Saturday 31 May 2014

A Realer World

Today, I attended a memorial for the life of local teacher and writer, Julian Holt. Julian's short story, "James Joyce at Speech Day," was read aloud and is included in a specially produced book that was distributed free.

In this story, a lover of James Joyces' Ulysses says:

"'...such language, such beauty. And out of it a world richer and realer than anything here. Can you believe I feel more alive in that book than in this place?'"

"...Dublin, home town, heart town. She had never been there, except in her mind..."

"'In my heart I feel a Dublin girl, and it's 1904, and I'm breathing the smells of Grafton Street and Tyrone Street and Killiney Strand, and taking a stout in Larry O'Rourke's pub. It's all so real...'"

We live in worlds that writers make real. Joyce made Dublin real to Milly because it was real to him. Poul Anderson made other worlds real to us because he imagines them. I have marched through Zorkagrad with Flandry and Kossara surrounded by zmayi.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Or been as overwhelmed as Miriam Abrams was by the sheer size and magnificence of Archopolis on Terra when she first visited the Imperial capital?

And Anderson's descriptions of Admiralty Center in WE CLAIM THESE STARS and THE REBEL WORLDS has also stuck with me.

And, yes, the worlds described in the works of Anderson feels REAL to me. As does Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Sean