James Joyce and not using Commas?

I choose to read it without a pause, many writers omit punctuation for artistic reasons. Those in the arts need not follow silly rules for the benefit of those viewing the work. That’s kind of a major point.

There are other reasons as well, errors in printing can omit punctuation or letters, sometimes whole words. And sometimes editors can get freaking tired.

Joyce also preferred whiskey to the long dash.
I would understand him better if I were Irish, and Catholic, and raised by nuns, and completely hammered.

Joyce experimented with writing the way people think, and wished not to interrupt the streams of prose with punctuational hesitations.

I love Dubliners. Love love love it. One of my all-time favorite books.

I don’t know why he wrote that way, but he did. A lot of the way he wrote was experimental.

@asmonet: I know that writers often flaunt grammar, and I’m not certainly going to say that I’m a better writer than Joyce because I use commas. I’m wondering what exactly is the artistic reason that Joyce chooses to omit commas in these sentences.

@filmfann: Lol.

@pdworkin: That’s what I was thinking too, if only because all I know about Joyce is that he wrote Ulysses and pioneered the whole stream-of-consciousness thing.

It’s difficult for a writer of my stature (one technical book and a few magazine pieces) to take someone of Joyce’s stature to task for his syntactic preferences, but I agree, the commas make the prose more readable to me.

At least he isn’t Gertrude Stein. If I recall correctly the only punctuation she loathed more than a comma was a question mark—so she used commas in place of question marks and didn’t use anything where a comma was needed.

Bizarre as her sentence structure was, apparently she was a sentence diagramming fiend. Go figure.

@fundevogel : Yup, it’s not a big deal. I’m considering majoring in philosophy so I definitely know a thing or two about incomprehensible sentences. >_<

The comma a/effects the voice/tone/etc. of the story, which is/are more important than grammar in most works of fiction.

But[,] for the record[,] Dubliners was hardly experimental. And shedding commas isn’t an exclusively Joycean thing, as you know.

I suggest listening to a clip of him talking. It will all make sense once you hear him read his work.

@shared3 My sympathies. I hate the fashion among some philosophers to make their writing as incomprehensible as possible. I especially hate it when they give words new meanings specific to their writings or just make up new words entirely. Too many of them like the sound of their own words just a little too much.

Try reading the last chapter of Ulysses. Not only are there no commas, there’s no punctuation at all. The entire chapter is only 7 sentences.

Personally, I like commas a lot, possibly too much. But then I don’t like James Joyce, with or without commas. I do like e.e. cummings, or as he actually spelled it, E. E. Cummings. He liked commas some, but wasn’t as fond of spaces.

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
“Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants.”

@Darwin – I think cummings could get away with a lot more since the whole point of much of his writing was playing with words and their spatial arrangement.

@fundevogel – Doesn’t matter. I still like him and I still don’t like Joyce.

@Darwin No argument here.

@shared3: I see, on that point I can offer no insight. However, I think @delirium‘s suggestion will help you best.

Here’s a recording of Joyce himself reciting an excerpt from “Finnegan’s Wake” called “Anna Livia Plurabelle”

After hearing that, I can better understand that he wrote to be recited, much like a song or an oral recitation.