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Writer's pictureRebecca Beattie

Dear James Joyce

Posted @ 10:12:44 on 22 September 2010

Dear JJ, I felt I had to write this letter to you, after the way you gave me such a reproachful look this morning when I left the house, and didn't take you with me. I know I said that maybe Ulysses should come with me, but in the end I am sorry, but I decided to go with Terry instead. You see, I have been sick this week, really sick. And having spent the last few days in bed, running a fever and with my eyes and nose streaming like a river in full flood, I felt I needed something a little lighter today to keep me company. I know you have such a beautiful way with words, and some of the things you say would stop a woman dead in her tracks to wonder how you put such words together. I know you must have spent hours, days, years pouring over it all. But I just spent a whole month with Virginia W and , and I have to say Mrs Dalloway a second time round wasn't any better than the first, despite what I told myself at the time. I tried, I really did. But then when I heard Evelyn W say yesterday that the stream of consciousness was "gibberish" and that you were that “poor dotty Irishman, James Joyce” who wrote “absolute tosh” I really couldn't find the heart to argue. So this morning I have to say I was weak, and I gave into temptation. A morning spent with Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles was more appealing than a morning spent trying my hardest with Steven Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. But you know it is not you, it is me, and when I have had my fun with Terry I will come back and get you. And I will try harder, I promise I will, and who knows.. perhaps I will find that after all this resistance I will want you to be my boyfriend alongside all the others... William S, and David Henry L, and the others. I hope you can learn to understand. With best wishes, R

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