Wyndham Lewis on James Joyce and 'the Jew' (from Time and Western Man, 1927
excerpted in Enemy Salvoes: Selected Literary Criticism, ed. CJ Fox):
"Turning to Mr. Bloom, we find an unsatisfactory figure, too...
He possesses all the recognized theatrical properties of 'the Jew'
up-to-date --he is more feminine than _la femme_, shares her
couvade, the periodicity of her intimate existence is repeatedly
mildly in his own; he counts the beer bottles stacked in a yard
he is passing, computing with glee the profit to be extracted
from that commerce; but such a Jew as Bloom, taken
altogether, has never been seen outside the pages of
Mr. Joyce's book. And he is not even a Jew most of the time,
but his talented Irish author.
In reality there is no Mr. Bloom at all, of course, except
at certain moments. Usually the author, carelessly disguised
beneath what other people have observed about Jews, or
yet other people have believed that they have seen, is alone
performing before us. There is no sign throughout the book
that he has ever directly and intelligently observed any
_individual Jew_. He has merely out of books and
conversations collected facts, witticisms and generalizations
about Jews, and wrapped up his own kindly person with
these, till he has bloated himself into a thousand pages of
hetergeneous, peculiarly unjewish, matter. So he has
certainly contributed nothing to the literature of the Jew,
for which task he is in any case quite unsuited."
Tim Romano
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