but instead has to experience it through the eyes of Gabriel behind his tears of jealous frustration. As Phillip Herring notes, Gretta is transfixed by this memory during the moments her husband has lustful thoughts (Herring 1987: 74). There is a gradual and progressive transition from the vicarious memories that the reader experiences with Gabriel to the active memory that ALP implores the reader to engage while reading Finnegans Wake. As Frank Budgen wrote, Anna Livia s death monologue is a long record of memories (Budgen 1966:14), and her final hope is expressed in the word, mememormee (FW ). Not only is this shift in the nature of remembering the dead an element of Joyce s fiction, it may also have a tangible relation to our own lives. In short, we can see within Joyce s work a poignant movement from the pretentious and precocious thoughts of the young Artist thinking about the death of others to the more visceral concern for one s self being remembered after death, and in what way. What will our mememormee eventually be? This transition of thought speaks to us on a very human level as well as on a literary level. This transition, as I will show below, can be traced through the works of Joyce by considering the role of memory that the characters have regarding one who has died. Consequently, the role of the reader with respect to death and memory changes from the early works of Joyce through to the end with Finnegans Wake. By the time we get to ALP s final monologue, the reader can no longer just sit back and enjoy the ride. S/he must choose to either remember or forget one who has died. The action is no longer passive, but has become active. A choice must be made. The fear of being forgotten after death is not unique to this investigation, but the question is, however who is it that we are to remember? Is it the Artist himself? In addition, questions regarding differences between types of memory are raised and how this relates to the subject of death, more specifically: remembering another and self-reflection within a memoire; amnesia and aletheia; and being remembered or forgotten. Do we remember someone for the sake of remembering, or is it a way for us to influence our own mememormee? Regarding these questions, I introduce a paradox involving the ancient Greek concept of kleos aphtiton and the death of the Artist, in this case, Joyce. First, 2

3 however, let us turn to the memory of another mighty Ulysses and the notions of death, forgetting, and remembering. The notion of death and memory concerning the character of the other Ulysses, Homer s Odysseus, may shed some light on this paradox of kleos aphtiton, the ultimate goal of any hero worth his salt in ancient Greece. Kleos may be best translated as simply fame. But ordinary kleos, or fame, within one s lifetime was not sufficient. To be truly famous, one had to obtain something bigger, and that was kleos aphtiton, or undying, literally unwithering fame. To reach this level of immortal fame, there is one simple thing that had to happen, you must be remembered after death. The only way to truly kill an ancient Greek hero like the mighty and wily Odysseus was to forget him, thereby denying him the opportunity for kleos aphtiton. Herein lies the paradox that a reader of Joyce, or one of the members of the so-called Joycean Industry, faces. Are we the readers and scholars of Joyce the Artist s killers as Patrick Kavanagh suggests in his poem, Who killed James Joyce? (Kavanagh 1951)? Or, are we procurers of kleos aphtiton, the unwithering fame, of James Joyce by remembering him? And, moreover, what can we imagine our polytropic, myriadminded, nearly-blind Bard thinking of this fame that we ensure? Was this his plan all along for his works kleos aphtiton? Are we to bear the memory of James Joyce alongside the guilt of his murder through an ever-growing middenheap of articles, manuscripts, and conference papers? Are we seeking to sustain his kleos aphtiton, willingly or not, or are we merely seeking to produce something that others will remember us for, and consequently seeking our own kleos aphtiton? Perhaps. Before turning to this question about Joyce, I want to briefly address two apparently unrelated episodes from the Greek bard s story of wandering and return, Homer s Odyssey. This suggestion is not to introduce a Homeric parallel, yet it does serve as an effective tool for considering the questions above and to offer a possible point of departure for reading Joyce s works by means of tracing a specific trajectory. The two events concern the battle between Odysseus and Polyphemus, and the memory of Elpenor in Hades. The first 3

