céline and joyce

Thinking about Céline and the proletarian revolution in style he effected in Voyage au bout de la nuit, it occurred to me suddenly (in the bathtub) that Joyce may have been up to something similar, as unlikely as that seems.

By using "found" styles, most obviously in the case of "Nausicaa," but arguably even in "Oxen," Joyce moved away from authorial high style towards an "authorless" narrative told by many popular voices. (Andy Warhol just came to mind). If this strikes you as preposterous, consider that the styles Joyce pastiches in "Oxen" are to him just childhood favorites from his schooldays, not the highfalutin' styles they seem to us. And the pastiches are playful, even childish (in the case of Dickens).

Proust: authorial high style.
Céline: authorial proletarian style.
Joyce: no authorial style (to a point) and found popular styles