New-York tribune., 1922-05-28

Inc hnal chapter, for instance 1.
revere of forty-two pages, without anv
Slhd OF punctuation except Tn. br.,L
OF paragraphs, in which tn. Who'll.
sexual life Of Leopold Blooms v;fe
rushes pell-mell into her consciousness
i' Is almost always in these passaoes
! OF introspection that the author 70.
veals the sex interests and .xn.ri.,cos
oi MS people, and in the emptyinS out
OF thelr minds naturally a great deal
Is uncovered to the discontinue of
convention. The charges of Immoral.
ity, which Joyce has had to face b,v.
oeen based. as rule, upon such
passages.
VET, rarely in literature has croft
cism appeared in such harsh and
dlslllusioned guise as in the work of
James Joyce. where it oscilates be-
tween contemptuous Rabelaisian rib
Gldry and the crude horror and fascj
nation of the body as seen bv the great
catholic ascetics. The glamour of love
Is absent and there remains such an
analysis OF repressed and stunted in
stlncts as only an Irishman could have
made to explain the curious conditions
OF Irish puritanism. But the analvsis
IS not put forward In any intention of
criticism; didacticism is alien to all
that joyce has written. He has simply
compiled the record, reconstructed
period in his life and left US to draw
, conclusions.
"Ulysses" Is simultaneously O. mas
terpiece of realism, Of Recommendation
and most original dissection OF the
Irish mind in certain Of its rhases
usually hitherto ignored, except for the
hints of George Moore. Dedalus and
Bloom are two types of Dubliner such
as were studied in Joyce's flrst book of
stories, remarkable pieces of national
and human portraiture. At the same
time they serve as the medium be-
tween the reader and the vie unanime
of a whole community. whose exist
ence is enrolled before their eyes,
through which we see, and reaches our
consciousness as it filters into their
souls.
AS an experiment in form 'Ulysses"
more effectively accomplishes It's pur-
pose than Jules Romans did in "La
Mort dc Quelqu'un," for out of the
lnnumerable fragments Of which this
mosaic is composed Joyce has created
living whole, the complete represen-
tation Of life. The book might have
been called "La Vie de Quelqu-un,"
for it is not the personal existence of
Dedalus and Bloom that matters so
much as the social organism of which
they are part.
Hermann BAHR, In his EXPIRES
sionismus" Gs16), describes the
advent of Expressionism in terms
which summarize appropriately the
evolution Of Joyce. "The eye Of the
body Is passive in everything; it re-
ceives and, whatever Is impressed upon
1t by outward charm is more powerful
than the activity of the eye itself, more
powerful than what it seizes of that
outward charm. On the other hand. the
eye of the mind is active and merely
uses as the material of its own power
the reflections Of reality. Now it
seems that in the rising generation
the mind is strongly asserting itself.
II fnrriCC
interior life, and listening to the voices
of its own secrets. Such gen
Grafton will repudiate Impressionism
and demand an art which sees with
the eyes Of the mind Expressionism is
the natural successor of impress
sionism."
Much has been written about the
symbolic intention Of this work, of its
relation to the "Odyssey," to which
the plan of the three first and last
chapters, with the twelve cantos of the
adventures of Ulysses in the middle, is
supposed to correspond. Irish criticism
can hardly be impressed by this aspect
Of a work which, in its meticulous de-
tailed Recommendation Of Dublin. rivals
Zola in Photographic realism In its
bewildering juxtaposition of the real
and the imaginary, of the common
place and the fantastic, Joyce's work
obviously declares its kinship with the
Expressionists, with Walter Hasen-
clever or Georg Kaiser
With "Ulysses' James Joyce has
made a daring and valuable experi-
ment, breaking new ground in English
for the future development of prose
narrative. But the european" in
terest Of the work must of necessity
be largely technical, for the matter is
as local as the form is universal. In
fact, so local is it that many pages re-
mind the Irish reader of "Hai and
Farewell" except that the alusions are
to matters and personalities more OBJ
scure.
To claim for this book European
significance simultaneously denied to
j. NJ. Synge and James Stephens is to
confess complete ignorance OF its