{"id":253,"date":"1996-09-30T15:16:28","date_gmt":"1996-09-30T15:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/?p=253"},"modified":"2013-09-30T15:17:06","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T15:17:06","slug":"james-joyce-anna-livia-plurabelle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/james-joyce-anna-livia-plurabelle\/","title":{"rendered":"James Joyce. \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle\u00bb"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Joyce. \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle\u00bb (\u00abFinnegans Wake\u00bb I.viii). Ed. Francisco Garc\u00eda Tortosa. Trans. Francisco Garc\u00eda Tortosa, Ricardo Navarrete Franco, and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Tejedor Cabrera. Madrid: C\u00e1tedra, 1992, 181 pp.
\n
\n By J. Carnero Gonz\u00e1lez. In Papers on Joyce I (1996): 103-108.<\/em><\/p>\n

When scholarly works such as Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s recently published book on Finnegans Wake appear, one can only delight in being an academic, a Joycean, a reader, indeed in moving through the more familiar waters of one\u0092s critical world. Well beyond the often rarefied circles of Joyce scholarship, however, any lover of literature and of culture in general ought to feel gratitude for the publication of this book which, with an execution one could describe as impeccable, draws us nearer to the increasingly less impenetrable and unknown James Joyce.
\n The work at hand is in fact the union of two autonomous and quite different texts, each of great value and intellectual merit. Without detailing yet their respective designs, these two texts would be the \u00abIntroduction\u00bb and the \u00abTranslation,\u00bb properly speaking. The book is divided into six lengthy sections or chapters, the first four of which bear numbers and compose the \u00abIntroduction\u00bb: I. Joyce and Finnegans Wake; II. Finnegans Wake; III. Anna Livia; IV. The Translation of \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle.\u00bb Each of these chapters is in turn subdivided into diverse parts without headings. They are followed by a \u00abBibliography\u00bb and by the translation itself which, in bilingual format, closes the volume with the title \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle.\u00bb Those responsible for the translation are Garc\u00eda Tortosa, Navarrete Franco, and Tejedor Cabrera, all members of an active group of Joyce scholars at the University of Seville.
\n Perhaps the work directed by Garc\u00eda Tortosa could have been presented in a slightly different way. If indeed, as suggested above, its content\u0097Bibliography apart\u0097is clearly composed of two distinct texts, the form could have better revealed this distinction by grouping, on the one hand, Chapters I, II, and III, and, on the other, Chapter IV, \u00abThe Translation of \u0091Anna Livia Plurabelle,\u0092\u00bb attached to and immediately preceding the translation of FW i.viii, as its authentic and singular introduction. The Bibliography might then serve as a conclusion to the impressive scholarly and literary achievement. Yet, assuredly, Garc\u00eda Tortosa and his colleagues will have had their reasons for structuring the work as they have.
\n One has no choice but to disagree with Garc\u00eda Tortosa, however, when he affirms at the outset of his synopsis of FW I.viii that one must bear in mind \u00abthat this is nothing more than the prologue to a translation. . . \u00bb (97). On the contrary, the first three chapters of the book represent and compose a legitimate monograph on Joyce and Finnegans Wake, an inspired, erudite, and enriching study even for those altogether familiar not only with the biography but also, and most importantly, with Joyce\u0092s artistic endeavour. Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s insights are extraordinarily sensitive to Joyce\u0092s craft; they are keenly conscious, indeed wary, of the ever-present trickery and flirting of Joyce with language.
\n Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s scholarly method and imaginative procedures are equally worthy of praise. The author sequences elements by means of a technique present in Finnegans Wake: with almost rigid discipline, he moves from the grand to the small, from the general to the particular, in a progressive, at times almost imperceptible way, drawing near, such as occurs in cinema when the camera shifts from wide-angled perspectives to close-ups revealing intricate detail.
\n Chapter I of the Introduction\u0097\u00bbJoyce and Finnegans Wake\u00bb\u0097consists of five well-differentiated sections in which Garc\u00eda Tortosa reveals his deep knowledge of the material he is managing, fundamentally the Joyce biography and its influence on the composition of Finnegans Wake. The author draws special attention to the presence in the Joyce oeuvre of Dublin, of Joyce\u0092s family, and of the artist\u0092s personal ups-and-downs from 1939 to his death in 1941. This first section, without seeking to present an exhaustive treatment of the Joyce biography and its interwoven relation to the writer\u0092s works, becomes, by virtue of its style and mastery of sources, more revealing and intriguing than many general introductions and monographic studies devoted to such subjects.
\n Of special significance is the third section of this first chapter, above all pages 28 to 37. These pages study with admirable erudition the presence of Lucia Anna Joyce in Finnegans Wake, not only through Issy but also through the figure of the mother, Anna Livia Plurabelle. The universal myth of Cinderella is analysed and seen to cast new light on the functions and names of Joyce\u0092s real daughter and those of the daughter in the work. If we are convinced by Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s interpretation, we are given \u00abthe keys to numerous enigmas in Finnegans Wake and, specifically the solution to the labyrinth into which Joyce placed his daughter in the work\u00bb (31-32).
\n Chapter II, entitled \u00abFinnegans Wake,\u00bb is divided into two sections, the first of which begins, appropriately enough, by mentioning the ballad \u00abFinnegan\u0092s Wake,\u00bb to which the cover of Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s book subtly makes reference. Garc\u00eda Tortosa affirms: \u00abFinnegans
\nWake owes its title and in part its underlying structure\u0097which controls and opposes the centrifugal motion of the work\u0097to a popular ballad, known as \u0091Finnegan\u0092s Wake\u0092\u00bb (40).
