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Chapter 1: What significance does Zürich hold in James Joyce's life?
Drama on 1.
You're listening to RTE Radio 1. Drama on 1 is offered as a podcast at rte.ie forward slash drama on 1 and on the RTE radio player. Ahead of the Bloomsday celebrations this Tuesday, we have a Joyce-ian special tonight. The James Joyce Foundation in Zurich came into existence in 1985 after a string of coincidences which we'll hear about in a few moments.
To commemorate the anniversary of James Joyce's death in Zurich on January 13, 1941, Ursula Zeller, Ruth Frainer and Fritz Senn from the James Joyce Foundation shared their stories with Kevin Reynolds. This is James Joyce in Zurich. Turn right on Augustinagus, then in 10 metres. The destination is on your right.
This is now the only building in Zurich that really has a plaque about Joyce's stay here. There was no doubt about it.
If you wanted to succeed, you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.
Joyce is the best writer Durek ever had. I give over your bloody cotton, Joyce. If I were thirsty, I wouldn't sell for half a crown. We are now in Frito-Flunten and we are walking up to the grave of James Joyce.
The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead, you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus. And he came fifth and lost the job.
We're sort of an outpost of Ireland here. Arrived at Ursula Zeller's home.
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Chapter 2: How did the James Joyce Foundation come into existence?
Hello. Hello. Hello, Kevin, Ursula. Ursula, how are you? Lovely to meet you.
Pleasure to meet you.
You're welcome. Thank you, thank you. From the Joyce Foundation in Zurich.
Thank you.
This is my colleague, Ruth.
Hello, Ruth. Kevin, Kevin. How are you, Ruth? Nice to meet you.
So, what shall I do? What shall I do? Okay, first we'll say hello to Fritz.
Yes.
Hello, Fritz. You seem to be equipped well, huh? I just start immediately.
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Chapter 3: What interesting stories do the guests share about Joyce's time in Zürich?
I'm now 96. I'll continue for as long as I can when I'm still compos mentis. It's also a social institution. Now, people come. It's a second home, huh? A noiseless attendant setting open the door, but slightly, made him a noiseless beck.
This place is a fairly small place. It used to be a bourgeois apartment. an old building in the old part of town. The foundation houses one of the largest, if not the largest, research library on Joyce. It comprises nearly 10,000 books and journals. And the core of this library, about 2,000 books, are from Fritz's private Joyce library.
What is this she was? Barmaid in juries, or the Moira, was it?
So the foundation's history started in the 1970s and it started with a Cold War story. There was this hotel on Dame Street, Jury's Hotel, which was demolished in the 1970s. And part of its interiors were put to auction, among them Jury's Antique Bar in late Victorian style, one of the precious parts of that hotel. And a Swiss guy took part in that auction. a man named Albert Bachmann.
And it was actually him who won the bid. So he purchased it and shipped it to Switzerland. And Albert Bachmann was an interesting figure, rather dubious character. He was an officer in the Swiss army, in the military secret service, actually. And he was also a fanatic cold warrior. So out of fear that Albert The Soviet Union might invade Switzerland or start an atomic war.
He made plans for a Swiss government in exile. And apparently he read in an American newspaper that the south of Ireland, Cork, was the safest place in Europe. So he's looking for a place and eventually he found this estate, Lizard Estate. He purchased it. But he did not do so in his capacity as a Secret Service officer. He did it privately and he got some friends on board.
And so it was all paid privately. But then it came to light in the late 1970s. He was exposed. He was quite a scandal in Switzerland. And he was immediately, of course, fired. So he went into early retirement and he returned to Ireland, to Cork, to this artist state. And he died there in 2011. He was an Ireland fan.
I think he had fantasies like the Russians would ever come.
He would have the government in the hotels, like de Gaulle, you know. So Bachmann purchased the interiors of a Jewish antique bar. They were dismembered and numbered and shipped to Switzerland. So what happened here in Switzerland? He tried to sell it to some restaurant consortium or to some chain or other, but that failed.
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Chapter 4: How did James Joyce's stay in Zürich influence his writing?
And this is actually where Fritz N. then enters the picture. At that time, Fritz, of course, it was known in Switzerland as the Joyce expert. So they got him on board and asked him to write a brochure with some basic information on James Joyce. This was meant as a presence to the patrons of the pub. So it reopened in 1978.
And Robert Holzach was very interested in Fritz's career and he's, you know, a Swiss man dedicating his entire life to the study of this Irish writer. And then Fritz Sen lost the job at a prestigious publishing house here in Zurich, Diogenes Publishing House. So he was looking for something new. And of course, he had been in touch with American and other universities.
And one of them was interested in buying his Joyce collection, his private collection. When Robert Holzach heard about this, he thought, well, wait a moment, we should keep this in Switzerland, make it accessible to the public and transform it into a foundation. It still took several years to realise these plans. On the 9th of May, 1985, the foundation was officially established.
It's the best Irish exports, booze and literature.
Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub.
The pub came first because the bank, in a good moment, a rare moment, they wouldn't do such stupidities nowadays, they set up the George Foundation here.
