The idea of a “political James Joyce” has nothing surprising, let alone shocking, about it these days. In recent decades, most Irish writers of note have been thoroughly politicised. This has been the product of the rise of postcolonial and, more generally, historical criticism, which has for obvious reasons found a fertile ground in Irish studies.
The present work, however, is not really part of that tendency, not sharing many of its assumptions or presuppositions. It is not really against it either, though the author does take some of its leading lights to task as he goes along, mainly for their lack of historical nuance. Instead, James Joyce: A Political Life takes a special, not to say unique, approach of its own.
The author, Frank Callanan, was, before his untimely death at the age of 65, a prominent Dublin barrister, a familiar figure as he went around the city on his bicycle. He was also a historian of considerable note, the author of The Parnell Split 1890-91 and the biography, TM Healy. And his interest in Joyce derived directly from those earlier studies: he was increasingly aware of Joyce’s imbrication in events which occurred while he was still a child.
Hence this massive work, which was virtually completed before Callanan’s sudden death: his wife Bridget Hourican and some loyal friends – Luca Crispi, Peter Kennealy and Margaret O’Callaghan – have brought it to publication with some minor tidying up. It is entirely Callanan’s work.
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His starting point – and indeed finishing point – is a historical event which even the most benighted of New Critics recognised as important for Joyce: the split of 1890 involving Charles Stewart Parnell, and his subsequent political fall and death soon after. The best-known manifestation of this in Joyce’s work is of course the famous Christmas Dinner scene in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Intriguingly and paradoxically, Callanan does not believe this event actually happened: he is, I think, the first to make this claim – most critics have taken it for granted that the celebrated row did indeed occur, even if it is artistically touched up for the novel.
There is no question that it is highly dramatised: but the reasons given by Callanan for doubting at least its basis in fact do not seem to me convincing. The characters involved are all authentic, recognisable figures from James Joyce’s world at the time, the dating – Christmas 1891 – and Joyce’s age fit well, and most readers can feel, with justifiable relief, that this dramatic confrontation is indeed a historical echo.
Callanan’s scepticism about this matter is paradoxical, because the whole focus of the book, its raison d’être, is to magnify the effect of Parnell and his downfall on Joyce for the whole of his career. There are many good reasons for such an emphasis on Parnell. One could devote a lot of space to debating intangibles, but if we confine ourselves to the writings, we have, besides the Christmas dinner scene, the short story in Dubliners, Ivy Day in the Committee Room; various references in Ulysses, principally in one episode, Eumaeus, where it is confirmed that Bloom was a Parnellite; and his ghostly presence in Finnegans Wake.
The latter text is of course notoriously difficult to decipher, but certain phrases associated with Parnell, such as “if you sell me, get my price” and “do not throw me to the English wolves”, return consistently. He also appears on the first page as the young challenger who unseats his predecessor as head of the Irish Party, Isaac Butt. Callanan believes that he detects Parnell’s presence at the end of the work as well.
[ The late Frank Callanan has his final say on Joyce and UlyssesOpens in new window ]
But this is not the whole story, nor would it be fair to suggest that the Parnell dimension is the book’s exclusive concern. The work is called A Political Life and it does indeed cover the entirety of Joyce’s relation to Irish politics in astonishing detail. It ranges very widely, with, for instance, a chapter devoted to various friends and associates of Joyce’s father. Four of these do indeed appear in Joyce’s work under different names, so they are not as peripheral to him as may appear.
The author, however, is very exercised early on as to whether Joyce’s father became a Parnellite at the time of the Split, as a reaction to it, or already was one well in advance: not many readers will feel that much hangs on the difference, from the point of view of his son’s perception of events. On the other hand, there is a fascinating chapter about four friends of James Joyce while in UCD, three of whom – Frank Skeffington, Thomas Kettle and George Clancy – were important figures in Irish history in their own right.
“Amateur” Callanan may be, in terms of professional Joyce scholarship, but the work could not be more scholarly or more thoroughly researched and detailed, it’s massively impressive. Of course, in a book of this size, the occasional slip is inevitable: Dr Croke is named as the Archbishop of Armagh at one point, but a couple of pages later he gets the right man, Cardinal Logue (probably destined, such is the posthumous power of literature, to be best known to posterity as “the tub of guts up in Armagh”).
