Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE On reading 'Ulysses' Williamstown, Mass. To the Editors: I am appalled by the views Mark Patrick Hederman ascribes to me in his review [March 13] of my book, Jocoserious Joyce: The...
...MARK PATRICK HEDERMAN Dying of health care Detroit, Mich...
...In addition to this justly celebrated aspect of the book, which many of us have long cherished, I stress a competing comic aspect...
...You cannot declare a piece of ground to be a quagmire or a quicksand and, at the same time, a place to build, just as you cannot recommend a sieve as a satisfactory skillet...
...Actually, from Hermann Reimarus [ 1694-1768] onward, the quest has usually been either an attack on traditional Christian faith or an attempt to rethink or reformulate Christian faith in a new cultural context...
...JOHN H. JACHMAN Jesus in history Washington, D.C...
...That Commonweal should know that Professor Johnson was the right person for the job speaks well of your knowledgeable staff...
...To repeat the main point: A Marginal Jew must remain within the ambit of what is at least in principle empirically verifiable or arguable by reason on the part of all interested and competent parties...
...Strange though it may seem, I would hold that in fact such a strenuous restriction to verifiable history is not all that common in Jesus-of-history research, despite frequent claims about adopting such a restriction...
...That Commonweal (Continued on page 30) Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...p. 10, photo by Armidale Express Ltd., 1991...
...p. 14, Paul Valerry...
...Only after the chemotherapy failed did we seriously consider paying for AUBMR ourselves, but by then it was far too late...
...The system reduces treatment options and results in poor decisions, even for patients who can afford to pay...
...hence the subtitle, "Rethinking the Historical Jesus...
...In my own case, I had hoped to address that point in an epilogue at the end of Volume Two of A Marginal Jew...
...foreign, $72...
...I feel that she died several years prematurely, partly because of the deficiencies of the present health- care system...
...Is this author saying that Buck Mulligan is the presiding spirit of Ulysses...
...Hederman apparently sees me as a dangerous nihilist or Boa Deconstructor...
...p. 23, photo by Andrew Douglas, p. 25, Holland, Rothco...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...My book is entitled Jocoserious Joyce because I value and elaborate both its jocose and serious ele ments...
...I intend my work as a conscious break with such an approach...
...In particular, I agree that more needs to be said by both authors about how each work fits or does not fit into some larger theological project...
...Illustrations: Cover design, cover art, Emil Antonucci...
...The prior chemotherapy and metastases in her liver and lungs had made her ineligible for all but the most experimental, unproven treatment protocols...
...This is pellucidly clear in the case of a contemporary like Geza Vermes, who trumpets his objective approach in one breath and then polemicizes against the Council of Nicaea in the next...
...foreign, $41...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, NO 48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, Ohio 44691...
...To the Editors: Please accept my thanks for the fine review-essay by Luke Timothy Johnson on the recent historical-Jesus books by John Dominic Crossan and myself [April 24...
...Had AUBMR been done in Michigan, even though not covered by insurance, we would have been quickly put in touch with specialists in the procedure and with their patients...
...Medical expenses of the magnitude required for AUBMR require a lot of justification, but the current system results in fatal delays or ineffective alternative treatments, even for people who can afford to pay...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $36...
...My wife's treatment options were foreclosed almost a year before her death, because Autologous Bone Marrow Rescue [AUBMR] is not performed in Michigan for breast cancer and is not covered by the state's largest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield...
...To say "that there is no meaningful purpose to [Ulysses] other than that of humiliating and ridiculing anyone searching for such a meaning" is a hideous position to attribute to anyone...
...In other words, for all the talk about a purely historical approach, it has basically been a theological (or antitheological) project...
...Alas, Topsy has now grown to three volumes, the second of which I hope to deliver in manuscript form to Doubleday by the fall...
...2: 22 May 1992 Commonweal CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) should publish such a lengthy piece of serious criticism speaks well of the high standards of your journal...
