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[Aetat. 40-41] J O Y C E 529challenged. 'Joyce,' she admitted, 'is good. He is a good writer. Peoplelike him because he is incomprehensible and anybody can understandhim. But who came first,Gertrude Stein or James Joyce? Do not forgetthat my firstgreat book, Three Lives, was published in 1908. That waslong before Ulysses. But Joyce has done something. His influence, however,is local. Like Synge, another Irish writer, he has had his day.' 9Shebrooded over the fact that Joyce never took advantage of the opportunityof seeing her.* But, as he pointedly told Mary Colum later, i hate intellectualwomen.' He kept his friendship with Gertrude Stein's protege,Ernest Hemingway, who praised Ulysses without compunction and wroteto Sherwood Anderson on March 9, 1922:Joyce has a most goddamn wonderful book. It'll probably reach you intime. Meantime the report is that he and all his family are starving butyou can find the whole Celtic crew of them every night in Michaud's whereBinney and I can only afford to go about once a week.Gertrude Stein says Joyce reminds her of an old woman out in SanFrancisco. The woman's son struck it rich as hell in the Klondyke and theold woman went around wringing her hands and saying, 'Oh my poorJoey! My poor Joey! He's got so much money!' The damned Irish, theyhave to moan about something or other, but you never heard of an Irishmanstarving. 11At the Restaurant Voltaire on April 25, George Moore regarded hisyounger compatriot's work with distaste. 'Take this Irishman Joyce,' hesaid to Barrett Clark, 'a sort of Zola gone to seed. Someone recently sentme a copy of Ulysses. I was told I must read it, but how can one plowthrough such stuff? I read a little here and there, but, oh my God, howbored I got! Probably Joyce thinks that because he prints all the dirty littlewords he is a great novelist. You know, of course, he got his ideas fromDujardin? t What do you think of Ulysses?' Before Clark could answer,he went on, 'Joyce, Joyce, why he's nobody—from the Dublin docks: nofamily, no breeding. Someone else once sent me his Portrait of the Artistas a Young Man, a book entirely without style or distinction; why, I didthe same thing, but much better, in The Confessions of a Young Man.Why attempt the same thing unless you can turn out a better book?' Heallowed there was merit in 'The Dead,' 'But Ulysses is hopeless; it isabsurd to imagine that any good end can be served by trying to recordevery single thought and sensation of any human being. That's not art,it's like trying to copy the London Directory. Do you know Joyce? Helives here in Paris, I understand. How does he manage to make a living?His books don't sell. Maybe he has money? You don't know? I'm curious.Ask someone that question.' 12* They did meet once, at a party at Eugene Jolas's, and Joyce said, 'How strange that weshare the same quartier and have never met.' Gertrude Stein said doubtfully, 'Yes.' 10t Moore had praised his friend Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupes for its originality whenit came out, but in later life he poohpoohed the internal monologue as old hat.