Will Self & John Banville Discuss 'Dubliners' in Conversation With Carlo Gébler

On June 15th, 2014, Will Self and John Banville joined Carlo Gébler in the stunning surrounds of the James Joyce Centre's Kenmare Room to talk 'Dubliners'. What followed was a funny, animated and intensely interesting discussion about Joyce's most accessible book. Viewers are advised that this video does contain some strong language.

[@rocdur57]

Veo a nuestro escritor Juan Gabriel Vasquez en el auditorio!!!. Que gran charla. Estoy leyendo Dublineses... estoy encantada. Un privilegio estar en primera fila!!!

[@rexmundi2237]

Self's theory about the connection between Joyce's early and late styles and the deterioration of his eyesight is a revelation.

[@strutherhill]

Carlo mentions higher light ( or something similar). At the end of Goethe's Faust the protagonist is blinded by Mephistopheles and says 'a bright light shines within' --- from which he cannot be distracted by the garish light of earthly pleasures. So Mephisto in trying to damage Faust actually contributes to his positive development, as was foretold in the first scene in which he appeared (written approx 60 years before!)

[@dominic9983]

I've read it somewhere before, might be Ellmann actually, but it's an interesting point.

[@sabrinadimonte5922]

Actually Trieste was a very multilingual city when Joyce lived here (for more than 10 years starting in 1905) and here he got in touch with different cultures and even religions as well as the new psychoanalysis theories.

[@MaraisNic]

'Danish Modern has arrived' - very amusing and insightful discussion between my two favourite living novelists about my favourite dead one. Will reporting the death of Banville at the hands of a demented Joyce scholar is a special moment.

[@aesellers8525]

poorus finnegan then thunderspake and banstogged the glummin of ville with a whoolie

[@strutherhill]

Great to hear two very fine writers discussing one of the giants of 20th century literature and his most accessible work. Somewhere Joyce apparently said he liked A Painful Case least of all the stories -- interesting given that he seems to be considered similar to 'Mr James Duffy', its protagonist.

[@MaximTendu]

really? it's one of my favourite stories in the whole collection.

[@strutherhill]

@@MaximTendu Yes, agreed, it's one of my favourites too. I simply came across the statement somewhere that Joyce took a negative view of it. Rather irritatingly, I can't find any reference for it!

[@Wisehousepublishingunlimited]

We're always inspired to watch a quality video related to this classical literary work. Great discussion.

[@stephenconlon653]

I love that book, he brings to life everyday people

[@0SW13]

sounds like Banville would have preferred Joyce rehash Dubliners for the entirety of his writing life. I am much more glad to live in a world where he opted instead to blow of the lid

[@miralong8501]

Grace what a story, what a song. Our songs are our stories and our stories are our songs.

[@audreydunphy3972]

Would love to have enjoyed listening to John more if he had been given the chance.!!

[@burrenmagic]

excellent hour.

[@Wrenasmir]

“One of the many things Nietzsche was right about… he was also good on how to tile a kitchen”.

[@georgemorley1029]

Of course Grace would be the Cat A prisoner’s favourite story. The final lines would especially appeal - “-Well, I have looked into my accounts. I find this wrong and this wrong. But, with God’s grace, I will rectify this and this. I will set right my accounts.”

[@oliverc1961]

I'm not sure that Carlo Gebler's very long introduction (almost six minutes) contributes much. The discussion, when it got going, was good.

[@trevorbarre5616]

And Gebler's laugh at "she took him in hand". How old are these people?

[@kasperg5634]

5.20 before the discussion starts

[@michelletaylor-gill7484]

59:04 the serious novel has become a minority interest 💕

[@TracyPicabia]

Apropos of not much, Carlo Gebler's travelogue Driving Through Cuba is the second or third worst book I've ever read. A masterpiece of confounded romantic preconceptions.

[@garethreeves6090]

I think Joyce's major works need to be considered together, one flowing into the next. Banville says he doesn't know where the Rabelaisian aspect of Ulysses came from, yet the first three episodes, concerning Stephen (now as Telemachus), are not especially Rabelaisian except perhaps for the sinister usurper Buck Mulligan. The sentimentality Banville argues for in Portrait is not quite right since there was some ironical distance between Joyce and the character by that time (he would stress the "as a Young Man" of the title to critical readers). Stephen vows to forge the uncreated consciousness of his race in the smithy of his soul and yet, at the beginning of Ulysses, what is he up to? What has he achieved? He needs something else to help him develop, and that is the Rabelaisian everyman Leopold Bloom. Dubliners has a continuation too, in the Wandering Rocks episode, where Church and State still have a paralysing grip on the city's inhabitants.

[@LisaTReads]

I watched this as I'm studying 'Dubliners' for my degree. Why oh why then does Banville insist on banging on about 'Ulysses' for most of the interview? Good but not great.

[@barn_ninny]

Indeed. Banville's a tremendous writer, but he seems to have come to this discussion intent on discussing all things Joyce except Dubliners. You can feel Gebler and Self constantly trying to pull him back toward the subject; Self, especially.

