Noted

I'll begin with a oft-repeated refrain: boy it's been a long time. But, I've been busy, so lay off, will ya.

Anyway, your Expat is shaking off his autumnal blues and post-Christmas weight gain to re-enter the blogosphere. Even tweeting. All in preparation for some exciting projects in the new year - stay tuned.

I spent Christmas in the usual way (the whisky, the shotgun, the sense of futility and dread) and lately have been kicking back reading and writing and relaxing. Relaxing, that is, until I read "The Dead", which is of course the final piece in Joyce's Dubliners. I read this every year around this time; it's snowy and takes place on the feast of the Epiphany - the 12th day of Christmas.

I used to have a lovely orange Penguin paperback edition, yet it seemed not to have survived my latest house move. So off to Oxfam to pick up the Penguin modern classics edition (sorry for screwing you on royalties, Joyce estate!), edited by Terence Brown, Trinity College Dublin.


What grated was that, unlike the orange Penguin, old Terry seems to want to stick his oar in and comment on almost every part of the story. Twice a page on average: the Dead is 49 pages long, yet there are 98 footnotes. The problem is that each of the notes are numbered and each time you interrupt your reading turning to the back thinking, 'Well this must be important,' and you are invariably disappointed. True, some are essential: a bit of Irish translated, the fact that 'Adam and Eve's' was Dublin slang for its Church of the Immaculate Conception. But many are interpretive and break the flow of the story. Naming the maid Lily may indeed be significant because it is the flower associated with the archangel Gabriel (the name of one of the main characters), but that could be told in an afterword.

What truly irritated was that so many were unnecessary, it seemed like Prof Brown was struggling to hit a word count. 'Dumb-bells' are 'weights for callisthenic exercises'. Glasgow, apparently, is a 'Scottish industrial city.' Who knew?

The solution for this is for Penguin to footnote like OUP does for their classics: not numbering them, so that they break up the story, but just having notes at the back which readers can refer to if stuck. Yet I suspect footnoting will become ever more intrusive going forward as traditional classics publishers strive to 'add value' to their books to combat the glut of free classics that are available on the internet.