Ulysses "Readers Edition" banned. Why?

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Okay, I cannot find a proper source for this but I was vaguely aware that the court case was cgoing on. The Joyce Estate (mainly Stephen Joyce) took the publisher Macmillan to court to prevent them from publishing a readers edition of Ulysses - ie one with the punctuation and spelling standardised. Today the Joyce Estate won - though Macmillan have been given leave to appeal.

Now this brings up two interesting points. Firstly is Macmillans project artistically valid, interesting and even creative in its own right. Or is it merely dumbing down an extant work of art and weakening it.

Secondly the legal issue. Should the estate of James Joyce be allowed to put an injunction against such work. Should the author even have that right, with regards to copyright. And therefore have the courts acted correctly?

― Pete, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is the 'mighty/mity cheese' question, isn't it? No, it shouldn't be standardised.

― Will, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pete this subject is not to be raised over dinner tonight or no seconds for you.

― Emma, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay, one day I will start the "Emma is anti-intellectual" thread and you won't like that.

Has anyone seen Ulysses in translation?

― Pete, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

2 vol Gallimard. It was good, what I could understand.

― Will, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thinking schminking. Reading schmeading. Doing stuff is where it's at.

― Emma, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wasn't there a 'corrected' edition, published sometime in the mid-to- late eighties and overseen by Richard Ellman, that was subsequently found to contain a whole new set of errors etc? I seem to remember that this edition was authorised by the estate partly so that they could prolong their copyright - ie. this 'corrected' version counted as a 'new' bk under British copyright law, and would therefore remain the estate's prize asset for another seventy (?) years or so.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This may help, though not directly.

― Josh, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Purist, me: 1922 Bodley Head.

― Will, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As a Belvederian like James Joyce, let me be the first to say I'm completely ignorant of all his work.

― Ronan, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As I said, I can't find too much in the way of sources, just an old Irish Times article and a radio report - so I'm not sure. Its actually the "if it counts as a new book" thing which initially piqued me - as a corrected version would be based on but substantially different to the original. And most "estates" are rather loose on licencing. I suppose I wonder if Joyce himself would approve.

Oh and Emma, i wouldn't worry too much, there are two different games of football on tonight to distract us.

― Pete, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Has anyone seen Dostoiewsky in V.O., purist lot?

― Laetitia, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

V.O = version originale, Laeticia?

― Will, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm glad to see Emma's campaign against conversation is still in full swing.

― alext, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have an OUP World's Classics edition which (I think) claims to reprint the 1922 text exactly -- all I know is, it has loads of notes, which is handy when your students are all using the cheap (ie non-annotated) Penguin edition...

― alext, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We are, after all, talking about a man who went completely apeshit when his published tried correcting the comma use in Dubliners; Stephen's actions may even be driven less by his personal feelings than by his certain knowledge that Joyce knew exactly where he wanted every last character to be.

Besides, as if "standardizing" Ulysses would make it any more accessible? It's a big knotty thing, and if you're going to tackle a big knotty thing like that, surely you'd rather go all out.

― Nitsuh, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the war over the correctness of Ulysses The Directors Cut was waged by a man called - iirc - John Kidd, much of it in the pages of the new york review of books, and was UTTERLY HILARIOUS, as it was essentially a pathological outbreak of mutual handbagging among pedants, who gave no quarter when it came to imputing low motive to one another. if i remember this weekend i shall look out some choice examples

― mark s, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was looking through a sixties edition of the Otago Daily Times and I saw an article about a 'visiting professor from America' who was travelling the world advocating the publication of a 'hip bible' in which the women would be referred to as 'broads' and the men as 'hoods'. Now that I've seen many different translations of 'The Iliad' and read them for comparison, I would say that any fucked up version of a book is GOOD, as it's like an intensive 'commentary'; you can compare the texts against each other and in this case, the translation would be like a word-for-word commentary.

― maryann, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Translation' meaning the 'simplified' version of Ulysses.

― maryann, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think any of the differences between any of the editions are terribly substantial. Easy to lose perspective on this.

But yes, I do think authors should be allowed absolute control over their texts.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i should really look this up before i spout, but some of the discrepencies were argt abt whether eg did Joyce really mean to call some character [my invention here] "Dr Smiht" rather than "Dr Smith" — ie was there ANY role for editorial correction of apparent typos or implausibilities (so not so much WHAT JOYCE INTENDED as WHAT JOYCE WD HAVE INTENDED HAD HE BEEN CONCENTRATING FULLY DURING THAT PARTICULAR SENTENCE).

It really was pugilism among the atoms tho.

― mark s, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Pugilism among the atoms" should be the new ILE catchphrase.

― Andrew L, Friday, 23 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay, here might or might not be a fuck-you to Joyce -- who here thinks that there was no point in reading anything beyond Portrait of an Artist? Which admittedly made for interesting tenth grade reading and you gotta love the Catholic guilt scene about hell and its charms.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Catholic guilt scene bored me to death. But reading Ulysses is VITAL.

― Josh, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, having just finished my own novel about a day in a life and all, you may have a point.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

VITAL I SAID

― Josh, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*cleans out earwax* Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying. Hey, stop punching me!

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ulysses is that japanese cartoon about a flying boat, right? so what's the big deal?

― jess, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

so, my HILARIOUS joke aside...

i think i'm going insane: i woke up at 7 this morning to take a piss and instead of going right back to bed, i decided to start reading ulysses(!) again...i woke up 20 mins ago with it on my face at pg. 10. (further than i got before, yet i'm not sure if i remember any of it.) it is now 1:03.

― jess, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think i'm going insane

You only realize this now?

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 25 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

>>> who here thinks that there was no point in reading anything beyond Portrait of an Artist?

Nope. More like, no point in reading anything before Ulysses.

― the pinefox, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bah I forgot to look out my ulysses-squabble archive at the weekend, instead opting for back-ache misery and focus group scholarship

― mark s, Monday, 26 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ahem hint hint mark s.

― Josh, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six years pass...

Ahem!

― Øystein, Sunday, 6 April 2008 00:00 (eighteen years ago)

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