Unknown Arts

Unknown Arts, to use a Joycean coinage, is a thinkling. Walsh offers a series of critical appropriations—poems, stories, and a silent play—drawn from Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners, and more. “Enjombyourselves thurily!” “Art critic Thomas Hess found that the only worthwhile criticism of a work of art is another work of art. William Walsh must feel this too, because he does not merely document and rearrange Joyce’s work here—he makes, with Joyce’s materials, his own music. Each piece is a lovely read, and a reminder not of totemic, hallowed literature, but of how personal and playful the act of reading really is.” —Darcie Dennigan, Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse (Fordham University Press) “A mixup, an accumulation; William Walsh faithfully divines James Joyce and his multiflex bodies. Here is a man (two men, I mean, meant to mingle, both) once won of song and slave to rhythm; sum dumb, fully plumbed. Here is a truly prazeful recapitulation! Read.” —Ken Baumann, Solip (Tyrant Books)