James Joyce in Zurich

"James Joyce in Zurich?"

"How did he get here?  He was a Dubliner!"

 That's what I asked myself when I happened upon his grave in a small and secluded cemetery on a hill outside of the city of Zurich, Switzerland.  Fluntern Cemetery is oddly located next to the Zurich Zoo, and seems an unlikely resting place for an Irish literary icon. 
But it is a beautiful, restful and quiet place.
His wife, Nora Barnacle, insisted Joyce would have been quite content to be buried there, because he would be able to hear the lions roar.

 Joyce set all of his literary works in Dublin, but in 1904 he left that city, rather uncerimoniously, after quarrels, drinking bouts and debts complicated his life.  He and Nora eloped to the  continent, and, with the exception of a few short return visits, gave up Dublin as his home.

 Joyce spent the years from 1915-1919 in Zurich, living in 7 different houses, and completing his pivotal work, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  It was here he met Ezra Pound who introduced him to Harriet Shaw Weaver, who became his patron and supported him financially for many years, allowing him to work on his writing without fear of abject poverty.

In 1920, the Joyces moved to Paris, but James Joyce returned frequently to Zurich for operations on his eyes and to seek treatment for his daughter, Lucia, from Carl Jung.  Jung thought both father and daughter were schizophrenic. He said that "Lucia and her father were two people heading to the bottom of a river, except that he was diving and she was falling."
The Joyces moved back to Zurich in 1940 to escape the Nazis, and in January 1941, James suffered a perforated ulcer, fell into a coma, and died.
So here he is, in this green and quiet place far from home.  Beside him lies his wife Nora, who died ten years after, and his son George, who died in 1976.

James Joyce is, however, sincerely loved and appreciated by Zurich.  The Zurich James Joyce Foundation   keeps his memory alive. 
In the early seventies, Jury's Hotel in Dame Street, in the old part of Dublin, put up for auction the Victorian interior of Jury's Antique Bar. Joyce had frequented this bar and it is mentioned in his works ("Barmaid in Jury's" in Ulysses). The interior was brought to Zurich, where it was reopened in Pelikanstrasse as the James Joyce Pub in 1978. In the next year it served as official meeting place for participants of the 7th International James Joyce Symposium, thus connecting Joyce's name once again with the Bahnhofstrasse, which had already featured in a poem he had written in 1918.
The Zurich Foundation also bought Fritz Senn's collection of Joyceana -- probably the most comprehensive of its kind in Europe - when it was auctioned off. 
Today the foundation holds readings and conducts tours of Joycean places in Zurich.
If you want to get close to Joyce in Zurich, book a room at the design hotel Hotel Zuerichberg and you can sleep close to the Irish bard, but in lovely style.  The hotel is elegantly contemporary, with terraces overlooking the city and an intimate bar that Joyce would have liked.

You can arrange tours of Joycean Zurich through the Zurich James Joyce Foundation.  In the meantime, tackle The Portrait of the Artist as a Yound Man, as a prelude to Ullysses.  It will take you a while, but these are two books that changed the face of contemporary literature.  And the Joycean language play is intoxicating.

A Geek's Guide to Preparing for a Trip to Holland

In about a month, I will be traveling to Holland to take a romantic barge trip through the tulip fields, to visit some of the small villages along the canals, and to spend a few days in Amsterdam and then in The Hague.
I'm not worried about packing - I'll take a small carry-on and minimal clothing - but I am very interested in being intellectually prepared.  I would like to have read the books, visited the websites and explored the work of important artists of the areas I will visit, before I get there.  That way, I can maximize my visit, I will know what to look for and what I most want to see.  I want to be a literate traveler.
For example, one of the small cities we will visit is Delft.  Renowned as the home of the famous blue and white pottery, it is also the home city of the painter Johannes Vermeer.  His painting, View of Delft, is considered by many art connoisseurs to be one of the most perfect paintings ever created.

 It's a gorgeous painting, luminous and calming, and you can see the actual painting in the Mauritshuis Museum in the Hague, (near to his equally compelling painting, Girl With Pearl Earing).  But you can also find the exact place in the city of Delft where Vermeer sat to paint his view of his beloved home town.
The view has obviously changed since the 17th century, but there are still some very conspicuous similarities.  I'm happy I read about Vermeer so I can look for the painting in the Mauritshuis, but also so that I can find that spot in Delft and enjoy the twenty-first century view of Vermeer's city. 
Here's six easy to read books that can add texture to a visit to Holland:

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
A tale of art, beauty, lust, greed, deception and retribution -- set in a refined society ablaze with tulip fever.
Vermeer: A View of Delft, by Anthony Bailey
Set against the dramatic backdrop of the "golden age" of Dutch culture, the story of one of the world's most beloved -- and most elusive -- painters.
Girl With Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
In this historically accurate story set in 17th century Delft,  Tracy Chevalier uses scenes drawn from everyday life and painstaking attention to detail to tell the story of Griet, a 16-year-old girl who is required by her family's misfortunes to become a maid in the Vermeer household.
Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne fRank, Otto Frank.
The book. is the record of two years in the life of a remarkable Jewish girl whose diary records her days spent in hiding in Amsterdam during the German occupation. 
 Girl in Hyacinth Blue, by Susan Vreeland
This story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer—but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace the ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration.
Outsider in Amsterdam, by Janwillem  Van De Wetering
Piet Verboom is found dangling from a beam in the Hindist Society he ran as a restaurant-commune in a quiet Amsterdam street. Detective-Adjutant Gripstra and Sergeant de Gier of the Amsterdam police force are sent to investigate what looks like a simple suicide.