Overview

This book is both a study of how James Joyce created two of the most iconic characters in literature--Leopold Bloom and Marion Tweedy Bloom--as well as a history of the genesis of Ulysses. From a genetic critical perspective, it explores the conception and evolution of the Blooms as fictional characters in the work's wide range of surviving notes and manuscripts. At the same time, it also chronicles the production of Ulysses from 1917 to its first edition in 1922 and beyond. Based on decades of research, it is an original engagement with the textual archive of Ulysses, including the exciting, recently discovered manuscripts now in the National Library of Ireland. The book excavates the raw material and examines the creative processes Joyce deployed in the construction of the Blooms and so the writing of Ulysses. Framed by a contextual introduction and four bibliographical appendices, the seven main chapters are a critical investigation of the fictional events and memories that constitute the 'lives' of the Blooms. Thereby, it is also a commentary on Joyceâs conception of Ulysses more generally. Crispi analyses how the stories in the published book achieved their final form and discloses previously unexamined versions of them for everyone who enjoys reading Ulysses. This book demonstrates the various ways in which specialist textual work on the genesis of Ulysses directly intersects with other critical and interpretive readings. Becoming the Blooms is a behind-the-scenes guide to the creation of one of the most important books ever written.

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9780198718857

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Reviews

Luca Crispi's meticulously researched and superbly presented study is important both for the light it throws on Joyce's creative methods and, more generally, for its challenge to many of our assumptions about the way fictional characters are brought into being. Crispi asks what the surviving manuscripts of Ulysses can tell us about the evolution of Leopold and Molly Bloom as the novel developed, and discovers a surprisingly fluid process of revision, accretion and transferral of characteristics. The result is a penetrating account of one of the most astonishing feats of literary creativity of the twentieth century. Derek Attridge This is the book in which genetic criticism of modernist writing properly comes of age, demonstrating that it can not only extend our knowledge of the mutations a text undergoes and our sense of its open-endedness, but also genuinely and subtly illuminate the myriad intricate movements of the creative process, and indeed transform interpretations. Crispi's learning is formidable, his archival research dedicated, authoritative and immensely assiduous, and his responsiveness to textual detail impeccable. The result is a magisterial contribution, both to Joyce scholarship, and to the study of modernist literature in general. Andrew Gibson, Research Professor in Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London

Luca Crispi's meticulously researched and superbly presented study is important both for the light it throws on Joyce's creative methods and, more generally, for its challenge to many of our assumptions about the way fictional characters are brought into being. Crispi asks what the surviving manuscripts of Ulysses can tell us about the evolution of Leopold and Molly Bloom as the novel developed, and discovers a surprisingly fluid process of revision, accretion and transferral of characteristics. The result is a penetrating account of one of the most astonishing feats of literary creativity of the twentieth century. Derek Attridge Joyce's Creative Process marks a turning point in the James Joyce studies because it modifies the pedagogy concerning Ulysses, a novel regularly taught in undergraduate classes. Tackling a term as central and apparently easy to grasp as character, Crispi demonstrates that no reading of Ulysses can avoid grappling with the genesis of the text or tapping its evolutionary archive, here synthesized with rare clarity. One cannot deny the centrality of characterizationathe fictional representation of human beings when they become beings of paper ain the study of narratives. By making us revise our assumptions about the main characters of Ulysses, this book revolutionizes the study of James Joyce as a whole. Jean-Michel RabatA(c), Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania This is the book in which genetic criticism of modernist writing properly comes of age, demonstrating that it can not only extend our knowledge of the mutations a text undergoes and our sense of its open-endedness, but also genuinely and subtly illuminate the myriad intricate movements of the creative process, and indeed transform interpretations. Crispi's learning is formidable, his archival research dedicated, authoritative and immensely assiduous, and his responsiveness to textual detail impeccable. The result is a magisterial contribution, both to Joyce scholarship, and to the study of modernist literature in general. Andrew Gibson, Research Professor in Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London

This is the book in which genetic criticism of modernist writing properly comes of age, demonstrating that it can not only extend our knowledge of the mutations a text undergoes and our sense of its open-endedness, but also genuinely and subtly illuminate the myriad intricate movements of the creative process, and indeed transform interpretations. Crispi's learning is formidable, his archival research dedicated, authoritative and immensely assiduous, and his responsiveness to textual detail impeccable. The result is a magisterial contribution, both to Joyce scholarship, and to the study of modernist literature in general. Andrew Gibson, Research Professor in Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London

Author Information

Dr Luca Crispi teaches on the Anglo-Irish as well as the Modern and Contemporary Literature MA programmes at University College Dublin. He is founding co-editor of the Dublin James Joyce Journal and Associate Director of the Dublin James Joyce Summer School. He was contributing co-editor of How Joyce Wrote 'Finnegans Wake': A Chapter-by-Chapter Genetic Guide. Previously, Crispi was James Joyce and W.B. Yeats Research Scholar at the National Library of Ireland and co-curator of the exhibitions 'James Joyce and Ulysses at the National Library of Ireland' and 'Yeats: The Life and Works of W.B. Yeats', and was the James Joyce Scholar in Residence, the Poetry Collection, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.

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