Ever since I read
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man in high school, the Irish author has fascinated me to no
end. Much of my graduate work focused on
Joyce. When I heard of a novel loosely
based on Joyce’s great work, Ulysses,
I could not move faster to order and read the novel, The Sixteenth of June by Maya Lang.
As a bonus, she set the story in Philadelphia. All kinds of landmarks figure into the story,
as they do in the Dublin of Ulysses. Those who enjoy puzzles and word games
will find this a pleasant and worthwhile read.
The only drawback to
the novel lies in the complicated family relationships, which I found hard to
keep straight. I tried making a family
tree, but gave up. Maya Lang’s website
contains a list of sentences and paraphrased sentences, drawn from Ulysses.
Great fun ferreting those out.
Lang’s prose ranks
close to Joyce’s style. In Ulysses, every page is a puzzle, every
character described in great detail.
Lang’s characters also share names with the characters in Ulysses: Leopold and Stephen, and Nora –
Joyce’s wife.
Lang’s Stephen is an
English Professor, as is Joyce’s. Lang
writes, “They continued talking, their discussion lightening as the sky grew
dark. He told her about teaching, that
sea of alien faces smirking at him. How
they fidgeted, turning in papers that were a collective atrocity. And this is an Ivy League school! Next he was going on about his committee, the
fatiguing levels of [butt]-kissing its members required. He felt as if he were getting a degree in
babysitting, in appeasement, in coddling.
‘Stephen, don’t you have office hours?’ she interrupted, glancing at the
clock. ‘No one ever comes anyway,’ he
replied hastily, reaching for a cookie.
He thought he saw a momentary gleam in her eye, but she said nothing,
her head bobbing away” (29).
Numerous references
to places I know and love abound in the novel: Rittenhouse Square, Spruce
Street, Delancey Place, Chestnut Hill, Wawa – a deli/convenience store with
great sandwiches, and my neighborhood, Fishtown. She even takes a jab at a Philly accent, when
Nora asks if Stephen wants a drink. “She
pronounced coffee as if it had a w. Cawfee” (109).
The characters spend
a lot of time in their heads, for example, Lang writes, “Nora wonders if they
aren’t so different from Ulysses. She had attempted to read it before her
first Bloomsday party. ‘How do you
people get through this thing?’ she asked Stephen. ‘They don’t,’ he replied. ‘That’s its claim to fame’” (88).
In one scene, Lang
writes, “…Stephen clacking away on his beloved typewriter. 16 June
2014” (121). Of course June 16th is Bloomsday, the date Ulysses is set. So those were fun, and kept me reading, but I
think I will read this again in a little while and see if deserves more than 4
stars.
--Chiron, 8/21/14
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