4 episode is perhaps one of the most well-recognized sections, while the second one is rather more obscure. Polyphemus, the one-eyed, man-eating son of Poseidon has found his kleos aphtiton in scores of world literature surveys across America because we can talk about getting drunk and battling giant monsters with large pointy objects, thereby waking up the students who are daydreaming in the back of the classroom. However, the attention-grabbing blood and guts is not the important aspect of this scene that I want to address, but rather that one has been questioned by language scholars and punsters for centuries. The issue at stake is the question of who is trying to kill poor Polyphemus? When the Cyclops begins to sober up as a fire-hardened olive-wood lance proceeds to be bored into his eye, he needs to know one simple thing who has done this dastardly deed so that he may damn him to eternity by calling an oath of revenge to his father. When asked, Odysseus replies with one of the most familiar play on words in Greek literature when he answers, Outis, or no-body. His fellow Cyclops neighbors hear the cries of the great Polyphemus and ask him who is trying to kill him. Polyphemus then cries out to them that nobody is trying to kill him, and their response, as expected, is not one of rushing to his aide. At this point, Odysseus could have escaped with his life and without fear of retribution. However, hubris takes over, and Odysseus calls to the rock-hurtling giant that it was Odysseus who did this. Polyphemus then proceeds to beseech his father, Poseidon, Odysseus nemesis as we know from the opening poem, and the result is that eventually all of Odysseus men are lost, and at the end, we see that Odysseus must ultimately set up an homage to Poseidon by carrying an oar so far inland that people will not know what it is, and there he will erect a place of worship for his erstwhile enemy. As such, he must actively remember Polyphemus in order to ensure his own memory and consequently kleos aphtiton. But where does the hero learn of this fate? He finds out during his voyage down to Hades, the realm of the dead. Odysseus must go, on the advice of Circe, to the underworld to find his way back home, or to perform his nostos, his return. Otherwise, he will die, forgotten a no-body on the seas. In this ironic twist of fate, if he dies forgotten, then he dies twice once for his physical life, the 4

5 second time for eternity. He will have no-body and no-body will remember him, killing his chance for kleos aphtiton. However, before Odysseus can secure the secret for his return, he must remember another Elpenor. Given the fact that all six hundred or so of Odysseus men will eventually perish during the hero s nostos, very few are remembered, and why Elpenor? We are told what befell this minor character. Before disembarking from Circe s island, the men had a bit too much to drink. In the ensuing drinking, Elpenor stumbles from a secondstory rooftop, falls, and breaks his neck. However, being forgotten by his fellow mates, his soul is unquiet, and he is among the realm of hungry ghosts or, in other words, those who have been forgotten. Odysseus must propitiate and remember this ghost before he can obtain the secret of his return from the blind prophetic man-woman, Tiresias. Nevertheless, the message is that Odysseus will have to remember the dead, and then consequently erect a memory to Poseidon to help ensure his own return, thus ensuring his quest for being remembered rather than dying a nobody on the wine dark sea, epi oinopa ponton. In other words, the only real danger of dying to the inhabitants of the world of the living is to be forgotten by the living after one dies. The plea of the dead in Hades is to be remembered for fear of becoming a no-body for eternity. This transition is again the shift from a passive to active memory. In the first place, Odysseus engages in the act of remembering others, but in the latter case, he must ensure his own identity to be remembered after death. With this concept of the relationship between the living and dead, I return to the connection between memory and death as it evolves within Joyce s works from passive to active, and how this transition ultimately can be compared with the concept of kleos aphtiton. As mentioned above, the final scene between Gretta and Gabriel is the most obvious form of remembering the dead within the Dubliners, yet it can further be seen as an extension of the initial memory of the dead from the beginning with The Sisters. However, the subtlety is in the relationship of the one who is being remembered and the one remembering. This tension will continue throughout the rest of Joyce s works, culminating in ALP s final monologue. In The Sisters the somewhat confused memory is that of a young boy. The reader gets glimpses into his thoughts, yet passively. The reader does not 5

6 experience this memory first hand, but rather watches the boy as he tries to puzzle his confused thoughts together about the death of his friend Father Flynn. At this point, the reader takes in the boy s memory, but does not take part in it. The confusion of the boy s memory is further compounded when the boy hears Old Cotter and the sisters talking about Flynn. Who was this priest, and how will he be remembered, as an old friend or possibly as a pedophile? Moreover, will he be remembered at all? If he is not, then he will be lost forever from the world of the living and his possible lapse with the Church will damn his memory for eternity. This confusion of the character s memory is directly contrasted with Gretta s memory of Michael Furey, but amplified by Gabriel s. The reader does not know what Gretta s exact feelings are for Furey, and neither does Gabriel. He interprets them in his own mind and soul. As such, he (and thus also the reader) is in the limbo of not being able to actively join in the memory of another person, the woman whom he believes he loves. Although she is actively remembering the dead, Gabriel can only imagine the scene of the boy shivering in the rain to catch death s cold and the consequent graveyard in the West. However, unlike the question mark left for Father Flynn, we know who will remember, and thus keep Furey alive and grant him at least a measure of kleos Gretta. Moreover, now Furey is also part of Gabriel s memory, but only as a passive, internal fabrication, just as with the reader. We the readers join Gabriel in increasing the memory of Furey s death, thus increasing his possibility for a greater degree of kleos. At this exact moment, Gabriel realizes the power of death and of memory. This power is something that Gabriel does not possess and his soul is helpless in the face of the death of one who is being remembered. Yet, he is not at this point contemplating his own mortality, but his impotence with respect to the dead s power over the living. In A Portrait, the evolution of the power of memory can be seen with a comparison between the beginning and end of the novel. At the beginning, the reader again encounters a fuzzy memory of the past, though not of the dead in this case, but again one that we experience from a child s viewpoint. Just how clear is this vision of the memory of his father s face that is reflected in the glass? Again, as with the boy in The Sisters, things are uncertain, blurred. During the course of the novel, however, the powerful connection between 6

