1990. Monaco: The International Conference Images of Joyce:
Opening Statement One by C. George SANDULESCU, Monaco.
(These are, in fact, Sandulescu's spoken prefaces to the Proceedings Volumes. The Conference took place in June 1990 in Monaco, and the two volumes were subsequently published by Colin Smythe of Gerrards Cross.)
[Full Texts]
TEXT ONE:
FORWARD : 12 ! *
by C. George SANDULESCU (Monaco)
(This is an Opening Address given by Conference Director C. G. Sandulescu on . . . at . . . )
Epigraph:
Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.
Gustave Flaubert
The main job of each and all here is to project an image -- an image of Joyce. A critical vision of him, from a wide range of idiosyncratic angles, if you so wish.
It all started in mid-June 1967 in Dublin: I could not make it, for I then had examinations to attend to in Leeds. . . Then I rejoined the Symposia in Paris in 1975, where the very first person I saw was l'Ami Fritz with his inseparable camera: so much so, that I mistook him for a somewhat too inquisitive professional photographer. In 1977 it was Dublin and Clive Hart gave me an idea for a book there. In 1979 Zurich became the playground for David Lodge, and Hans W. Gabler and we all know the impressive books it all led to. We gave it a skip in 1981 just in order to get the precise centennial image of 1982: and that is when I kept listening to chunks from RTE Ulysses, moving from pub to pub with Anthony Burgess. Two years afterwards I was sitting next to Mr Stephen J. Joyce at the presentation ceremony of the three Garlands, only minutes before the Frankfurt Symposium dissolved into thin air. In 1988 we were on Isola San Giorgio in Venice with Umberto Eco, and we are still waiting for that image as projected in the Proceedings volume . . .
And now we are here in Monaco, with Joyce's favourite number: as any good Finnegans Wake scholar knows only too well, '12' occurs just about every hundred lines; Monaco is thus in duty bound to project multiple images -- another image of the word-and-number Master that was Joyce, closely linked to his panoply of languages: for Monaco itself seems to play host on a permanent basis to ninety-three (!) national groups, probably twice as many languages as he himself listed. Put across in addition would be a third image -- that of the Princess Grace Irish Library as a Convention-organizing institution.
I hope the present Symposium -- included by right into the timely "Survey" -- will be as successful as the preceding ones in projecting a specific image. On behalf of the Principality of Monaco, and of its Sovereign Prince, who has graciously given us his patronage, I wish you all a very pleasant stay. And plenty of images !
* 12 ! = 4,790,016,000 . . . The world's population today, quite exactly . . .
ends
TEXT TWO:
IMAGE OF HIM
by C. George SANDULESCU, Monaco.
(This is an Opening Address given by the Conference Director in the presence of H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco, and Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline.)
Monseigneur, Your Serene Highness, Your Excellency, Your Graces, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Image of Him, the title of this brief address is, as most of you may have already realized, a quotation from Ulysses: the actual referent is quite complex.
The topic of the Venice Symposium was The Languages of Joyce; it was chosen, proposed, and sustained by Carla Marengo.
The topic of the Monaco Symposium is Images of Joyce; it has been chosen, proposed and sustained by me, with the kind and generous support of Louis le Brocquy for the image, of Adrien Maeght for the Poster, of Michael Smurfit for the Exhibition, and of you all for your individual critical visions. Indeed, somebody's own critical vision, verbally embodied (in the sense of verbalized) ultimately generates an image -- or, more precisely a meta-image, if you wish -- which takes the physical shape of a book, of a paper, or of a panel contribution; after having been exposed to that image, we are by definition supposed to see Joyce better, and place him more accurately in our own collections of images of literary figures and literary works. Any critical contribution worth the name is an eye-opener, as it were, more literally than we are prone to think. (Lily, for instance, in 'The Dead' is also a syncopatic reduction of literally -- that is a linguistic image, quite different from the Uncle Charles Principle !)
Next, the printed Programme of the Symposium, too, is such an Image, and we owe the near-perfect visual display to Alan Miller, a Monaco resident of long standing. I may have tampered slightly with one or two Finnegans Wake quotations in order to project the numerical image of TWELVE with the finesse of a sledge-hammer: Claude Gaignebet on Friday is sure to ram home even more forcefully the emblematic values of digital images which were so dear to James Joyce himself.
Ezra Pound's language-oriented definition of literature in 'How to Read' --
Great Literature is simply Language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree
brings us round to the notion of charge, which Pound uses repeatedly: it was an epiphanic revelation to me when -- after Venice -- I realized that the charge, or payload, of IMAGE is infinitely superior to that of LANGUAGE. And as a single word, it is as such closer to the above 'impact' definition of literary values given by Ezra Pound.
I wish to advance that none of you present here can --whatever you do -- escape projecting a conjoined image of James Joyce and of your own individual selves, critical or uncritical.
Glasnost is a visual metaphor. And largely so is also Perestroika: it is time that both of them gently descend also upon us whenever we gather for a Symposium.
I most warmly welcome the active presence of Mr Stephen J. Joyce among us, in the heart of the Joyce community.
Finally, I propose to you all that the title of the Monaco Proceedings volumes be Images of Joyce. I further propose that the title of the preface be 'Image of Him', and I wish to leave you for the rest of the week with a statement made by Gustave Flaubert, whether you look at Dubliners, whether you look at Ulysses or whether you look at Finnegans Wake:
Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.
To give you an example of enlightening text analysis, I would beg you to look at this morning's programme and you will see there the line --
The Richard Ellmann Memorial Lecture by Anthony Burgess.
We are evoking now by this very arrangement, the image, the smiling image, the gently smiling image of Dick Ellmann, who was, by coincidence, introduced to me years ago by Anthony Burgess himself, a resident of Monaco like me (jocularly referred to by Dick in private as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of Monte Carlo). Burgess himself had known Ellmann the same span of time before me. I am here quoting Anthony Burgess who wrote in the Observer recently: "I fist met Dick Ellmann in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1966 when he and I were participants in a Literary Festival. From then on, we met frequently, usually at places where James Joyce was being celebrated."
I now call upon Dr Anthony Burgess to give us his Image of "Joyce as Novelist".
ends
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