2023 Summer transfer window - hopes, needs, expectations and rumours.

[dr.chekov]

The Joyce industry is pretty horrible. As it is for any dead writer, I guess. Except the Beckett estate, who just tell everybody to fuck off.

I've had money off the Beckett estate (actually, it was the Beckett Society, which is probably different) to do a show in New York. Nobody came. It was very Beckett.

Now that is cool.

[Monty]

Nobody has to like anything in particular. I can't really get into Henry James, for instance. But 'overrated' is a statement with pretensione to objectivity, i.e. 'and if you like him you're wrong.' And almost anyone who thinks that about Joyce isn't worth listening to, and I'd guess the same is true of James.

I'm the same with James. It felt like every tutor I had at university had a massive boner for him so I spent ages not reading him.

I quite like the earlier, leaner stuff, like Washington Square, but in 4 tries I've never yet gone beyond Portrait of a Lady. The critical consensus informs me that I'm wrong, which I respect and applaud, but I can't do other than be what I be.

[Sexual Ealing]

It didn't feel it at the time!

Edit: I was responding to the good doctor.

[Sexual Ealing]

Nobody has to like anything in particular. I can't really get into Henry James, for instance. But 'overrated' is a statement with pretensione to objectivity, i.e. 'and if you like him you're wrong.' And almost anyone who thinks that about Joyce isn't worth listening to, and I'd guess the same is true of James.

I'm the same with James. It felt like every tutor I had at university had a massive boner for him so I spent ages not reading him.

I quite like the earlier, leaner stuff, like Washington Square, but in 4 tries I've never yet gone beyond Portrait of a Lady. The critical consensus informs me that I'm wrong, which I respect and applaud, but I can't do other than be what I be.

You've gone way further than me with him.

[olaftab]

Nobody has to like anything in particular. I can't really get into Henry James, for instance. But 'overrated' is a statement with pretensione to objectivity, i.e. 'and if you like him you're wrong.' And almost anyone who thinks that about Joyce isn't worth listening to, and I'd guess the same is true of James.

Is Henry James the missing link? If we had him are we odds on for Champions League qualification?

[Dogtanian]

Nobody has to like anything in particular. I can't really get into Henry James, for instance. But 'overrated' is a statement with pretensione to objectivity, i.e. 'and if you like him you're wrong.' And almost anyone who thinks that about Joyce isn't worth listening to, and I'd guess the same is true of James.

Is Henry James the missing link? If we had him are we odds on for Champions League qualification?

And is his name pronounced Onree Hames?

[Mister E]

I consider myself to be pretty eclectic in my reading tastes and have read books from many genres. James Joyce is an author that has always eluded me ... I just cannot get on with his writing. Can't explain it; just the way it is I suppose.

It wouldn't put me off welcoming a player with Ulysses in his name; no, not at all.

[Dave]

Nobody has to like anything in particular. I can't really get into Henry James, for instance. But 'overrated' is a statement with pretensione to objectivity, i.e. 'and if you like him you're wrong.' And almost anyone who thinks that about Joyce isn't worth listening to, and I'd guess the same is true of James.

Is Henry James the missing link? If we had him are we odds on for Champions League qualification?

He'd definitely help us turn the screw in our attempts for top four.

[eamonn]

I consider myself to be pretty eclectic in my reading tastes and have read books from many genres. James Joyce is an author that has always eluded me ... I just cannot get on with his writing. Can't explain it; just the way it is I suppose.

It wouldn't put me off welcoming a player with Ulysses in his name; no, not at all.

We'd just end up cruelly misnoming him like De La Cruz.

[Baldy]

I like Hooters magazine.

[Clark W Griswold]

Monchi has gone for Isco apparently.

[Chris_Jephcott]

I hate Al Nassr and wish they’d just fuck off into that nasty, baking hot, sandflea ridden, human rights abuse level of Dante’s inferno that they come from.

There. I’ve said it.

[dr.chekov]

I consider myself to be pretty eclectic in my reading tastes and have read books from many genres. James Joyce is an author that has always eluded me ... I just cannot get on with his writing. Can't explain it; just the way it is I suppose.

It wouldn't put me off welcoming a player with Ulysses in his name; no, not at all.

He didn’t have a style of writing to get along with. He borrowed and stole and mixed and matched – like lots of modernists.

He wrote 4 novels/book of short stories and they’re all completely different. And in Ulysses the style changes throughout.

Maybe perfect for an eclectic reader.

[dave shelley]

I don't think I've knowingly ever read a single word by Joyce. I've heard that his stuff is quite inpenetratable at times, and I don't have the energy or patience to persevere with anything like that I'm afraid.

Dubliners is quite good.  I've had a copy of Ulysses on the bookshelf for a few years now and it's beginning to look at me with puppy dog eyes but I'm terrified of starting it.

Worst book I can remember was Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, it put me off reading anything else of hers.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is another it's nigh-on impossible to read. 

[AV84]

One report saying we've bid €50 million (45+5add ons) for Diaby and Leverkusen are now waiting to see if the Saudis come back in.
Another report saying Diaby himself has already accepted their contract offer and has given Leverkusen the nod to start negotiations with them.

Don't think I'd be going above 50 in a Saudi bidding war, especially for a player who is open to going to Saudi at this point in his career.