7 death and memory grows and becomes clearer as the function of memory changes from muddled recollection to that of memoire. A comparison can be drawn between these two types of memory with the poem Midterm Break by Seamus Heaney. Heaney s poem resembles that of the young Dedalus who is set to conquer Paris as the self-confident Artist who is going to seek his kleos aphtiton by writing great books and poems. In Midterm, a young student must return from school for the burial of his/her younger sibling, but does not seem to understand the full situation. S/he was outside of the action, a mere passive observer who has been away at school. The student finally goes to see the dead child: Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now (in Roberts 2009: 817) At this point, s/he resembles the younger Stephen at the Christmas dinner table when the adults remember the death of Parnell. He is beginning to understand the power of memory and death as does Gabriel. In Stephen s case, it is that he is passively learning how memory of the dead can affect the living as he sees his father cry, just as the student in Heaney s poem who says, I met my father crying / He had always taken funerals in his stride (ibid.). Young Stephen cannot understand this awesome power that can bring his father to tears no more than the student can understand the power of life in the form of a cooing baby over grown men and women. In Heaney s poem, however, the young student now realizes the active power of remembering the dead as they were in life. S/he has been away at school, so the memory of the deceased is fixed in time as a baby, and not with the implied four year-old corpse in the small coffin 2. By the end of the Portrait, however, Stephen now has this same capacity of memory as he begins to write his own via the journal-like memoire that concludes the novel. Although earlier in the novel he contemplated his sins of the flesh at the religious retreat, he is then thinking about death as a metaphor, but not yet as the end of his mortal life. At the conclusion of the novel no longer is his memory passively written by the hand of the author, but as a 2 Heaney wrote this poem as a memorial to his brother, Christopher, who died as an infant when Heaney was fourteen. 7

8 character, he begins to forge a new voice. The reader s participation shifts as well. In the beginning of the novel, we must take it at face value that perhaps this was Baby Tuckoo s memory, or not. Likewise, the young Stephen at the dinner table is also confused, but, like Gabriel, begins to see that remembering the dead has consequences, as will later be played out in Ulysses. By the end of the Portrait, however, the reader now has to read Stephen s journal as his memory, and not that of the narrator. This blurring of the lines between remembering others and finding a voice in a memoire, then, could further be compared with Joyce s own Giacomo Joyce. Was this collection of musings the author s memoire, including thoughts about the death of others, or was it a further fictitious memory fabricated by the Artist? As a reader, the decision now becomes more active. Is Stephen Joyce, and/or vice versa Joyce Stephen? Is Giacomo Joyce Joyce and/or vice versa? This dichotomy raises the question of just how much biographical information we can use to interpret Joyce s work as Joyce, rather than as the author. The Stephen that we then see in Ulysses has experienced the power of remembering the dead, but cannot control it. He is still a passive victim of this power and this world, no less than the way that Gabriel s world is threatened by the dead. From the onset of the novel, the reader is quite aware of the power of the dead over the living with respect to May Goulding s death. The consequences and narrative of this do not need to be rehearsed here, but rather the nature of the memory of the dead is what is important. Buck Mulligan s mockery of Stephen s mother causes Stephen to contemplate how he remembers the death of his mother, not whether he does. Mulligan s association is surrogate in that he only knows of it through Stephen, and not first-hand. Mulligan is in the same position as the reader. We, also, do not know what exactly Stephen thinks. Can we really trust the memory that the Artist tells us via the author s hand? Could someone be so cold and distant of his own mother s death as the shocking beginning of Camus L etranger suggests? At first glance, one could at this point simply answer, Yes. However, given the events in Nighttown when the ghost of May graphically haunts Stephen, and given his reaction of terror and horror, it is not so clear that he is completely unaffected by the memory of the dead. Quite on the contrary, his very life is 8

