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Genius And Insanity

Sep 05, 2014
by Caroline Miller
A Portrait of the Artist as a Syphilitic, Kevin Birmingham, stream of conscious. Ulysses
4 Comments

Several years ago, I read a medical expert’s analysis of James Joyce’s Ulysses.  He concluded that the book exhibited not genius but the workings of a diseased mind.  If the doctor’s theory had been  treated seriously, a number of  literary critics and scholars who claim to understand Joyce’s use of  “stream of conscious” might have found their expertise meaningless.   

 I, for one, have never been able to get past page 3 of Joyce’s novel,  neither in college nor in my later attempt as a mature adult.  Stream of conscious is a style where punctuation takes a back seat to mimicking the unfettered flow of ideas and feelings of human thought.  James didn’t invent the style.  Marcel Proust was among the first to use the device and others toyed with it.  The poet Sylvia Plath and the novelist Virginia Wolfe are two  examples.  But Joyce didn’t nibble at the edges.  He waded in to suicidal depths where only the brave dare follow. 

 As one who lacked courage, I was drawn to an article of Joyce’s edgy work  in a recent edition  of Harper’s Magazine.  In it,the writer discusses evidence to suggest that Joyce suffered from syphilis, a disease which may have affected his mind.  (“A Portrait of the Artist as a Syphilitic,” by Kevin Birmingham, Harper’s Magazine, July 2014, pgs. 76-77.)  The new insight came not from Joyce’s personal documents.  His friends and family destroyed most of his papers, deeming them to be “too personal” for public view.  What gives credence to a suspicion of syphilis is a fresh look at the drug treatments employed to alleviate his numerous and chronic medical complaints.    

 Joyce’s symptoms have long raised suspicions regarding his condition.  Delirium, hallucinations, persistent boils and numerous eyes surgeries that offered no relieve are pointers.  But many of the drugs Joyce received during that time were not unique to the treatment of syphilis. Only one speaks exclusively  to that illness — a concoction of arsenic and phosphorous which he received as injections.  This little known combination had no other application but as a defense again the ravages of the disease.  (Ibid pg. 77)

 I admit,  biography is a poor approach to grappling with an author’s work.   Knowing that Stephen Hawking has spent the bulk of his life in a wheelchair doesn’t give me a better understanding of A Brief History of Time.  Still, in Joyce’s case, there may be some merit to exploring the link between genius and insanity. 

James Joyce

Courtesy of google.com

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4 Comments
  1. Pete Paradiso September 6, 2014 at 8:03 am Reply
    "I cannot rest from travel" Tennyson, Ulysses Across all of Joyce's writings just two themes emerge, isolation and exile, and it could be argued that all writers of fiction begin and end in various states of alienation ... Who calls Joyce insane? ... The question indicts all who have pushed the limits of mind and body in a relentless quest for arrivals beyond vanishing points ...
    • Caroline Miller September 6, 2014 at 8:25 am Reply
      Well said. and I appreciate your taking the time to comment. Of course, I'm tempted to add that looking for the sane among us is to court alienation and exile.
  2. Pete Paradiso September 6, 2014 at 6:44 pm Reply
    Haha, I suppose we're all adrift on the insane boat Plato launched ... Your post touches on so many areas of critical interest to writers -- and painters ... You mentioned Virginia Woolf, I admire her painter's eye, her attraction to light and color, her ability to transcribe mood, her patchwork style .... We know how her life ended ... But we can separate the tragedy of her illness from the beauty of her text, can't we? ... The eye sees what the eye sees ...
    • Caroline Miller September 7, 2014 at 8:18 am Reply
      Plato has much to answer for. As for Woolf, and Plath and Hemingway and all the other artists who colored our lives before theirs went dark, we are privileged to witness the beauty they left behind. The heart knows what the heart knows. Love your observation.

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Contact Caroline at

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Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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