Zurich James Joyce Foundation: 25 Years

March 23, 2010 | 08:26

Barnaby SmithCulture

Zurich James Joyce Foundation marks 25 years

Joyce posing at Platzspitz © Zurich James Joyce Foundation

Twenty-five years after it was established, the Zurich James Joyce Foundation is still a centre of global Joyce scholarship, as well as being a vibrant hub of literary discussion for the local community. The great Irish writer lived in Zurich at various times and is buried in the Fluntern cemetery. The foundation aims to make complex Joyce works accessible for new generations and provides a vast archive of literature within its library and museum.

James Joyce (1882–1941), author of such seminal – often regarded as impenetrable – texts such as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, first came to Zurich in 1904-5 on the promise of a position teaching English that never materialised.

He returned to the city in 1915, remaining for five years during which he embarked on Ulysses, wrote the play Exiles and published his novel Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. He left in 1920 for Paris, returning in 1940 to flee the Nazi occupation of France, only to die a year later after surgery on a perforated ulcer.

“He came here by chance, he thought there was a job, but then there wasn’t,” says founder of theZurich James Joyce Foundation and scholar Fritz Senn. “But he came back during the war because he knew it and because Switzerland was neutral.”

“I think he began to like it; it is a compact city and has two rivers that he liked, conviviality and so forth. He became attracted to it and even picked up some of the dialect,” he added.

Senn set up the foundation in 1985 on the back of funding from the former Union Bank of Switzerland. Since then he has established a library of Joyce-related material that has “things you won’t find in the British Library”, and organises a Joyce symposium every two years – the next is scheduled for this coming June.

The foundation’s headquarters sit at ‘James Joyce Corner’ on Augustiner Strasse in Zurich’s Altstadt, a pretty passage just off the city’s main shopping street, Bahnhofstrasse.

Perhaps the foundation’s most important function is to offer weekly reading groups open to everyone. “We have former students, doctors, lawyers, housewives . . . We have found there is a great deal of potential out there,” says the 82-year-old Senn, widely regarded as among the greatest living Joyce academics.

Reading groups slowly tackle Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, examining each passage in close detail. A full reading of Ulysses takes three years, with Finnegans Wake a daunting 11, plenty time for the groups have developed into their own social networks.

“Joyce is considered very difficult to read, and that’s true of course up to a point,” says Senn, who leads all the reading groups, when asked about the foundation’s mission to offer Joyce to the casual, non-academic reader.

“But I think because we are so lucky to have this place I think it’s important to pass something on to the general public. Across three weekly reading groups, 40 or 50 people come fairly regularly, and that enables them to get into the books and overcome the fear and reluctance that people have with Joyce. It’s an important activity,” he said.

One member told Swisster: “I came into contact with Fritz and became an addict.”

“To offer Joyce to a non-academic audience is the soul of the foundation. Fritz is a non-academic in the best sense, in that he’s highly academic but he listens to people’s ideas,” he added.

Despite living in Zurich during some of his most important creative periods, Joyce never integrated himself into the city’s society to any great degree.

However, Joyce enjoyed the Kronenhalle restaurant at Bellevue and attended services at the Liebfrauenkirche, a church not far from the Platzspitz park.

Exactly how much of an impact he had on the city’s artistic community – and it on him – is up for debate.

“Probably not all that much of one,” says Senn. “Trieste [where Joyce lived for several periods between 1904 and 1914) was more important to him. Of course, he picked up a few things in Zurich but I don’t think it influenced him, as far as I can tell."

“I think he kept to himself. Of course there was the Dadaists and Lenin but I think they were all monomaniacs directing their own aims. Joyce kept a few people but he wasn’t outgoing. In fact I’m always astonished that when Joyce was in Paris how little notice he took of what was such as fascinating place in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” said Senn.

The foundation will mark its 25th birthday on a modest scale, with Senn citing a lack of funds preventing them celebrating more elaborately. After initially benefitting from UBS’s help in the beginning, the organisation has become financially independent, even if sustaining itself has become something of a struggle for Senn and the five staff members who work alongside him.

“They [the bank] had enough capital that we could live comfortably for many years,” says Senn, “but now this has dropped. Not because of any wild speculations, but we are connected with the fate of the bank.”

The future of the Foundation is not threatened, however. Anyone can visit the institute to view such artefacts as Joyce’s walking stick, letters and even a Joyce death mask, as well as the huge collection of editions of original works, translations and criticism.

The place attracts up to 2,000 visitors each year, including regulars.

Opening hours: 10am – 5pm on weekdays, and by appointment. Reading groups meet Tuesdays and Thursdays

diposkan 23 Maret 2010