My name is Ruth Vrenner and I have been working at the foundation for 39 years since the very beginning and apart from that I was a university teacher so this was a kind of a balance for me and I have now the last month in my time at the foundation so at the end of September I will go into pension.
I first heard of Joyce from my professor, Professor Strauman, who had interviewed him. And then when I was in London as an exchange student, I didn't have much money to travel, but I thought I'd try this book. which was supposed to be a difficult book to test my English. It was also supposed to be a dirty book at that time. It was not easy to get in Ireland. And I tried to test my English.
My English wasn't good enough, but somehow I got hooked. I don't know why. And I stuck and occupied myself with it, went into it, got some background books. There weren't many at the time. It's not too easy, it's probably difficult for an Irishman to understand that somebody of such importance is not supported by a state. I mean, Joyce is the best writer Durek ever had.
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Chapter 5: What role did Alfred Vogt play in Joyce's life?
So he spent the years of 1915 to 1919 here in Zurich until the end of the First World War. And he wrote the first half of Ulysses here. After the war, Joyce decided to leave Zurich and he and his family moved on to Trieste. They stayed there for a short while and then left for Paris. Their friends had urged them and invited them. This was the place to be, the roaring 20s in Paris.
And there was this big, vibrant expats community in Paris, artists, writers, painters. So he stayed there for the next 20 years. And the family left after the German invasion of Paris. They left for Saint-Gérard-le-Puy. in the unoccupied part of France. But still, of course, you know, you never knew what's going to happen next.
So his friends urged him to come with them back to the US, the Jolasses. And Carola Gideon Welker, his Zurich friend, then urged them to come back to Zurich. And they did not want to leave Europe because of their children, especially because of Lucia, who was in an institution in Paris that was evacuated to the coast in Brittany.
So they decided to come back to Switzerland and that turned out to be fairly difficult. Unlike the First World War, the immigration policies had become very restrictive.
And it was again Carola Gideon-Welker and other friends, among them Swiss composer Ottmar Schöck, who helped to raise some money as a kind of warranty for them so that the Swiss taxpayer didn't have to take care of immigrants like Joyce. Yeah, and then he came back to Zurich via Geneva and Lausanne in December 1940. They were celebrating Christmas with the Giedon Welkers.
And on the 13th of January, he died of a stomach ulcer. He was buried two days later in Flunten Cemetery.
I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. Get up. Last day. And every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Fine damn all of himself that morning.
We are here at Flunten Cemetery. This is the cemetery where Joyce and his family are buried. This is a memorial grave and it was installed in 1966. Joyce wasn't originally buried here in this very place, but he was buried further down in a normal grave for Zurich citizens.
And these graves are usually reclaimed after 25 years, but obviously the memory of Joyce should live longer and therefore the city of Zurich donated the plot for a reinterment. The American artist Milton Hebold was commissioned by Lee Nordness, owner of a New York gallery, to design the statue. Next to Joyce lies Elias Ganetti, another major writer who lived in Zurich.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Joyce face during World War I?
dwarf's body, weak as putty.
He was supreme. I mean, I don't use superlatives, but as a handler of language, he is quite unique, certainly in the last few centuries, that guy.
Hot mock turtle vapor and steam of new-baked jam puffs roly-poly poured out from Harrison's.
The heavy noon reek tickled the top of Mr. Bloom's gullet. You know, this is endlessly fascinating. And I think, by the way, that Joyce really used it as a challenge. He was slapping some complacent faces, you know. I can do it like that, and it's never done before, so there you have it.
This plebeian, Don Juan, observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards. Insulting to any lady, I have it still. Hey, mister, your fly is open, mister. We organize things. I mean, we do readings every week. We read George's works. We have workshops. There are scholarships.
You can come here for two months, and it's paid for. Now, of course, that we exist, we're really part of it, and we're one of the strongholds. Urbane, to comfort them, the Quaker librarian purred... And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of Wilhelm Meister, a great poet and a great brother poet.
Now here are some of our special treasures from the Wiederkehr Vogt bequest. Professor Alfred Vogt was a well-known ophthalmologist. Joyce had serious eye problems and he was nearly going blind and he had more than 10 eye operations and most of them were unsuccessful.
So with Zurich friends, and in particular Carola Gideon-Welker, but Martha Fleischmann too, recommended to Joyce to come back to Zurich and have his eyes operated on. So in the end, he decided to do it. It was a fairly risky thing because Vogt had developed a new technique. So he came here and in the spring of 1930, Joyce was successfully operated.
So he owed his eyesight actually to Professor Vogt. Professor Vogt was a very special person. He had a great interest in the arts as well. So he would never ask his patients who were artists or writers to pay in cash. He asked them for a first edition or a valuable book or a painting. And at the donation ceremony, his grandchildren told us that they have a substantial arts collection.
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Chapter 7: What impact did Joyce's family have on his life and work?