In considering Joyce’s relation to Irish politics and history, certain writings are now frequently invoked – the relatively scanty non-fiction pieces he produced between about 1900 and 1912 – essays, book reviews, journalistic articles, and one delivered lecture. Some lengthy letters by Joyce while he was in Rome in 1906 to his brother Stanislaus are also of importance. It is generally recognised, including by Callanan, that there is a marked difference between the writing Joyce produced in Dublin, before his departure in 1904, and that written during his years in Trieste, between 1907 and 1912.
[ Frank Callanan: Distinguished barrister and historian of noteOpens in new window ]
The Dublin work is that of an angry young man; it is of a piece with the persona of Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait and Ulysses. Joyce’s pamphlet, The Day of the Rabblement, and a notorious review of a book by Lady Gregory in the Dublin Daily Express, make clear his rejection of the tenets of the Anglo-Irish Revival. His attitude to nationalism is more complex, but another review, of a book by a young nationalist poet, emphasises that in his view, putatively admirable sentiments are no excuse for artistic ineptitude.
Indeed, this review poses a problem for those who, like Callanan, want to believe in a residual nationalism on Joyce’s part, for he makes it clear that the poet, William Rooney, wrote unsatisfactory verse not despite being a nationalist but because he was so dedicated to the cause: “And yet he might have written well if he had not suffered from one of those big words which make us so unhappy.” Callanan discusses the review at length – he discusses everything at length – but I’m not sure he quite resolves the issue.
With the move abroad, there is a shift. Joyce’s own position has changed: from being a bitter, marginalised outsider to a man of some standing in Trieste, whose views are treated with some respect – hence the invitation to lecture in the Università Popolare there and subsequently to write some pieces for the local paper, Il Piccolo della Sera (still in existence).
In these pieces, “the Irish Question” is treated with considerable nuance and in a somewhat unexpected way. It is worth remembering, though, that these pieces were mostly occasional, in the sense that they were written in response to invitations – to give a lecture, to contribute to a newspaper, etc.
Some were produced out of a need for cash – to help with the costs of a visit to Ireland, for instance. So to read too much into their brief contents would be unwise, nor should we look for a coherent political position.
Nevertheless, certain tendencies do emerge. Most crucially, there is in some of these texts, most especially the lecture, Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages, in addition to a recognition of the glories of part of Ireland’s past, a looking to the future, a consideration of where the country might be going and whether Joyce wants to come along for the ride. In this context, the goal is explicitly national independence.
On the vital question of how it is to be achieved, several options are considered. Physical force is ruled out, nor for moral reasons but because it never works and is always undermined by informers. More surprisingly, perhaps, parliamentary means are also rejected – Joyce considered such activities pointless after the Split and despised the Irish Party. What he does endorse, in a qualified way, is the policy of Sinn Féin, impressed by its tactics of self-sufficiency and of bypassing British structures and laws in Ireland.
More important than the rather vague outlines of these projects that Joyce presents – not to mention his personal disavowal of any part in the future new Ireland – is the attitude it embodies, an attitude very different from the complete dismissal of his earlier years. Callanan does justice to this change of tone, but ultimately and predictably he lingers longest on Joyce’s last piece on Irish politics, called – surprise, surprise – “The Shade of Parnell”.
This essay is a real throwback: at the time (1912) Joyce believed, like most people, that Home Rule was just around the corner (of course he was wrong, and the whole saga was going to take an entirely unforeseen turn before a form of Home Rule was achieved) and he invoked the shade of Parnell as the ghost at the feast.
So in a sense, in Callanan’s beginning is his end. As mentioned already, he starts with Parnell and ends with Parnell. There is a slight sense, it must be said, of ending up in a cul de sac. But this outcome should not detract from the amazing depth of scrutiny and detail, the very wide historical canvas that this posthumous tour de force presents. And the ultimate return to Parnell in the work is probably explained by the likelihood that Callanan was himself something of a Parnellite, perhaps the very last.
Terence Killeen is the author of Ulysses Unbound: A Reader’s Companion to Ulysses (Penguin)
Further reading
James Joyce: Occasional, Critical and Political Writings, edited by Kevin Barry (OUP, 2008) Despite the cumbersome title, the indispensable collection of Joyce’s non-creative writings, little known before this work appeared in 2000.
The Years of Bloom: Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920 by John McCourt (Lilliput, 2000) Contains a clear and balanced account of Joyce’s Triestine writings, with much information as to the Triestine background to these pieces.
Semicolonial Joyce by Derek Attridge and Marjorie Howes, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2000) A representative collection of the postcolonialist tendency in Joyce criticism. Unsurprisingly, an outstanding essay by Seamus Deane begins the collection.
