In Edna O'Brien's brief and brilliant biography of Joyce, she says Joyce was "faithful to his secret conviction that literature is, in its essence, violence and desire."

In the next chapter, writing about Joyce's relationship with Nora Barnacle, O'Brien says, "Many have been baffled that a man of Joyce's daunting intellect chose and remained constant to this peasant woman. It is beyond these letters, it is beyond propriety, it remains inexplicable as the Eleusinian mysteries."

I'm in love with this strange and wonderful book.

I love it in part because of the language O'Brien uses to get Joyce on the page — and partly because the book is so short:  just 178 pages.

All the books in the Penguin Lives series were short, and that was part of their power: you didn't get weighed down by a tome created by a faithful, thorough biographer. I miss the series and wish it hadn't been discontinued.