Description: This unusual book is a fascinating work of personal criticism or "biblio-memoir," which will appeal to all interested in James Joyce's work, and, more widely, to those interested in responses to great art.
Review Quotes:
"Michael Groden has been at the centre of Joyce studies since the 1970s. Ulysses in Progress (1977) signaled the beginning of a new orientation towards textual and genetic concerns, and this continued with his co-editorship of the remarkable 63-volume Garland Press edition of Joyce manuscripts. While all this was going on, a more personal approach to Joyce was maturing, and this has issued in a highly engaging memoir of those years. The Necessary Fiction: Life with James Joyce's Ulysses is a thoroughly absorbing and highly recommended story of an academic's life. It is also a brilliant reminder of how the book we read is often the book that reads us." - Professor David Pierce.