Description

Published 2008: First Edition / Softcover / Excellent Condition / Illustrated throughout

Original pictorial stiff card wraps. 365 as new very clean and bright pages. Slight shelf wear might be expected. (HQ862)

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Is there one who understands me?

So wrote James Joyce towards the end of his final work, Finnegans Wake. The question continues to be asked about the author who claimed that he had put so many enigmas into Ulysses that it would keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what he meant.

Studied by thousands of students and with a huge popular following, Joyce is arguably the greatest writer of the twentieth century, but, for many, his books remain an impenetrable mystery. With the help of an engaging commentary, a guide to Joyces writing, and a bank of material gleaned from thirty years teaching Joyce in the classroom, David Pierce has produced a book that makes sense of Joyces work for todays reader. He succeeds in presenting Joyce as an author both more straightforward and infinitely more complex than we had perhaps imagined.

Review
Joyce is a remarkable book which not only manages to bring fresh angles and knowledge to Joyce studies, but also finds a new way of writing about the Irish author. By revisiting aspects of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Exiles, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake which have become more familiar by now, Pierce succeeds in subtly theorizing how we should approach Joyce. In an almost Proustian aphorism Texts read us as much as we read them Pierce exemplifies his own way of engaging theoretically with Joyce.This (re)mapping of Joyces territory makes familiar the unfamiliar, identifying reading strategies which seem to put us in tune with Joyces own writing strategies, based on establishing a new 'covenant' between the word and the world.
Hugues Azérad, Modern Language Review 104:4 October 2009

"Sweeping away years of confusing and contradictory scholarly debate, Pierce brings Joyce's writing - and his characters - back to life. For anyone intending a serious study of Joyce's writing, Reading Joyce is more than just useful; it's essential."
Yorkshire Evening Post

"Pierce contributes richly out of his 40-year legacy in writing and teaching Joyce [and] succeeds in providing novice Joyce readers with a work that charms, enhances, and motivates. - Choice Reviews (USA)

"Reading Joyceis absolutely the best kind of introductory book: not a dumbed-down crib, but an informed and passionate guide that both beginners and experts will learn from. And reading Pierce it becomes very clear why we should become students of Joyce: yes, he's difficult, but not unreadably so; yes, it takes a bit of work, but he is an addictive pleasure once you put a bit of effort in; yes, there is crazy Modernist stylistics, but, at heart, Joyce is a wonderful storyteller. At the end of Finnegans WakeJoyce famously asked "Is there one who understands me?" David Pierce can boldly step forward, and those who read this wonderful book can themselves tentatively raise a hand."
Mark Thwaite, Ready Steady Book

ReadingJoyce is an ideal introduction to the works of the Master. Unlike many writers on Joyce, Pierce addresses the reader on terms of equality. He tries to rescue Joyce from his reputation as a difficult writer rather than to revel self-regardingly in difficulties and complicate them with a theoretical overlay which Joyce himself would have laughed at. Pierce does not flagellate himself, as too many Joyceans do, over trifles or theories and does not expect his readers to do so either.
Mr. Justice Adrian Hardiman, Supreme Court of Ireland, Joycean Scholar

"Many critics of James Joyce are smart: David Pierce is also wise. Reading Joyce brilliantly and judiciously uses his experiences as a fine teacher, a major scholarand an open, receptive reader. And few critics are so skillfully alert to the actual, material, visible world in which Joyces works take place."
Morris Beja, author of James Joyce: A Literary Life, and past President, the International James Joyce Foundation

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Joyce-David-Pierce/dp/