Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Yeah it's such a quotable quote but I can't stand the thinking behind it...as if there's only one 'proper' way to write...so damn conservative, the kind of conservatism that would deny the value of Henry Miller, Joyce, Burroughs (of course)...Celine?
I agree with your general point but Joyce surely would belong to the ranks of writers who pore over every sentence and plan structure rigorously (although he said something like 'the good comes in the writing' so I don't suppose he planned TOO strictly). There's the famous anecdote about how Joyce told a friend of his that he had been working all day and had managed about three sentences, but was happy because he had got the words ordered exactly as he wanted.
Then again I suppose you might just be commenting on his formal radicalism?