KEVIN BIRMINGHAM: THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK;THE BATTLE FOR JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES
Books are easy to pick up and to put down. Some of them can be forgotten even if it is read to a conclusion. Others are very forgettable especially after a random page is read only. Fortunately there are some that linger in our thoughts and others that leave a significant impression.
The Sunday Times Literary Non-Fiction Of The Year for 2014 is entitled ‘The Most Dangerous Book’; The Battle For James Joyce’s Ulysses is one such book; for it travels into the importance of the meaning of freedom. That freedom, that allows un-inhibited thought into the society where it can be articulated. I learnt so much from this book; about Joyce, his behavior and how he lived or more accurately survived. But if this book is about him, it is about so much more. It is about censorship, restriction and the abuse of power negating choice. It says ‘To fight for the freedom of books was to fight for the principle of self-governance that had inspired the American Revolution.’
I have read about ‘The Hicklin Rule’ and about Comstock. Who? Well if you are intrigued then read it for yourselves and the book will also take you through the front door of Shakespeare and Company and even into some of Sylvia Beach’s world. I loved it.
It is also a journey through the mysteries of moralizing. Double standards and the absurdity of not being able to mention ‘condom’, but a man could walk into a brothel. I like that. But what did women do - crawl! Of course, in those days, homosexuals were more discreet!
The author, Kevin Birmingham, is a literary historian living in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his study of Joyce and Ulysses is an in depth one. Birmingham credits it ‘For Dad, who taught me about free expression’. I think that sums it up.
It’s a serious book that the media of the current time should note when freedom is restricted by their invasive journalism and their selection of newsworthy stories. I hate ‘door-stepping’. I consider it a crime - so there.
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