9 threatened by this memory. In other words, Stephen has tried to control the dead with cool emotion, reasoning on the beach as he contemplates the death of a dog, and with the doggerel of a Vampire poem that oddly surfaces during the course of the novel. He has distanced himself from the dead, keeping them at bay, but when he confronts the dead in the Circe episode, he can no longer ignore them. Confronted, as Odysseus with the ghost of Elpenor, he must make a choice between remembering or forgetting, something that the reader will have to do in Finnegans Wake as well. Stephen s life has now fundamentally changed from the passive, internal view of the dead, to having to make an active decision. We can trace an arc of memory from the Baby Tuckoo who does not understand the power of the death of Parnell to the terrified boy at the Christian retreat at the thought of an Eternal Hell after his own death, then to the active writing of a memoire, and finally the confrontation of his mother s ghost. Stephen has made the transition from the vicarious experience of other s memories and commemorations of the dead to understand the power of the dead (and undead) within the world of the living. However, we will never know what decision Stephen will ultimately make. We are left in limbo will he remember or forget his mother? Is it even possible for him to forget the dead now that they have invaded his world? Bloom s world is also threatened by the dead and by the memory of them as he remembers both the death of a child as a father, and the death of a father as a son. The reverse of this dual nature of father/son is succinctly echoed in the poem, Ecce Puer in the final line: A child is sleeping: An old man gone (CP 63). Yet, in this case it concerns the father of a newborn son and the son of recently deceased father, but no less is it the tension between life and death. Bloom is in limbo between the world s of the living and the dead and is tossed between the two like a ship on troubled seas. However, more than Stephen, the older Bloom is also thinking about his own mortality, and not just that of others, specifically Virag and Rudy. Who will remember Bloom, and how? As a failed, Jewish father who could not produce a healthy and living son? As a failed, Jewish son of a suicide father and whose memory does not sadden him? As a cuckold, a pervert, or a husband that finally asserts his will at the end of the novel? All of these thoughts are running through Bloom s head throughout the day. Will he achieve any degree of kleos after his death? Moreover, whose 9

10 kleos is preserved on Bloomsday 2004 when 10,000 people assemble on O Connell Street for Bloom s famous choice of the kidney breakfast? Is it Joyce, Bloom, or both?. Furthermore, how has the Joycean Industry affected this memory? What is it that we are commemorating on such occasions? Is viewing the statue of Joyce in Dublin the same as visiting his grave in Zürich? When one visits Martello Tower, is it to remember Joyce or Stephen? Can we separate them at this point at all? Why do we even want to remember Bloom or Stephen as persons? Are they memorable people if we were to meet them on the streets, or is it because they are part of the collective memory of the now dead Artist, Joyce? Have we secured the kleos aphtiton of both the author and his creation? Let us look further into the letters of the Wake and of the author himself to examine the tension between the living and the dead. The tension between the fear of being forgotten after death and the plea for remembering the dead sets the scene for the hauntingly poignant ending of the Wake with ALP s well-known soliloquy regarding her fallen husband. This tension can further be compared to that between the concepts of amnesia and aletheia: the former is forgetting, while the latter is a type of anamnesis of the soul a remembering or revealing of the forgotten truth (aletheia) 3. A-letheia is exactly what Odysseus must experience with regards to another river, the Lethe in Hades. Circe has told him that he must remember in order to be remembered. Drinking from the waters of the Lethe causes the amnesia and by removing that, one can see the truth within the soul through this process of anamnesis, or calling up the memory. Forgetting Elpenor, then, will destroy Odysseus s only chance of kleos. Likewise, if people forget the Wake and the fate of HCE, then ALP herself will also be forgotten. There is a collective amnesia early on in the Wake when the rumors of HCE are swirling and ALP begins her quest to incite or remember the fallen man. How will he be remembered, if at all? Is the memorial of the museyroom (FW 8.9 ff.) a 3 For a reference to the Platonic concept of anamnesis, see Plato s Meno. In this dialogue, Socrates shows that the soul knows the Truth, but it must be remembered as we have forgotten it. He does this by showing that an uneducated slave actually knows mathematics after his soul remembers it. 10

