James Joyce

This is a famous biography, justly so, because it is a tour de force in its own right, let alone one about such a unique individual.
What a struggle Joyce's life became. Yet he held to his ideé fixe that writing ought to be transformed by taking the ordinary events (thoughts and action) of life and presenting them as imaginative life that soars from the small to large, simple lyric to epic and literature into myth.
His life ended just as he completed his artistic mission.
It was made difficult through his need for exile from Ireland, his penury, his spendthrift ways, his bluntness and continual difficulties with his eyes, but he knew how to enjoy himself too (an enthusiastic conversationalist, good singer and sometime extravagant bon show more vivant).
He was a simple family man despite his roaring need to write something revolutionary; he was lucky to retain loyal friends and was blessed to see his work published and heralded before his sad death in 1941.
Ellmann sums him up at the end "...his two profound interests - his family and his writing - kept their place. These passions never dwindled. The intensity of the first gave his work its sympathy and humanity; the intensity of the second raised his life to dignity and high dedication".
Nonetheless, I find reading Ulysses and Finnegans Wake impossible. For my money, these works should be read aloud like poetry by someone with a Dublin accent. show less

Previous training and hubris allowed me to waltz into the Joycean buzzsaw completely blind. That summer of 1994 I was recovering from knee surgery, catching a bad relationship in the solar plexus and discovering the World Cup. This tome was such a wellspring of delight during the hot, heady, and hobbled days of that summer.

Well-rounded and meticulously researched biography of a literary giant and wonderfully ordinary man. Not without its mistakes, apparently, but an indispensable read for anyone who loves Joyce's work.

An essential work, but much overrated. Ellmann is not entirely reliable on important points, due to a curiously persistent obtuseness toward and misunderstanding of Joyce's sense of his own mission.

If you are in any interested in getting into Joyce, this book is pretty much invaulable. A towering book of detail about the man and his influences. Ellmann also devotes a chapter to giving an analyses of his major works (except for Exiles and Finnegans Wake), which is exetremely helpful. His chapter on Ulysses is very benficial for first time readers though by no means an absolute introduction to the certain opaque prose in the book, just themes, influences and certain stylistic elements.

The definition of a comprehensive biography. My personal favorite review of this massive tome? "If someone stood next to Joyce at a urinal, Ellman interviewed him."

Full disclosure, I skipped most of the coprophilia and iritis parts.