“The letters to Nora” by James Joyce, a book edited by Italian writer Andrea Carloni, is published by Alter Ego Edizioni, in distribution from May 2024.
ROME, ITALY, July 19, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ — “The letters to Nora” by James Joyce, a book edited by Italian writer Andrea Carloni, is published by Alter Ego Edizioni, in distribution from May 2024.
Private writing becomes literature: the exchange of letters is the expedient that Andrea Carloni uses in his creation of the text. The book edited and translated by the latter presents a series of letters exchanged between Joyce and his wife Nora Barnacle, whose appointment held on June 16th will inspire some events of the work Ulysses. A modern and contemporary text, capable of accompanying the reader in the truthful reconstruction of characters and events. Nora is not the angel of the hearth, but a voluptuous, hungry, rebellious and emancipated woman. The woman had a relationship with Joyce, considered unsuccessful and scandalous at the time. A relationship that will materialize well after the physical acts in a marriage.
A visceral, direct relationship, where Joyce sees his muse “in grotesque, virginal, languid positions” and in which he orders “give yourself to me”. A very precise vision of life, the one presented by Joyce and which Carloni curates with extreme effectiveness. A life that deviates from taboos and constructs, throwing itself into a free existence, where sailing with open sails is the main rule.
In this long correspondence, classified by critics as “dirty letters”, Joyce, who said he did not appreciate vulgar language, and Nora confessed their mutual sexual fantasies frustrated by the period of distance. Of the correspondence, only the erotic letters addressed by James Joyce to his wife have survived, but it is clear that Nora responded assiduously to her husband’s letters.
[Late July 1904]
60 Shelbourne Road, Dublin
My particularly sulky Nora, I told you I would write to you. Now write to me and tell me what the hell you were up to the other night. I’m sure something was wrong. It seemed to me that you were sorry for something that didn’t happen – which would be very natural for you. I have tried to console my hand ever since but to no avail. Where will you be Saturday night, Sunday night, Monday night, since I won’t be able to see you? Now, farewell, dearest. I kiss that miraculous dimple on your neck, Your Christian Brother of Lust.
J.A.J.
Carloni’s book presents the main works of the Dublin writer, and at the same time reconstructs essential portions of time in the knowledge of a timeless author.
Sex, debts, illnesses, scandals, disappointments, love: a simple and twisted distillation of life, which little by little shows its hidden parts, showing a contemporary and raw show, following in the wake of one of the most famous Dublin artists at world.
The relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle began on June 16, 1904, the day of their first date: a date that today coincides with “Bloomsday”, the holiday established in honor of the Irish author. The passionate bond with Nora, destined to become lover, muse and wife, was a source of inspiration for countless details described in the works of the Dublin writer. Nora is the victim, the lover, the naive, the rebel, the ignorant, the emancipated. In another letter Joyce writes to her:
“She Adorn your body for me, dearest, be beautiful and happy and loving and provocative, full of memories, full of desires, when we see each other. Do you remember the three adjectives I used in my book when talking about your body? I am “musical and strange and fragrant”.
It’s still:
I know I am risking a lot by writing this way, but if she truly loves me she will feel that I am crazy with lust and that she owes me allow everything.
A selection of this correspondence is reported in Carloni’s volume; through the letters it is possible to retrace some stages of an intense and taboo-free relationship. Small and large jealousies, fragments of shared life, nostalgia and expectations; and love, naturally, expressed in perspectives that oscillate between the ethereal dimension and extreme eroticism.
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