\n In this first section the author analyses in addition the philosophical precepts of Giambattista Vico and Giordano Bruno of Nola, maintaining that, if indeed the central theme of Finnegans Wake would be the circularity of man\u0092s existence on earth (42), such a concern with circularity appears in all of Joyce\u0092s previous works, including Exiles. However, and this is significant for its novelty, Garc\u00eda Tortosa observes: \u00abCircularity is one of the keys to Finnegans Wake, of this there is no doubt, yet the end need not literally lead to the beginning. Understood in these terms, moreover, such static circularity would contradict the viconian idea of analogy, which holds that cycles repeat themselves analogically, not identically\u00bb (47). Garc\u00eda Tortosa concludes this section by constructing a brief synopsis in which Universal History is seen as a fusion of all histories. For the author, the essence of Finnegans Wake lies in the \u00abAll in all\u00bb of Hamlet and Stephen.
\n Immediately before turning his attention to \u00abAnna Livia\u00bb in Chapter III, Garc\u00eda Tortosa, following the procedures described above, reflects on the language of Finnegans Wake . Language itself is a terrain in which the author moves with ease; he feels especially comfortable dealing with it on this occasion, as evidenced by his prose which, although reflexive, never-theless remains clear and direct. If, the author postulates, the tavern-owner of Chapelizod represents all men, \u00abthe English language would have to fulfil the same function: to be one and all languages at once\u00bb (64-65).
\n The third chapter concludes what, in my opinion, constitutes an inspired monograph of the highest quality on Joyce and Finnegans Wake. The first two of this chapter\u0092s five sections are most noteworthy, although one must mention in addition the page by page synopsis of I.viii (96-106) and a final, brief section concerning the possible models, especially that of Nora Barnacle, from which Joyce drew inspiration in drawing the character of Anna Livia (107-109).
\n Garc\u00eda Tortosa begins the chapter by detailing the different versions through which I.viii evolved and the manner in which the original idea became more elaborate and complex. In a delightful comparison, the author writes that the \u00abmethod of composition which Joyce uses in \u0091Anna Livia Plurabelle,\u0092 and in Finnegans Wake, does not differ substantially from that which a bee uses in the building of its honeycombed hive\u00bb (96). Of equal interest, Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s analysis of the female protagonist\u0092s\u0097if I may be permitted this expression\u0097name, chosen as title for this third chapter, is, in spite of its brevity, sharp and revealing even for those who consider themselves familiar with the topic: successively, Plurabelle (90), Livia (90-93), and Anna (93).
\n As indicated above, Chapter III\u0092s conclusion gives way to a separate, distinct monograph, namely the translation of FW I.viii, properly speaking, all of which, in my opinion, should be followed by the Bibliography, thus drawing the work to a close. Chapter IV, titled \u00abThe Translation of \u0091Anna Livia Plurabelle,\u0092\u00bb in fact the authentic introduction to the translation, remains unnecessarily and unnaturally separated by the Bibliography from that which it ought immediately to precede.
\n Garc\u00eda Tortosa begins Chapter IV by presenting and comparing five translations of a representative text, that of FW 215.31-216.05, the conclusion to I.viii. The translations are those of C. K. Ogden into basic English, Samuel Beckett and others into French, Joyce himself into Italian, Lavergne into French, Leopoldo R. I. Rodr\u00edguez into Galician, and finally Garc\u00eda Tortosa, Navarrete Franco, and Tejedor Cabrera into Spanish. An unpublished translation of this same text by Silva Santisteban into Spanish an another by Sobr\u00e9 of FW 538.18-538.08 into Catalan are also mentioned. In a more personal tone, Garc\u00eda Tortosa concludes the chapter by describ-ing how his idea for a translation arose and how it was brought to fruition.
\n With the same rigor and care characteristic of preceding chapters, the translation is artistically precise and accomplished even in its smallest details. FW I.viii is presented in the original and translated into Spanish, on even and odd pages, respectively, conserving the format of each page and line of Joyce\u0092s text. While lines are not numbered, as is customary with official editions, page numbers of the original appear within brackets. Concerning translation procedure, the authors have respected the process Joyce followed in creating the original, thus conferring to the translation its own validity and universality.
\n The Bibliography is divided into four parts: primary sources; general; bibliography cited in the Introduction; and bibliography used in the Translation. These account for the nine dense pages of titles, of both recent and older publication, which form an indispensable tool for anyone, either neophyte or veteran, seeking to move in Joycean waters.
\n \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle\u00bb (Finnegans Wake I.viii), bilingual edition of Francisco Garc\u00eda Tortosa, marks an intellectual and literary achievement which any lover of literature, indeed of the arts in general, ought to celebrate. The exactitude of its execution, its erudition and accomplished translation, set new standards for scholarly practice in our country. With his book\u0092s publication, work on Joyce in Spain will receive the international attention it deserves.1<\/p>\n

Note<\/p>\n

1. An earlier Spanish version of this review first appeared in the Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 5 (1992): 245-48.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Joyce. \u00abAnna Livia Plurabelle\u00bb (\u00abFinnegans Wake\u00bb I.viii). Ed. Francisco Garc\u00eda Tortosa. Trans. Francisco Garc\u00eda Tortosa, Ricardo Navarrete Franco, and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Tejedor Cabrera. Madrid: C\u00e1tedra, 1992, 181 pp. By J. Carnero Gonz\u00e1lez. In Papers on Joyce I (1996): 103-108. When scholarly works such as Garc\u00eda Tortosa\u0092s recently published book on Finnegans Wake appear, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-resenas","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grupo.us.es\/iberjoyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}