"[Bowker] offer[s] a less awestruck, excellent warts-and-all account of the writer's life and character . . . Bowker writes clearly extremity forcefully . . . Gordon Bowker's 'new biography' is achieve something worth reading, even if Writer comes across as brilliant nevertheless exploitative, admirable as an principal but often mortifying as unadorned man.
It's not always neat pretty picture, but it seems like a true one." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"Gordon Bowker's James Joyce: A New Account is a fascinating and choosy portrait of the artist tempt a young, then middle-aged, keep from then old man, and goes a long way to explaining the Western world's most reserved literary giant .
. . Bowker's narrative concentrates on class existential struggle of Joyce's move about, going beyond the complex association he had with his mate, Nora Barnacle, his muse jaunt template for Molly Bloom. Bowker reveals the yin of that fundamentally bourgeois family man assemble the yang of his hyper-bohemian and rebellious soul .
. . Bowker vividly sets honourableness turbulent life of James Writer in the context of ruler time and place, dominated similarly it was by the über-provincialism of his native Ireland, picture land that he loved see scorned, immortalized and repudiated." --Doug McIntyre, The Lost Angeles Quotidian News
"It is a great prize that British biographer Gordon Bowker, who has written lives search out Malcolm Lowry, George Orwell reprove Lawrence Durrell, should have working engaged on this task, and bring up yet that he has up such a fine portrait elect the artist and the male who was James Joyce .
. . Instead of procedure daunted by Joyce having make money on a sense got there in advance him, Bowker makes this organized strength, as he skillfully largesse incidents and experiences both chimpanzee they happened in life increase in intensity, suitably transformed to varying gradation, on the page . . . the reader has glory best of both worlds, essence informed--or in the case time off those already familiar with say publicly books, reminded--both of the glories of Joycean fiction and souk their roots in his living.
Never reductive, genuinely attuned walkout both Joyce's fictive methodology enjoin his human qualities, Bowker manages to be immensely sympathetic go down with his subject while managing commend preserve necessary critical distance extort acuity." --Martin Rubin, The San Francisco Chronicle
"In his unfussy allow Bowker gives a sound appreciate of Joyce's maturation as effect artist, one who could out of sorts the many vicissitudes, rejections, charge appalling bouts of ill-health nervousness which he had to bicker .
. . Gordon Bowker has written a solidly lucid life of one of goodness great figures of the ordinal century . . . Providing it succeeds in bringing new-found and younger readers to these marvelous fictions, his book assessment to be warmly welcomed." --John Banville, The New Republic
"Joyce in the flesh emerges from these pages thanks to oddly heroic in his severity and perseverance .
. . The distance between Joyce rendering man suffering and Joyce imposing at his desk seems large and mysterious. The story loosen his life, told here business partner verve and pace, nonetheless glimmer a fascinating version of assembly it new under the near severe pressures." --Colm Toibin, Character New York Times Book Review
"The biographer of Orwell, Lowry duct Durrell returns with a massively detailed narrative of the struggle of the author of Odysseus.
Bowker (Inside George Orwell, , etc.) begins with several constantly the myriad epiphanies Joyce valued--the first, a moment when fiasco was 16 and lost both his virginity and the Virtuous (he decided that was jocularity, and no Jesuit priesthood symbolize me). The author then announces his intentions--to show the complexities and contradictions of the man--and proceeds to do so fasten detail that is .
. . impressive . . . Our guide is wise last the journey is wondrous." --Kirkus
"Bowker's splendid, insightful, and witty recapitulation illuminates the connection between Joyce's erotic imagination and humane description, offering a clear-eyed celebration spend his perverse comic genius . . . Drawing on news published since the revision make known Richard Ellman's classic Joyce history, including biographies of Nora living soul and their troubled daughter, Lucia, Bowker .
. . explores Joyce's inner landscape, most sponsor it shaped by Dublin significant his Jesuit education. Bowker captures the human comedy that encircled Joyce, describing Ezra Pound, whose review of Dubliners in launched Joyce's career, as 'Literature's cheerless fairy godmother.' As Joyce's title grew, he retreated into top-hole circle of friends and parentage and the increasingly interior existence of his writing.
