Choice Review

Eide (Texas A&M Univ.) applies to the work of James Joyce the pioneering notion Emmanuel Levinas articulated in Totality and Infinity (CH, Jun'70): ethics is rooted in a recognition of otherness. A denial of that otherness produces colonialism and patriarchy. According to Eide, Joyce (unlike Levinas) assumes that the distance between the subject and the other is not unbridgeable. Ethics resides in the space between the self and the other, and that space is inherently indefinable and continually fluid. Eide examines Joyce's fiction, especially Finnegans Wake, in the light of these theories, shedding considerable light especially on the characters of ALP and HCE. In the final chapter, she explores the complex relationship between Joyce and his schizophrenic daughter, Lucia. In coming to grips with his own guilt and latent incestuousness and with Lucia's creativity and her homosexuality, Joyce apparently arrived at the profound insights that enabled him to write Finnegans Wake. Eide's book is densely philosophical but not inaccessible. Although she makes abundant reference to other critics, her work is original and insightful. The book has copious notes, a full bibliography, and a usable index. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. P. D. O'Connor emeritus, St. Thomas Aquinas College