By: Petra Chase, Arts and Culture Editor
Irish novelist James Joyce’s modernist novel, Ulysses, is widely known in literary circles as notoriously tedious to get through. With 732 pages of inventive language and experimental style, it’s considered a great feat to tackle the book in its entirety, and most people who take up the challenge surrender in the first chapter.
Set in a single day in Dublin in 1904, Ulysses has long been an enigma to me, which is why I was intrigued by print designer and illustrator Robin Mitchell Cranfield’s lecture at the Alcuin Society, “Banana Peels & Falling Stars.” Taking the audience through the challenging reading experience, Cranfield’s presentation made sense of Joyce’s chaotic universe by zeroing in on a seemingly trivial event in the book: a character dodging a threatening banana peel in his path.
The familiar slapstick trope of characters slipping on banana peels led Cranfield down a series of rabbit holes involving Charlie Chaplin, Homer, and The Muppets. Eventually, this led her to the James Joyce Symposium at Trinity College and University College in Dublin, where she presented on the topic this summer.
I was fascinated by Cranfield’s ability to find patterns within the ordinary objects that make up the book’s inventory, connecting them both to their typographical and literary significance. Describing the reading experience as “destabilizing” due to the sheer amount of things, she shared how searching for repeated objects helped her take a closer look at what Jocye was doing with the text.
For instance, a key motif that stood out to Cranfield was “sunlight becoming tangible through text,” which she found in the repetition of words like “coins” and “lemons.” This is juxtaposed with the uninviting, gloomy typeface. Interestingly, when Cranfield visited Dublin, she experienced firsthand how these glimpses of light reflected the cloudy weather and fleeting moments of sunlight characteristic of Dublin, where the book was set.
Cranfield is an English master’s student in the faculty of art and social sciences with an interest in typography and early modern publishing. She told SFU, “As we go through our day, we read hundreds, even thousands, of typeset words. But while one of the earliest things we learn is how to recognize the meaning of these words, many of us never learn how to really see the type that forms those messages.”
Cranfield is currently working on Wings, Waves, and Webs: Patterns and Nature, a children’s book set to release in 2023. She also has a podcast, where she shares essays, readings, and conversations about design.
The talk, which you can watch on Alcuin Society’s YouTube channel, is part of the Alcuin Society’s 2022 lecture series. Alcuin Society is a non-profit organization which “promotes the appreciation of beautifully produced books.” They host events, hold awards, and publish a journal called Amphora. The journal covers a wide range of book-related topics, including typography, type design, calligraphy, and the impact of digital technology on books.
Though I have never read Ulysses, Cranfield’s presentation vividly conveyed the mixed emotions involved in reading it, from frustration, to humour, to introspection. It also made me more aware of how book design affects the meaning of a text, something which many readers like myself take for granted.