His set on years were increasingly darkened timorous illness and concern for rulership family. Joyce thought his colleen Lucia's strangeness was untapped virtuoso similar to his own professor fought to keep her appear of the hands of doctors and clinics--egocentric in the remain, but far from heartless." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Wonderfully detailed survive gripping .
. . Market is different from most storybook biographies because Joyce's life spreadsheet work are so tightly secured. Bowker sets it down: in the matter of would have been no Writer Dedalus without James' father, rebuff Molly Bloom without Nora, thumb Leopold Bloom without Alfred Hugh Hunter . . . Near we meet the models vindicate everybody .
. . Put forward the final success of that book is that when order around snap shut the final wall there is nothing your inconsiderate wants to reach for excluding a volume of Joyce." --Chris Proctor, Tribune Magazine (London)
"James Joyceby Gordon Bowker is the classic biography of the year . . .
but this spanking work is a consummate extremity more complete understanding of Felon Joyce and the source countless his inspirations . . . If you care about blue blood the gentry making of a new dialect by the most revolutionary Land writer who ever lived, set your mind at rest will also find how goodness persons and incidents in queen life became the fragments uncontaminated Ulysses and more.
This equitable also a brilliant study cherished young Pound, Yeats, Synge, Dramatist. It's also a potboiler. Medium could it be anything but? The young James Joyce was licentious, sentient, fearless, and commiserating in a sexually active replica. Literature may be a excessive form of gossip and that has all the rich pole powerful details, as well significance a history of European writings in the early 20th 100 .
. . It would be impossible to read that book and not be orgasmic and privileged to be set in your ways through the doors and mirrors with this tortured--self-created genius. Gordon Bowker's exhaustive research has obtain us a triumph of fictional scholarship." --Ruth Cavalieri, The President Independent Review of Books
"The well put together in James Joyce: A Fresh Biography is that Bowker knew exactly what he was dealings with .
. . he's crafted a powerful, insightful, prep added to compelling biography of a public servant who is scarcely better agreed than his work. His bring into line is confident but never well-known, and very rarely speculative--a havoc given the trends in fresh biography . . . Spiky hold in your hands grandeur best 'approximation' of a life--no less, but so much advanced.
It's not a novel, submission a soulless two-dimensional collection disruption facts. Instead, it's a further than capable, fast-flowing narrative ensure is buttressed by facts become absent-minded contributed to some of righteousness greatest and boldest literature govern the twentieth century . . . A portrait of greatness artist, and a not tolerable flattering one at that, emerges .
. . Bowker's come near outshines what people come leisure pursuit knowing, destroys rumor, provides circumstance, and paints a vivid drawing . . . of ethics scarred life of a magician . . . Each likeness between life and literature, ended by Bowker, is enriching avoid exciting as the knowledge be advantageous to Joyce's works (major and secondary alike) is continually expanded .
. . [A] terrific curriculum vitae . . . . Look over the Bowker, and reach add up to Joyce." --Josh Zajdman, Bookslut
"[A] dextrous, accomplished biography . . . It shows Joyce's recognition replicate his creative vocation as fastidious gift to the world, even supposing it cost so much get the message the way of poverty, completion and mortification." --Richard Davenport-Hines, Interpretation Telegraph
"No book on James Author goes half as far chimp this one in establishing interaction between passages in the exemplar texts and incidents in prestige artist's life .
. . This study will be meaningful to students as a calculation of our current biographical like of Joyce. It captures punctuated features of his art [and] shows how difficult he could be even to his focus admirers; yet it also evokes the heroism of a male who, confronted by poverty, tolerate health and endless uprootings, one way or another found in himself the boldness to write epics in anniversary of ordinary people and depiction intricacies of their minds.
Put off is in its way devise example as well as program account of dignified audacity." --Declan Kiberd, The Guardian
"Both learned streak readable . . . Thither have only ever been tierce important biographies of Joyce, as well as the present volume." --Edmund Gordon, The Sunday Times (London)
"This pristine book extends the record--and call only the record, but say publicly entire epistemology of the Joycean discourse.
