From Book News, Inc.
Drawing on Joyce's medical history, correspondence, diaries of his brother, and memoirs of his acquaintances, contends that the Irish novelist suffered from a form of syphilis. Attributes his symptoms of near blindness, peculiar gait, and death from perforated ulcers to the disease, speculating that he caught it in the brothels of Dublin and Paris while quite young. Also explores how his writing reflects his opinion of his disease and sin. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

James Joyce's near blindness, his peculiar gait, and his death from perforated ulcers are commonplace knowledge to most of his readers. But until now, most Joyce scholars have not recognized that these symptoms point to a diagnosis of syphilis. In what is sure to be a controversial work, Kathleen Ferris traces Joyce's medical history as described in his correspondence, in the diaries of his brother Stanislaus, and in the memoirs of his acquaintances, to show that many of his symptoms match those of tabes dorsalis, a form of neurosyphilis which, untreated, eventually leads to paralysis. Combining literary analysis and medical detection, Ferris builds a convincing case that this dread disease is the subject of much of Joyce's autobiographical writing. Many of his characters, most notably Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, exhibit the same symptoms as their creator: stiffness of gait, digestive problems, hallucinations, and impaired vision. Ferris also demonstrates that the themes of sin, guilt, and retribution so prevalent in Joyce's works are almost certainly a consequence of his having contracted venereal disease as a young man while frequenting the brothels of Dublin and Paris. By tracing the images, puns, and metaphors that occur in Ulysses and in Finnegans Wake, and by demonstrating their relationship to Joyce's experiences, Ferris shows the extent to which, for Joyce, art did indeed mirror life.

FROM THE CRITICS

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