The New Yorker: Fiction cover image

Cynthia Ozick Reads Steven Millhauser

The New Yorker: Fiction

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The Purpose of Great Art

James Joyce's masterpiece was Finnegan's Wake, not Ulysses. But who has read every single convoluted, made up, remarkable, amazing, crafted, miniatures type word of Finnegan’s Wake? Has anybody on the face of the earth ever achieved that? I'm sure a few scholars have. With very powerful microscopes. It makes sense but not a normal reader. So it requires somebody who can see below the crust of the visible to go into Finnegan't Wake. And what did Joyce think? Right. Why did he say that he didn't care if it lasted for 10,000 years and was unread as long as it was there?

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