Happy Birthday, James Joyce

The Paris Review Daily -February 2, 2012 | by Sarah Funke Butler

Image courtesy Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, Inc.; document now part of a private Joyce collection in New York.

There’s so much to celebrate today, February 2, the birthday of James Joyce. On January 1 of this year the published works of Joyce came into the public domain. What does this mean? It means that scholars no longer need to go to his grandson Stephen Joyce, bowl in hand, begging for a ladle full of text. It means that I can translate for you the above illegible bit of manuscript from Ulysses in Joyce’s hand:

By Bachelor’s walk jogjingle
jaunted Blazes Boylan, bachelor.
In sun, in heat, warmseated,
sprawled, mare’s glossy rump
atrot. Horn, Have you the ?
Horn. Have you the ? Haw
haw horn.

Clearer? Good.
Even better, it also means that I can quote you the slightly different published version of this passage:

By Bachelor’s walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun, in heat, mare’s glossy rump atrot with a flick of whip, on bounding tyres: sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the ? Horn. Have you the ? Haw haw horn.

You see the improvement? Excellent.
Full piece at Paris Review Daily