“Jesus was a bachelor and never lived with a woman. Surely living with a woman is one of the most difficult things a man has to do, and he never did it.” ― James Joyce
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Agreed on the entanglement, we adopt mannerisms from family/friends all the time. My laugh is a progeny of various relatives & comics, my eyebrow raise I subconsciously stole from an ex-girlfriend, etc. There's evidence all over the place supporting this. I find it a good thing
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Joyce's take on Christ was somewhat complex. He rebelled against early 20th century Irish Nationalism and the parliamentary protestantism of Charles Parnell. Joyce always thought himself as an exile who needed to create a new soul/race/nation/spirit, whatever word you want to use
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It explains the main character of Ulysses being a Jew (historically/archetypally they're seen as the ultimate exiles) and various aspects of all 3 of his novels. It also explains his affinity for Nietzchean concepts (ubermensch, the child in zarathustra, eternal recurrence, etc)
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When he and his family moved to Switzerland he befriended Carl Jung and they would discuss Nietzsche quite often, according to the literary historians. As a typical modernist writer he balanced between the experimentally innovative and paying homage to the classics
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I imagine he was on board with the Jungian argument that we cannot just (entirely) abandon the past. To what extend Joyce agreed with Nietzsche's assertion that we must create our own values, I'm not so sure, but 2 of his most well known lines almost entirely explain this dynamic
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“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” "Literature is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man."
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I think Joyce saw Christ as a necessary but not sufficient condition for this "new man". It wasn't just about a "gotcha" moment towards Catholicism, though with his sense of humour he certainly did indulge in his own witticism while simultaneously using them as "stepping stones"
End of conversation
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