It is ironic that a man who
scarcely wrote a word in his life,
failing even to write
letters to friends,
fathered one of the 20th century's
greatest master of words. John
Stanislaus Joyce--father of novelist James--had much to say, for sure, but his media were the witty turn of phrase and off-the-cuff song, his stage, the pub. John Stanislaus was raised in Cork then educated in Dublin. Here he quickly rose to prominence in the local pubs where he shared his passionate Irish nationalism and fervor for sports with bar mates. Though he received a comfortable inheritance in early adulthood, Joyce the elder was, by all accounts, a terrible money manager. In fact the few letters he ever wrote were loan requests; thus the Joyce home was loving but often impermanent, shifting with the tides of fortune. Joyce's most important gift to his son James was his contribution to his fiction. John Stanislaus is the model for the hero of
Finnegan's Wake and his "memories and extravagant idioms" are the foundation of
Ulysses's Leopold Bloom. Writers John Wyse Jackson and Peter Costello include in this biography some of James's character sketches of his father--a real treat for Joyce fans and scholars. .
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