James Joyce in Paris: “Deal With Him, Hemingway!”

The narrator of this rare clip describes James Joyce – arguably the greatest novelist of the 20th century — as a “small, thin, unathletic man with very bad eyes.” Ouch. And it gets worse. According to the voiceover, when Joyce and drinking buddy Ernest Hemingway faced a potential brawl, Joyce would hide behind his more imposing comrade and shout “Deal with him, Hemingway, deal with him!!!’
But we bet they were both just hiding behind Gertrude Stein.
You will find this video (and the others listed below) in our new collection of Cultural Icons.
Related Content:
James Joyce Reading from Finnegans Wake
Ernest Hemingway Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
James Joyce in Paris: “Deal With Him, Hemingway!” is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at openculture.com, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.