We expected quite a bit from Jack on the 100th Bloomsday (note: can it be the 100th? There was only one. Or the 100th anniversary? that's not quite right either - or is it?) Perhaps we expected too much.
We confess that for our tastes, his kleinomania post was a noble but flawed experiment in prosery. A bit too much, is the simplest way of putting it, like a Kingsley Amis book with chocolate sauce all over it. We did enjoy this phrase: "Well for him!" in referring to man-boobs. Also, this turn of words: "Also, much of 20 Questions was played at, and many entertaining mysteries were, in that fashion, solved." So the Old Cat still has fight in him, in any case.
But all in all, somewhat unsatisfying. We did not read this post with relish, as one might eat the innards of beasts and fowl - eh, now, Joyceans? The style didn't ring true. A little off-key. In the past, we've pointed out and delighted in Jack's meticulous and elegant prose style, but this most recent addition seemed far to an extreme. An even keel is by no means how we would describe Jack's temperment, but he had struck a rude but effective balance - gentlemanly yet embittered, historically informed yet hyperconnected, personal yet with an authorial distance. So we were disheartened to read what amounts to a lustily executed but ill-considered pastiche of some lesser talents.
Still, art being the rough beast that it is, no one can fault the man for a bit of experimentation, and we, and we hope, he, will soldier on.
