"After the Race," James Joyce (1914)

“Rapid motion through space elates one; so does notoriety; so does the possession of money.”

Although the short stories that comprise James Joyce’s Dubliners are now regarded as among the finest in the English language, Joyce had tremendous difficulty finding a publisher for them at the time: They were complete by 1907, but the full collection did not appear in print for another seven years. Joyce spent the intervening period dealing with over a dozen rejections, including a printer who burned all but one copy of the manuscript, which he had to re-obtain from them via subterfuge. It is a minor miracle that the collection survived long enough to see publication at all.

Given the harsh and sometimes violent reactions, one might expect a collection full of obscenity and vulgarity, of the sort that resulted in the censorship of Joyce’s later novel, Ulysses. However, Dubliners is never crude or gratuitous, even when it deals with the underbelly of Dublin society. What, then, explains the backlash? What could have so enraged the earliest members of Joyce’s public?

We may find part of the answer in “After the Race,” one of the collection’s earlier stories. Along with a few other early works, it saw initial publication in the Irish Homestead, a journal associated with the Irish Home Rule movement. They were soon pulled, however, after being deemed unsuitable for the paper’s readers. Perhaps the publication’s editors could sense Joyce’s disapproval of the strain of nationalism that was popular with his contemporaries, even through the subtlety of his writing.

“After the Race” centers on Jimmy Doyle, a young Irish man afforded the privilege of speeding around in luxurious cars with wealthy friends from the European continent. Although he feels elated to be seen among such elite company, he is soon in over his head and, in his longing to fit in amongst the heavy-hitters, is taken for the proverbial ride. Many have speculated that Joyce was projecting his own concerns over the Continent’s treatment of his homeland as the suckers at the poker table.

Political critique aside, Joyce’s writing is as rich and vivid as ever, making this story a delight for any reader, regardless of time or place.

Please enjoy...

Headline Image: Racing by Sybil Andrews, 1934

An excerpt from My Ántonia by Willa Cather, 1918

After that, TBD. We are in the thick of writing a book over at Doomberg, so posting will get sporadic over the next several months!