Burgess writes with a lucidity and wit which is rare in academic scholarship, and he never once comes across as being dry, obscure, or condescending. His sense of admiration of Joyce's genius is liberally mixed in with a playful sense of irreverence, and this mix of guileless enthusiasm and intellectual appreciation enlivens every page. In structure, the book is elegantly simple but highly effective. Burgess relates Joyce's life through the framework of his writing, placing each work in a historical context which illuminates Joyce's family, his society, and his own changing ideas about his role as a writer. Against this background, Burgess highlights the many factors which played a hand in shaping Joyce's style, and shows how Joyce himself responded to these forces.
All roads lead to riverrun. . . .
We shall be finding an embarrassing joy in the commonplace, seeing the most defiled city as a figure of heaven, and assuming, against all odds, a hardly supportable optimism. Strong words, and spoken straight from the heart. Again, this is one of my favorite books of Joyce criticism, and no other work has both so influenced and reflected my reading of Joyce. It would be impossible to go wrong with any of the Cambridge Companion series. This book contains a brief chronology, a superlatively arranged annotated bibliography and notes after each contribution, a superior although imperfect arrangement.