i'm sorry, but it seems clear to me that wells is ridiculing joyce's 'last two works'

> Now with regard to this literary experiment of yours.. I don’t think it gets anywhere.

> .. Your last two works have been more amusing and exciting to write than they will ever be to read.

even ignoring how joyce suffered while writing these works, i can say anecdotally that wells is so completely wrong in this assertion because i found reading these works to be both extremely amusing and exciting to read

> .. Do I get much pleasure from this work? No.

> .. Do I feel I am getting something new and illuminating ..? No.

that is some clearly contemptuous ire.. and you said you agreed:

> I think Well's both captures what Joyce is up to, and clearly expresses why it's not for him. I feel much the same toward Joyce.

so i apologise for reading your post as agreeing with wells' contempt but it seemed to me a pretty sure reading that that was your intent

that said, now that you have described what you meant by 'wondering about ones impact' it seems like an innocuous game and i suppose my reaction to it was more about its proximity to wells' opinions that i still read as clearly saying joyce's choices were simply wrong

asking 'what would have been if he wrote in esperanto instead?' takes on different connotation when presented as nonsequitor, but when paired with 'he wasted his potential. what would have been if he wrote in esperanto instead?' it just reads rude

i am also confused why my opinion that wells is belligerently overreaching is controversial when the paris review even notes it in their lede describing the letter as "reacting, irascibly if not uncharitably"

i like wake and ulysses

> I've fought my way through the most of the Wake

this assumes a prerequisite that books, or novels, should be read cover to cover.. personally i am without this prerequisite i can pick up wake and read a single sentence and put it down and be wholly satiated

> Joyce's talent for language is obvious; his choice of where to dedicate that talent is not.

i love to have my expectations subverted, i find the obvious can often turn droll and disappointing

this is clear from the fact that dubliners bores me but i think wake is the only true novel, ulysses is the first iteration of that endeavour and is much more approachable but i think he achieved the closest thing to the platonic ideal of what i, for myself, consider a novel: a true account of affects and effects; with finnegan's wake

i think of wake as a literary fractal

what is often accused of being crowded, elabourate, riddled digressions i see as the truest account possible

like you said of me misreading you, i believe it, because regardless of the amount of words you use there will always be more that was left out that could have further elucidated those ideas

joyce seems to follow a single strand to a point of abstraction that the reader feels unable to comprehend the moment and in so doing achieves the truest expression of that moment

any finite description is incomplete

and someone could respond, 'but joyce's abstractions are well documented and you can read the text annotated to understand every foible' but that only defends that position that the work is incredibly calculated and anything but gibberish

to truly define stephen dedalus and his mind joyce would have to write within abstractions that joyce would be unable to have because joyce is wholly disparate from stephen

to attempt any such an effort would be indistinguishable from gibberish even for the author because in its essence the author would have to be unaware of what he is writing and why

so, as i see it, his only possible choice is to take it to the point that he is aware of what is being said but the reader is just too far from familiar

from this letter wells seems to revel in telling some other person why he does what he does, which from my reading is hillariously the exact opposite of what joyce wanted his readers to get from his work: life is enigmatic to life

i could be wrong about joyce, but that is why i love it