A generally dissatisfying day on-line. The marking, of which there was plenty, went well enough. But in my breaks from staring at essays on the screen I sort of randomly browsed stuff that had a mildly irritating air about it - like YouTubers I'd never really heard of fiercely disagreeing with each other over matters that didn't seem all important. For some reason I picked up on a debate over the latest incarnation of Dr Who that didn't do me, or anyone else as far as I can see, any good at all.
So it was with some relief that late on in the day I chanced upon an excellent piece about everyone's favourite Irish Modernist novelist and his oddly engaging relationship with the pugilist-cum-writer Ernest Hemingway. I'd heard the tale before and always assumed it was apocryphal and now I know it's not. As is invariably the case with Joyce, a story that on the surface makes him sound a bit of a ninny serves to add to his reputation - first of all because it's very funny and second of all because it's a reminder of his absolute honesty about what a physical coward he was which, in turn, is a reminder of his absolute moral courage.
Nice to think of a world big enough for two such strange characters who just happened to be touched by genius.
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