Ulysses: The Mechanics of Meaning.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,, 1970. The acclaimed commentary on Ulysses, inscribed to Joyce's disciple and amanuensis First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author to Samuel Beckett, who had been Joyce's amanuensis during the writing of Finnegans Wake, on the front free endpaper, "For Sam Beckett, from whose first letter to me I quote: '...in Joyce the form of judgement more and more devoured its gist and the saying of all the saying of anything, in a way more consistent with Bruno's identification of contraries than with the intellectualism of Mallarmé.' Is the present position (mine) more to your liking? It is of course a blend. Warmly, David Sept '70. P.S. I hope yr eyes permit you to read this". In a significant letter to James Knowlson, Beckett wrote of the powerful "influence ab contrario" Joyce had on him as a writer: "I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, in control of one's material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realised that my own way was impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, subtracting rather than adding. When I first met Joyce, I didn't intend to be a writer. That only came later when I found out that I was no good at all at teaching. When I found I simply couldn't teach. But I do remember speaking about Joyce's heroic achievement. I had a great admiration for him. That's what it was: epic, heroic, what he achieved. I realized that I couldn't go down that same road." David Hayman is a literary critic and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who participated in the publication of Joyce's complete manuscripts, and has also written a number of essays on Beckett's works. Octavo. Original black cloth, titles to spine in silver. With dust jacket. An excellent copy in the lightly rubbed and toned jacket.