[@rexmundi2237]

He mentions Ulysses because he is defending traditional realist forms of novel-writing from postmodernist experimentation, by arguing that 'Dubliners' is a greater novel than Ulysses and Finnegan's. You cannot really discuss a writer's work without discussing it in the context of their other books. It's a discussion, not an Everyman's Guide to Dubliners.

[@wgaule]

Maybe he didn't realise that it's all about you ...

[@LisaTReads]

William Gaule - I'm perfectly entitled to my opinion, and at least I can articulate myself without resorting to the c-word. Sort yourself out before you troll other people's comments.

[@wgaule]

I really care about your opinion ... Please tell me more ...

[@dermothannon2904]

Carlo Gebler is both long winded and pretentious. Intro way too long.

[@michelletaylor-gill7484]

There is no modernism in drug addiction ask self!

[@fernandocortes1187]

3:04 Empieza

[@nithaelhealing718]

great discussion , pity Banville kept harping on about Ulysses.

[@wgaule]

Maybe he didn't realise that it's all about you ...

[@nithaelhealing718]

it was supposed to be "all about" Dubliners, shame. i always enjoy Will self,

[@bobobahia]

Groucho Marx 46:02 (sans 'tasche)

[@redrosegats6830]

11:00

[@DomhnallOSuileabhainPrin-tm1fw]

Gébler, who was named after Karl Marxs, starts his discussion by using a quote by Lenin, which Self replies to by saying "hear hear". How lovely how quaint that these left wingers should be so at ease with two people who on the one hand invented and on the other implemented a political philosophy that murdered more than 120,000,000 human beings. Forget fascism these are the real mass killers of history and these are their cheerleaders.

[@Paul-qv6pr]

You fragile soul

[@dominic9983]

Lol, maybe you ought to add another zero on to that figure and people might begin to take you seriously.

[@Paul-qv6pr]

@@dominic9983 the point isn't how many people were killed, a single victim is already disproportionately tragic to our mere understanding. Just stop equating anything that looks like thinking and knowledge, or debate over issues which go just a little beyond your political horizon as evil incarnate itself. A waste of glorious time, and anti-cultural at that. Anti "western" culture. But whatever, it's all fucking over anyways, isn't it friend? Culture is dead?

[@tommac8556]

"Will Smith in respect for direct and unadorned writing SHOCKER". 'it's self actually... furbelows? christ...

[@Velvet0Starship2013]

"Animated"? The bizarre convention that a worthy discussion of Lit must be rusty, musty, constipa-pompous and as narcolepsy-inducing as a very old nobody's wake. The only things missing from this breezy chat are the spray-on cobwebs and Leavis on the pipe organ. Not exactly fitting to the work of a Writer who made tea from his common law wife's skid-marked knickers. Why no bawdy songs, dirty ditties, limericks of the (ahem) period...? You've turned JJ the man into the Hypocritically Respectable (Doxy-smuggling) Prelate he abhorred in life. Which is, in itself, as much flat-out comedy as we're going to get with Dour B. O'Banville and Sneer E. O'Self flanking us... (though Will is very, very good at snorting richly for emphasis)... Well if you agree with that, or nearly do, or far from it and want to come have a pop at me (or ignore this altogether, while taking the time to comment to that effect), I've got a Left-leaning, slightly Sex-Obsessed Lit Blog, written from the perspective of a straight male in the early-late middle age of his life... berlin8berlin.wordpress.com/ Oh, and re @4:47 : You don't see "Carver", you see Lish

[@kelman727]

DISCOGOTHTHEJAZZFAN I don’t see a glittering writing career in your future, somehow.

[@dominic9983]

This shit sucks man, you should really reconsider whatever you're doing.

[@DanielWhite-v4e]

staggered to be so flattered in the inveigled sense by the grungier of the graduate graduate class of the classless ungraduated ungraduated saturdays eh eh - sorry to disappoint my fans with this - but it was like this that he disappointed his fans

[@joeb5765]

Christ I LOVE will and Joyce but for God's sake this is pointless

[@jangreen5618]

Will full of himself.

[@wgaule]

Well who else would he be full of?

[@trevorbarre5616]

Embarassing arse-kissing at the beginning.

[@grandadslads1911]

Banville. A truly terrible, forced, and pompous attempt by a careerist writer, desperate for greatness and status, like the empty, pumped up supposed greatness of other shams like Waugh, Greene, etc. Not an artist. No chance. Will never register as interesting in literature.

[@kreek22]

That's a rather overwrought response, with a side of childish dogmatism.

[@grandadslads1911]

@@kreek22 Ok. Banville’s crap. If that’ll work for you oh great one.

[@AleksandarBloom]

Grow up.

[@copperdoor43]

John Banville is a very good writer.

[@grandadslads1911]

@@copperdoor43 thanks for responding. I think to say he is a very good writer, is a very fair comment and more balanced than mine! I just respond poorly I’m afraid to the hyperbole about certain writers. It’s the fawning reviewers that annoy me and their unwillingness to rock the literary boat. I don’t think he’s at the exalted level that some reviewers want to place him. Anyway, all that aside, I do think that The Book of Evidence is his great achievement and I love it. He got everything just perfect there and it should stand the test of time as a great novel to come out of Ireland.

[@shemiekavanagh6886]

A hard listen

[@redrosegats6830]

15:00