11 sufficient enough medium to help re-establish the memory of the family? This public amnesia threatens the kleos of HCE. If this loss, or distortion, of memory persists, then the question is whether the truth will be known or revealed. However, there is a further dilemma here as well if the truth (aletheia) is revealed. This revelation could possibly injure the memory of the dead for eternity. Was HCE indeed the heroic Finn, who had insight into the Truth? Or was he rather the slovenly barkeep that ALP eulogizes as she flows out to the sea? Even more, are these letters of ALP on the Liffey those of Joyce, our nowdead Artist that will guarantee his own kleos? Again, now it is up to us readers and scholars to either secure the persistence of this memory or to abandon it to oblivion in the waters of the Lethe. The reader is then directly responsible for the action of remembering the Wake, though to remember literally implies that something has been forgotten, or threatens to be forgotten. The Wake speaks to: What has gone? How it ends? Begin to forget it. It will remember itself from every sides, with all gestures, in each our word. Today's truth, tomorrow's trend. Forget, remember! (FW ) We can no longer sit here passively in our comfortable armchairs, whether as the amateur or ideal reader, and not make a choice. The text now speaks to us directly and we cannot turn a blind eye to the question at hand. Do we forget the Artist and his works, or do we remember them? To add a final layer to this inquiry, we may consider two addition types of works attributed to the memory of the Artist and his works, namely the books about Joyce such as Stanislaus My Brother s Keeper and the collection of Joyce s Letters. Specifically regarding the books about Joyce, let us turn our attention to a non-academic book that was also responsible for influencing the rise of the Joycean Industry and collective memory of him and his works, Portraits of the Artist in Exile: Reflections of James Joyce by Europeans, edited by Willard Potts. How do personal reflections of those who actually knew Joyce then influence our reading of Joyce? As with the Letters collected by Ellmann, these writings have been used to help look for the lost keys and puzzle pieces that 11

12 many so desperately seek to unlock the mysteries and enigmas of the Artist and his creations. Does Giacomo Joyce fit in with this category of reflecting on the life of Joyce? Where do we draw the line between the memoire and the usage of personal memory to create a piece of fiction? Joyce s life, perhaps more than any other, exceeding maybe Shakespeare s as well, has been inextricably intertwined with his works, despite assertions of the contrary. Is it truly possible to peer into the portals of genius in Ulysses without peering into the mind of the Artist? Has the godlike Artist actually stepped back and is he now paring his fingernails as we scratch with ours through the piles of manuscripts and letters in Buffalo, the Ransom Center, the Ellmann library, and others? What is this fascination of resurrecting the dead Artist through his works in order to perpetuate the memory of him? Yet, might it be, as suggested above, that by taking part in this collective anamnesis of the Artist is an attempt at aletheia, finding what the works really mean? Or, perhaps more cynically, or realistically, given our own visions of mortality, are we merely trying to secure our own piece of kleos? Works Cited Budgen, F. (1966) Resurrection, in J.P. Dalton and C. Hart (eds) Twelve and a Tilly: Essays on the 25 th Anniversary of Finnegans Wake, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, Camus, A. (1942) L etranger, Paris: Gallimard. Heidegger, M. (1977) Basic Writings, English translation and edited by D. Farrell Krell, New York: Harper Collins. Herring, P.F. (1987) Joyce s Uncertainty Principle, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Homer (VIII century BC?) Ὀδύσσεια. English translation by W.H. Denham Rouse (1937) The Odyssey, New York: Mentor Book. Joyce, J. (1939/1975) Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber. (FW) 12

13 ----- (1957) Collected Poems, New York: Viking. (CP) (1957, 1966) Letters of James Joyce, vol. I edited by S. Gilbert, vols. II and III edited by R. Ellmann, New York: Viking (1968a) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Text, Criticism, and Notes, edited by C.G. Anderson, New York: Viking (1968b) Giacomo Joyce, edited by Richard Ellmann, New York: Viking (1969) Dubliners: Text, Criticism, and Notes, edited by R. Scholes and A.W. Litz, New York: Viking. (D) (1986) Ulysses: The Corrected Text, edited by H.W. Gabler with W. Steppe and C. Melchior, London: The Bodley Head. (U) Joyce, S. (1958) My Brother s Keeper: James Joyce s Early Years, edited by R. Ellmann and with a preface by T.S. Eliot, Cambridge (MA): Da Capo Press. Kavanagh, P. (1951) Who Killed James Joyce?, Envoy, April 1951: 12. Plato (ca. 380 BC) Μένων. English translation by G. Anastaplo and L. Berns (2004) Plato s Meno Translated with Annotations, Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins. Potts, W. (1986) Portraits of the Artist in Exile: Recollections of James Joyce by Europeans, Seattle (WA): University of Washington Press. Roberts, E.V. (ed) (2008) Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, Upper Saddle River (NJ): Prentice Hall, 9th edition. 13