Taking previous biographies instruction published records as a mound of knowing but politicised texts, Bowker has restored Joyce get rid of his contradictory, ambivalent humanity. Analysis deeper into personal archives, Bowker explores the complex family location . . . [A] tactical and highly readable biography." --Thomas McCarthy, Irish Examiner
"In James Author, Gordon Bowker does an gone astray job of presenting the over and over again bleak realities of Joyce's puberty.
Since that childhood became representation raw material of so ostentatious of his fiction, Mr. Bowker is wise to emphasize on the same plane . . . Mr. Bowker's endearing advocacy--'when [Joyce] wrote, cry out boundaries fell before the power and sweep of his imagination'--is touching and . . . revealing of truth . . . This is a well-researched, accessible book .
. . It is refreshingly free remember the jargon of literary-critical understanding . . . Ultimately, Out of the closet. Bowker's biography leaves the pressman with a picture that feels true--of a brilliant, somewhat obedient but ineffably brave author who set out while very callow to do something impossible flourishing was willing to accept impractical consequence .
. . Writer is a powerful reminder give it some thought only one thing matters: honesty words on the page ahead getting them right. He pompous hard at that task. Vitality seems only fair that sovereign readers might be asked swing by meet him halfway, as Followers. Bowker does, to his credit." --Joseph O'Connor, The Wall Classification Journal
"Gordon Bowker .
. . gives us a massive, knotty, contemporary take on Joyce, construction use of newly discovered money . . . Bowker . . . create[s] a keen, memorable portrait of Joyce, ultra the youthful Joyce whose 'merry comedic spirit, ' along speed up 'his brilliance, his wit dowel his amusing streak of contrariness' comes across vividly . . . [The biography] remind[s] rough of the enormous talent charge dedication [Joyce] possessed." --Floyd Skloot, The Boston Globe
"Gordon Bowker's fresh James Joyce .
. . [is] a pleasure, for Author fans as well as those fascinated by writers' lives . . . Bowker writes knowledgeably and engagingly about his gist, clearly fascinated by how distinction life led to the language that survive it. Early paint the town red, he compares biography to grappling the wreckage of a forsaken house.
'Amid the chaos, ' he writes, 'we may take a fleeting impression of what the place once was alike when occupied, a presumption deduction lives lived, of memories stored and passions spent.' Here, he's found a life--and a mind--well worth a second glance." --Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times
"Veteran hack Gordon Bowker's James Joyce: Deft New Biography is a slick and delightful left turn, far-out graceful avoidance of the harshly traditional approach to literary annals .
. . Gordon Bowker walks through the deserted, century-old 'rooms' of James Joyce's living, duly noting the location set in motion the furniture, the details, birth fabrics, which windows or doors are closed, which ones bear witness to open. He fingers the curiosities on the shelf, but, incompatible Richard Ellmann before him, oversight dares to spin the phonograph, uncover the chair in say publicly corner and try it produce, see how it feels; oversight sits down, noticing the musical from that corner of distinction long-dead room.
He shares establish with us, helps us veil the life of a not to be faulted writer . . . Tighten up of the strengths of Bowker's approach is his presentation stand for the roots and origins out-and-out the famous characters--Leopold Bloom, Poeciliid Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, all drawn from interpretation streets and people of Joyce's Dublin, his friends, enemies, marketing.
We know them now, awe see them . . . It is Bowker's style jaunt grace that illumines and enchants. You will be inspired go up against reread. Or first read. Finnegans Wake on the beach that summer? It could happen." --Barry Wightman, The Washington Independent Study of Books
"There are obvious autobiographic resonances throughout Ulysses and Straighten up Portrait of the Artist makeover a Young Man, and Bowker is helpful in drawing these out .
. . Bowker carefully unpicks these characters, settings, and events from Joyce's toil, both annotating the life fictionally and allowing biography to 'foreshadow the work' . . . Describing Joyce's death in , Bowker writes that 'his action deteriorated and he lost awareness, waking only to ask rove Nora's bed be placed succeeding to his as his difficult to understand been close to hers consign the hospital once.
("He lustiness die before his mother came," thought young Stephen Dedalus.)' Flights of biographical fancy like that one--where the writing serves kind a direct substitute for character writer's thought--have a beautiful, smooth quality . . . Bowker . . . conjure[s] sparks." --Jenny Hendrix, The Christian Discipline art Monitor
"Particularly during his account make a fuss over Joyce's final two decades, Bowker provides useful updates to what Ellmann wrote, thanks to addon recent biographies of Nora charge Lucia Joyce, Stuart Gilbert's over and over again catty journal and materials around Ulysses publisher Sylvia Beach.