...Is he, or is he not, saying that when "his characters and readers struggle to impose theories and interpretations upon his creation, [Joyce] is only paring his fingernails while we are busily, foolishly misreading signs and contriving meanings...
...I am in basic agreement with almost everything Johnson said in his perceptive comparison-and-contrast of the two books...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...No teacher with half a brain and any heart would put forward such a cynical proposition...
...The first element in the "jocoserious," as I already stated in my review, is exquisitely elaborated...
...Though it is gratifying to be praised for a "brilliant elaboration ...cogently argued, scrupulously annotated, and written in a vigorously readable style," this is like receiving flowers from your mugger...
...Canada, $39...
...It is to say that a legitimate theological project becomes hopelessly confused and short-circuited if it is brought into play too soon and allowed to influence what should be a purely his 30: 22 May 1992 Commonweal...
...Hence, such matters as the Resurrection, while affirmed by believers such as myself as supremely real, cannot be an object of investigation in my book...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...If Jesus of Nazareth is a historical character-and I have argued at length in Volume One that he is-then it is legitimate to launch a historical investigation of him that prescinds, at least for the time being, from the framework and questions of Christian theology...
...and at additional offices...
...As in all ecumenical statements, everyone has to give a little, and the agnostic might have to agree to compromise language or a line of argument that he or she might not use when speaking independently...
...To the Editors: Christopher Koller's article "The Myth of No Limits"[March 27] drew my attention because my wife, Diana M. Jachman, recently died of breast cancer at age fifty-five...
...I do not agree with some right-wing theologians that this means a least-common-denominator approach or a capitulation to the agnostic member of the mythical team...
...Hederman has every right to read Ulysses as "good for the soul...
...Copyright © 1992 Commonweal Foundation...
...Obviously I would not have taught Joyce's Ulysses for twenty years, nor devoted five full years to writing about it, if I regarded it as a mere joke or cruel hoax...
...We were given these and other basic facts by her oncologist, but they were not enough to make a timely, truly informed decision...
...So my apologia pro opere suo may be somewhat delayed...
...Single Copy, $2...
...He seems to have read every other sentence and only heeded the half with which he disagrees...
...The reviewer replies: My question really is: Can one have one's fake and cheat it...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...Instead of opt ing for conventional chemotherapy, my wife would have considered AUBMR much earlier in her illness, when that treatment would have been more effective...
...p. 15, Jean Chariot...
...That is not to say that such questions are wrong or illegitimate...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 00103330...
...bank...
...If I may sketch an ever-so-brief outline of my apologia: I see A Marginal Jew as a militantly untheological work...
...To the Editors: I am appalled by the views Mark Patrick Hederman ascribes to me in his review [March 13] of my book, Jocoserious Joyce: The Fate of Folly in "Ulysses...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $62...
...In less obvious ways, it is equally true that the post-Bultmannians of the New Quest, as well as Catholics like Kung and Schillebeeckx, have been engaged in a fundamentally theological exercise, in which historical investigation plays an important part...
...Does not this author ultimately see Ulysses "reveling in contrariety and insufficiency, sporting in a fun house, enjoying a `high grade ha...
...Canada, $66...
...Is he saying that "when Ulysses isn't fooling us, it is likely to be setting us up...
...if he does not, then I, as conscientious and fair-minded reader of his book, say that this part of his oxymoronic equation fails to come across to me...
...ROBERT H. BELL The writer is professor of English at Williams College...
...Such must be the case, since it is supposed to remain a consensus statement that all the famished professors imprisoned in the Harvard Divinity School library could agree to, at least in theory...
...19,22, Ross, Rothco...
...The list of his misrepresentations is too long and tedious to enumerate...
...Change in our health care system is too late for Diana, but change must eventually come, for the benefit of all...
...If he does, then I cannot see how he can also claim that the novel is "good for the soul" unless through the salutary humiliation it provides for impact-lusting sychophants...
Vol. 119 • May 1992 • No. 10
