There are five little cubes like dice (one for each of the five years we have been away) made of yellowish ivory, which is more than 100 years old. A small square card lies in the case and in the card there is written in gold ink the name Nora and under that the dates 1904 – 1909. When you press a spring it opens and the case itself inside is cushioned with soft orange colored silk. It is a fat square case of brown leather with two narrow gold borders. Your present is lying before me on the table as I write, ready. He’s still a little nervous, especially given their recent quarrel, and a little courtly in his speech. But this letter is several months before those famously dirty letters. Now as some of you out there know, several months later Joyce’s letters to Nora become spectacularly filthy, exuberantly filthy (it’s pretty hard not to be impressed by them). He describes the necklace in this letter, dated September 1909. He is so broke at this point, he can’t afford passage back to Trieste. Delighted, he commissions a necklace, spending a great deal of money, even though he is perennially broke. She also mentions that she has been enjoying his book of poems Chamber Music, which has just been published. He seeks her forgiveness, and she forgives him. She responds, stating that she rejected Cosgrove, and some friends back up her account. He writes a number of letters to Nora accusing her of infidelity. This news throws Joyce into a kind of spiral of jealousy and despair. Joyce has managed to convince a group of European businessmen that there is a great need for a cinema in Dublin, and in 1909, Joyce is sent over to Dublin to prepare things.īack in Dublin, Joyce runs into a former friend, Cosgrove, who says that when Joyce and Nora were first dating, she was also dating Cosgrove. They have been living abroad in Switzerland and Italy for a number of years.
The letter of 1909 was written after a serious quarrel between Joyce and Nora, about five years into their relationship-they have two children together. Those of you who have read Ulysses know that much of the plot revolves around the hero, Leopold Bloom’s, preoccupation with his wife Molly Bloom’s infidelity. Nora was very popular with men, and for Joyce, who has an obsession with sexual infidelity-being cuckolded-that makes her even more compelling. He sends her a note expressing his disappointment, and they meet a couple of days later on June 16, 1904-a day which Joyce fans now know as Bloomsday, the date on which all of the action of Ulysses occurs.
After their first meeting, they make a date for a week later, but, crucially, she stands him up. He meets Nora Barnacle and is instantly smitten. One fine day in June 1904, the young James Joyce is strolling through Dublin. I’d like to start off with a letter from James Joyce to his lover, later wife, Nora Barnacle, in 1909.īut, first, a little backstory. I’ll begin with a bit of a curveball, talking about a Modern novelist-James Joyce-as an introduction to an Italian Renaissance poetic form.
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