The author of this book uses the concept of cannibalism (what he calls “dismemberment, ingestion, and reprocessing”) to describe Joyce's incorporation of so many literary and cultural allusions, both “high” and “popular.” Beginning with examples of actual and symbolic cannibalism that fascinated Joyce — the Donner party, the Catholic Eucharist — the author moves on to the ways Joyce appropriated language and elements of material culture into his work. This book offers a wide range of connections and insights. A look at Berlitz's approach to teaching language leads to an examination of Joyce's ... More

The author of this book uses the concept of cannibalism (what he calls “dismemberment, ingestion, and reprocessing”) to describe Joyce's incorporation of so many literary and cultural allusions, both “high” and “popular.” Beginning with examples of actual and symbolic cannibalism that fascinated Joyce — the Donner party, the Catholic Eucharist — the author moves on to the ways Joyce appropriated language and elements of material culture into his work. This book offers a wide range of connections and insights. A look at Berlitz's approach to teaching language leads to an examination of Joyce's aesthetic of disjunction in language. The author compares Joyce and Joseph Conrad in light of the difficulties of modernism for readers through a discussion of the condom. By focusing attention on colonial tales of cannibalism and Britain's treatment of the Irish, he provides a unique perspective on Joyce's politics.