And this is because it is a signed copy, which also has a dedication to Hélène Faulk, to someone. Joyce rarely wrote a dedication. He signed his books, but he very rarely wrote a dedication. So this is one reason why this one is so valuable. It has an inscription to Helen Vogt, James Joyce, Whitsuntide, 1930, Zurich. Helen Vogt was Professor Vogt's daughter.
She had an interest in English literature. She knew English, which was unusual at that time for a young Swiss woman. So the dedication is to Helen Vogt. And at the bottom of the title page, there is a note in pencil in Professor Vogt's hand saying 7th of... June 1930. A present from the author three weeks after the operation.
He, Joyce, said to me, Professor Vogt, you are lucky, you're getting the very last copy of the first edition of First printing. The 11th printing has just appeared. The fact that Joyce was parting with the very last copy of the first edition, first printing, just tells us how immensely grateful he was to Vogt, who gave him back his eyesight.
An attendant from the doorway called. Mr. Lister, Father Deneen wants... Oh, Father Deneen, directly. Swiftly, rectly, creaking, rectly, rectly, he was rectly gone.
Another very beautiful item is this portfolio, Poems Benny Each, Joyce's second poetry collection. It was first published by Sylvia Beach in 1922 at Shakespeare and Company's This edition is the first English edition, and it was published by Fine Arts Press, or actually by two presses, printed in France, but published by Desmond Harmsworth, London, in conjunction with the Obelisk Press.
This is probably more an art item or an art object than a book to read. It consists of six loose handmade sheets on which the poems are printed in the facsimile of Joyce's hand. Ours is number 23 out of only 25 copies. So they are hugely valuable. But what makes this edition particularly interesting is that it is one of three collaborations of Joyce with his daughter Lucia.
Lucia developed her own style, inspired by medieval illuminations and also by the contemporary Art Nouveau, the fin de siècle art style. The title page is Poems, Penny Each by James Joyce, initial letters designed and illuminated by Lucia Joyce.
Lucia was... in an institution in England. And so she never came. But I did write to her, invite her to Southwark. I knew she couldn't come. And she wrote back very nicely, I'm sorry I can't come, you know. Dearest Papley, thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the belle in my new tam. I got Mummy's lovely box of creams and I'm writing.
They are lovely. So it's nice to have a letter. Of course, you can't leave these things around. You have to pull them out when somebody comes. I bet it's amazing. And actually, nobody really has probably looked at all pages.
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Chapter 8: What legacy did James Joyce leave behind in Zürich?
But of course, then we have to go over there and bring it for visitors. But we simply don't have the safe, you know, safe space here at the foundation for exhibitions. We should have an exhibition room. That would be wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. P.S. Excuse bad writing. I'm in a hurry. Bye bye. M. We have Pablo Inkberg's translation of Joyce's poetry into Argentinian Spanish.
We have a Turkish translation of a portrait of the artist as a young man. Chinese translation of Ulysses, one of two. And of course, we also have the Gaelic translation of Ulysses, published in installments, in booklets. The Gaelic translation was done by a team of translators around Seamus O'Hinnagher. And it was published, or these booklets were published in Belfast.
And there was a fellow with a ballyhooly blue ribbon bag spiffing out of him in Irish. The third item from this collection is a first edition of Finnegan's Wake, published in 1939. And it is actually a special edition, limited to 425 numbered copies. And it is signed by Joyce, writer's copy for Frau Helene Wiederkehr Vogt, Zürich, James Joyce, Paris, 4th of May 1939.
And he signed it in green ink. Here we have, from another bequest, we have Joyce's and Nora's identity card in pink. Monsieur Joyce, écrivain, signed by Joyce, and there is a photograph of Joyce in profile, and likewise a photograph of Nora. And here we have Joyce's marriage certificate. Joyce and Nora got married in 31, and it was issued by the Register Office in London.
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, age 49 years, condition bachelor, rank of profession, independent means. And then their address at Campton Grove, 28. Father's name, John Stanislaus Joyce, rank or profession of father, government clerk. And here are some items from the Hans Jahnke collection.
Hans Jahnke was Joyce's step-grandson, Giorgio's step-son, from his second marriage to a German eye doctor. There's a collection of letters, more than 100 letters, from Joyce to his son Giorgio and to his daughter-in-law, Helen Fleischmann. I like this one. It's a personal note. Please keep tea and something to eat for me. I'll be back at five sharp. Giorgio and Helen, please wait. Babbo.
Signed by Joyce. That was his family name. Babbo. Daddy. It's a very nice snapshot of everyday life at the Joyce's. So here we have cards, also from the Yonkabi quest, postcards written by Stephen Joyce to Giorgio, to his daddy. Dear Daddy, I went to Vichy to see Nonno and Nonna and I had tea with them. Love and kisses from Stephen. And it's also signed by Joyce.
And of course, the address is written by Joyce. This is Joyce's death notice. It was published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Heute Morgen um zwei Uhr starb im Rotkreuzspital unerwartet rasch unser lieber Mann, Vater und Grossvater James Joyce in seinem 58. Lebensjahr. In tiefer Trauer Nora Joyce, George Joyce, Lucia Joyce, Stephen Joyce.
Before Nelson's pillar, tram, slow, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dorky.
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