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James Joyce and After: Writer and Time ed. by Katarzyna Bazarnik and Bożena Kucała (review)

method pursued in this book leads to the conclusion that Joyce is possessed, from the outset, of a serious literary vision: available here in compressed form, but readily appreciable in his subsequent works, which develop many of its latencies” (271). Though the desire to read a writer’s later work into his or her earlier texts is often criticized, Owens executes this well, illuminating “the complexity and coherence of Joyce’s technical mastery and extraordinary vision” (271). Overall, this “prehistory” of “After the Race” is a welcome addition for anyone interested not only in “After the Race” but also in Dubliners, Edwardian Dublin, the early years of the automobile age, or the genesis of Joyce’s art on a larger scale. In the fourth chapter of his study, Owens makes a valuable point about the larger weight of this story: “‘After the Race’ is most fruitfully read with a clear sense of the tension between acclaimed events and the unremarkable business of daily living” (153). The ability of “After the Race” to collapse the epic and the mundane, as well as to expose the way in which historical context seeps into Joyce’s early narratives through meticulous research, attention to detail, and careful argumentation, is what Owens successfully accomplishes with Before Daybreak.