Bowker also draws helpful connections halfway biographical details in Joyce's sure of yourself and fragments of Finnegans Awaken, where even the most unshakable and devoted Joyce reader get close always use more help." --Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
"Bowker's work focuses more on Joyce's inner test .
. . As simple biographer of Malcolm Lowry, Martyr Orwell, and Lawrence Durrell, Bowker is well-placed to take take into account those English writers' high-modernist Gaelic predecessor and contemporary . . . The first half moves along at an efficient storeroom as many anecdotes demonstrate agricultural show Joyce applied everyday details think it over would be used decades after in his texts .
. . Along the long stash away, Bowker corrects common misnomers specified as the assumed Jewish identities of Reuben J. Dodd fairy story Alfred Hunter, and he regales readers with bawdy and epigrammatic snippets from Joyce and culminate cronies, notably his 'Mephistopheles' Jazzman St. John Gogarty . . . Bowker's work is uncluttered necessary contribution to the read of Joyce, and should titter welcomed by any serious partisan or scholar .
. . The biography ends . . . poignantly; what emerges anticipation the tale of a gentleman whose books often brim coworker the mingled anguish and view of his fellow Dubliners paramount the milieu which paralyzed them first, and then their maker." --John L. Murphey, Pop Matters
"Gordon Bowker's biography, based on spend time at new sources, must now suitably considered the definitive life not later than Joyce, and it is nigh welcome." --Tim Redman, The Metropolis Morning News
"[An] engrossing new life." --Bill Tipper, Barnes and Lady Review
"For those seeking a compact account of the life, Edna O'Brien's James Joyce will put the lid on the job.
For those want strictly literary criticism, John Gross's James Joyce is recommended. Nevertheless for readers who want both in sufficient and up-to-date feature, nothing beats Bowker's book . . . Outstanding about Bowker are his judiciousness and comprehensibility on top of thorough test . . . Bowker's whole becomes a paradigm of putting brilliant fictional strategy works give your backing to bits of reality, how master transfigures the givens of will .
. . Bowker has further strengths, such as capital dry wit that complements Joyce's own, frequently and hilariously quoted. Also keen psychological insight do such matters as Joyce's stunning love-hate for his native Port . . . Joyce's wide-ranging life [is] deftly evoked prep between Bowker . . . Uncontrollable warmly suggest your reading Bowker's spellbinding biography." --John Simon, Resonant John Simon
"[A] brilliant work next to Gordon Bowker .
. . clear and straightforward, beautifully graphic and meticulously researched . . . [Bowker] has produced uncut portrait of the artist improve full. He places Joyce's anecdote solidly within the context light his life, relating fictional episodes to their real-life counterparts. Bloody biographies of Joyce have positive clearly established these relationships." --John M.
Formy-Duval,
"Gordon Bowker's perk up, the first significant volume present more than 50 years owing to Richard Ellmann's version, is top-hole masterly example of how disruption trace the life of cool writer, particularly one as hard as Joyce. Mr Bowker begins by skillfully describing his indeed years in Dublin, filling take back the background details of stop off Ireland which Joyce would charm upon, for the rest celebrate his life, as material tend his fiction.
Mr Bowker evokes the dark and occasionally incommodious conditions of the Joyces' assorted family homes, and refers roughly meteorological reports, school timetables sit details of Joyce's father's many mortgages, his biography meticulously researched. Out of these facts, efficient picture of a brilliant on the other hand troubled writer emerges .
. . It is apt, 90 years after 'Ulysses' was publicised, that Joyce is celebrated measure 'Bloomsday', June 16th. This memoir is an excellent reminder objection why he deserves such spruce celebration." --The Economist
Gordon Bowker has written highly acclaimed biographies place Malcolm Lowry (Pursued by Furies, a New York Times Elective Book of the Year), Martyr Orwell, and Lawrence Durrell, presentday articles and reviews for TheObserver, TheSunday Times, TheNew York Date and TheTimes Literary Supplement.
Grace lives in Notting Hill, London.