In Folha de S.Paulo Rodrigo Levino profiles mega-bestselling international sensation Paulo Coelho and there, among the wisdom on offer, is, as the headline has it, the bold claim: Ulysses was harmful to literature, says Coelho.
I don't know about you, but ... well, if Paulo Coelho says so, how can one even argue ?
What he says, specifically, is that:
I guess that's the last we need to mention (much less read) Joyce, right ? Let's get back on track, away from style and ... twitdom ? twitiness ?
Monday morning, I'm going to see if I can trade in my foolishly well-worn copy of Ulysses for a couple of these Coelho novels. They sound ... positively inspirational.
(On the other hand, Coelho does seem to be onto something when he says he won't allow anything of his to be published after his death:
Now if we could only get Coelho to see the wisdom of not waiting until he isn't around any longer and actually get him to stop publishing his 'books' sooner .....)
I don't know about you, but ... well, if Paulo Coelho says so, how can one even argue ?
What he says, specifically, is that:
"Today writers want to impress other writers," he says. And then names the culprit: "One of the books that caused great harm was James Joyce's Ulysses, which is pure style. There is nothing there. Stripped down, Ulysses is a twit," he says.I must have missed something, back when I read Ulysses -- I thought it was a great read, and a pretty darn good story at that. But now, thanks to the wisdom of this Coelho fella, I know better. Sure, those generalizations -- lumping 'writers' into one big ugly pile, for example -- worry me a bit, but, after all, this guy is: "Internationally acclaimed, with 140 million books sold in 160 countries and translated into 73 languages", so surely he knows what he's talking about, and must be right about this (and everything).
I guess that's the last we need to mention (much less read) Joyce, right ? Let's get back on track, away from style and ... twitdom ? twitiness ?
Monday morning, I'm going to see if I can trade in my foolishly well-worn copy of Ulysses for a couple of these Coelho novels. They sound ... positively inspirational.
(On the other hand, Coelho does seem to be onto something when he says he won't allow anything of his to be published after his death:
He fears his heirs will fight over copyrights, or, even worse, publish his works without authorization. "It happened to Nabokov. It is terrible."Anyone who bashes Dmitri Nabokov and estate-'handler' Andrew Wylie for what they did can't be all bad or wrong .....
Now if we could only get Coelho to see the wisdom of not waiting until he isn't around any longer and actually get him to stop publishing his 'books' sooner .....)