{"id":5817,"date":"2023-09-30T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-30T10:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/?p=5817"},"modified":"2023-09-27T23:08:03","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T23:08:03","slug":"rejoice-rejoyce-frank-delaney-is-in-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/30\/rejoice-rejoyce-frank-delaney-is-in-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejoice! Re:Joyce! Frank Delaney Is in the House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I’m\u00a0privileged\u00a0to have a guest post by my friend\u00a0Jamie Chavez.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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I am a fan of Irish writers, contemporary and not so: Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Flann O\u2019Brien, Fergal Keane, Seamus Heaney, William Trevor, John Banville, Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, Nuala O\u2019Faolain, Tana French \u2026 I could go on (and no doubt will in future posts). As Wikipedia reminds us, for a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a pretty large contribution to world literature. You were exposed to some of these in school, I\u2019m sure, and while being force-fed a short story or poem or play in a high school English class isn\u2019t the best way to learn to love Irish literature, there\u2019s good reason to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let me tell you about\u00a0Frank Delaney. I was given the first in his \u201cNovel of Ireland\u201d series some years ago. Called, simply,\u00a0Ireland<\/em><\/strong>, the story is set in 1951 and is about the last surviving seancha\u00ed (itinerant storyteller) in the country. Frankly, it took me some time to warm to the book, but when I turned the final page, kids, I was knocked out. There\u2019s a lot more than meets the initial eye, and I was impressed by both the finely crafted tale and the gorgeous writing. Other books in this series are\u00a0Tipperary, Shannon, Venetia Kelly\u2019s Traveling Show<\/em><\/strong>, and\u00a0The Matchmaker of Kenmare<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(I haven\u2019t yet read the last two, but I delighted in the series\u2019 first three).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in County Tipperary, Delaney moved to England as a young man, where he had a distinguished twenty-five-year career as a creator of BBC documentaries on both literary and Irish subjects. He also began writing books, was a panel judge for many literary prizes, and is still a well-known lecturer. He moved to the United States in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n

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But it is Delaney\u2019s most recent project I\u2019m betting will charm you as it does me. Called Re:Joyce, it is a deconstruction of James Joyce\u2019s famous novel Ulysses<\/em><\/strong> in five- to seven-minute line-by-line podcasts. They\u2019re fun, they\u2019re smart and entertaining, and they\u2019re everything you need to work your way through this stream-of-consciousness literary masterpiece. Like the novel itself, this is an ambitious project. It\u2019s taken Delaney a year to get through the first chapter, and his website says he\u2019ll see you there, every Wednesday, for the next twenty-two years. (He\u2019s sixty-eight years old as of this writing, but I wouldn\u2019t bet against him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, I haven\u2019t read Ulysses\u2014it\u2019s 265,000 words, y\u2019all (of Joyce\u2019s works I\u2019ve read only\u00a0Dubliners<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<\/em><\/strong>)\u2014but I have listened to quite a few of Delaney\u2019s podcasts and they\u2019re enchanting.\u00a0Here\u2019s the episode from June 16, which celebrates Bloomsday<\/a>, a celebration of the life of James Joyce and an informal reenactment of the events of the single day that passes in the thousand or so pages of Ulysses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoyce!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cindy’s note: I’ve read Ulyssess! I consider it part of my life I’ll never get back again. I should have had this book while I was reading it!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jamie Chavez<\/a>\u00a0is an editor, writer, and blogger.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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This article reprinted by permission, \u00a9 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I’m\u00a0privileged\u00a0to have a guest post by my friend\u00a0Jamie Chavez. I am a fan of Irish writers, contemporary and not so: Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Flann O\u2019Brien, Fergal Keane, Seamus Heaney, William Trevor, John Banville, Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, Nuala O\u2019Faolain, Tana French \u2026 I could go on (and no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[146,202,550],"class_list":["post-5817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books-2","tag-james-joyce","tag-jamie-chavez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5819,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5817\/revisions\/5819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}