“POTLATCH WRITING”: THE JOYCE OF CARLOS FUENTES, by David Vichnar*

*Paper  presented at the 2019 North American James Joyce Symposium, “Joyce Without Borders”, 14 June 2019, at the CASUL, Ciudad de Mexico.

1. In one of the more telling self-directed comments regarding the composition of Ulysses, Joyce wrote to Harriet Shaw Weaver that after finishing each episode, his mind went “into a state of blank apathy,” the progress of the book likened to a “progress of some sandblast” where “each successive episode, dealing with some province of artistic culture […] leaves behind it a burnt-up field”.[1] Then a month later, in July 1919, after completing the “Sirens” episode, Joyce claims he “finds it impossible to listen to music of any kind” since he can “see through all of its tricks.”[2]

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