14. Ireland’s Greatest Writer and His Awkward Kink
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 – 1941) is probably Ireland’s greatest man of letters. The author of the innovative novels Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake was a modernist writer who wrote in a groundbreaking style. In it, he combined complexity with explicit content that shocked contemporaries and led to landmark legal decisions on obscenity. Since creative genius is so often accompanied by odd and awkward behavior, it should perhaps come as no surprise that James Joyce was also a total weirdo.
Joyce had a thing for breaking wind – farts, if you will. He just loved farts to distraction, and could not get enough of them. Whether he dished them out, preferably on people’s faces, or received them, farts made Joyce’s day. His enjoyment of farts was not limited to the fine pleasure of experiencing them. As a world-class author, he had to write about farts, and describe them in exquisite detail. Indeed, there is an entire collection of Joyce letters in which he writes passionately about cutting the cheese.