James Joyce’s masterwork Ulysses has been called a book of many happy returns and I’ve been returning to happily savor its pages for more than fifty years.
My appreciation of the works of the great Irish writer was enhanced by the good fortune of attending the University of Tulsa, a center for Joyce studies. While there I enjoyed one of the best intellectual adventures of my life, a semester-long course on Ulysses, taught by Thomas Staley, founding editor of the James Joyce Quarterly.
I still remember how on the first day of class Dr. Staley walked into the classroom, went at once to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote this phrase:
time flies you can’t they fly too fast
and then announced that this was a clue on how to approach Joyce. Everyone in class was mystified until, after a pregnant pause, he modified the phrase thus:
Time flies? You can’t. They fly too fast!
And so the class began with a moment of mystification—followed hard upon by sudden insight and hilarity as we students found ourselves laughing out loud amid a mirthful meeting of eyes.
JJ to a tee!
HyC