Eric Wagner, author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, has a new book out. Straight Outta Dublin examines James Joyce's influence on Wilson. In addition to Eric's own work, there's a long essay by R. Michael Johnson. Eric's new tome has joined his first book on the Kindle app on my phone; I keep them both handy for ready reference.
Eric and his wife live in southern California. He's a schoolteacher as well as a writer. I had questions about the new book, Eric gave me answers:
RAWIllumination: Do you regard James Joyce as the writer who influenced Robert Anton Wilson the most, even more than Alfred Korzybski and Ezra Pound?
Eric Wagner: Well, I don't like linear models. I think those three authors all influenced him a great deal in different ways. Bob kept returning to Joyce throughout his life, from his teenage years until the end of his life. Michael Johnson does a great job of tracing that influence over the decades in his wonderful essay in the book.
RAWIllumination: Robert Anton Wilson knew you were working on a book about James Joyce's influence on him, correct? Did he give you any guidance?
Eric Wagner: Yes, he did. We talked about Joyce and corresponded about Joyce from 1986 until just before Bob's death in 2007. He suggested focusing on his Masks of the Illuminati, and he suggested rereading Hugh Kenner's The Pound Era (which has a lot of Joyce material).
Eric Wagner on Jeopardy!, 21 years ago. He won and used his champion money to take his wife to Paris (Facebook photo).
RAWIllumination: I don't know that I've ever asked you this: What did RAW say about An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson after it came out?
Eric Wagner: Bob wrote the very kind introductions to the book as well as doing the introductory interview with me. He said kind words to Michael Johnson about my skill in writing in E-Prime. I have heard about a few other kind comments he made about the book from other sources. I think he asked to have it read aloud to him near the end of his life.
RAWIllumination: It seems to me you have been "working on" this book for many years. How long have you been in one Finnegans Wake discussion group or another?
Eric Wagner: I started my first Finnegans Wake group in March 1985 with Conrad Holt and Robert Rabinowitz in Tempe, Arizona. That group continued meeting on Thursdays (Finnday to us) until December 1997 when I moved back to California. I started teaching high school in August 1998, and that school year I started a Finnegans Wake Club which ran for 23 years until I stopped teaching high school. I tried to get in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest running high school Finnegans Wake Club, but they declined my submission.
RAWIllumination: In 1932, when RAW was born, Joyce was 49. Joyce died in January 1941, the month RAW turned 9. Any idea how old Robert Anton Wilson was when he began reading Joyce?
Eric Wagner: In Illuminati Papers Bob says he started reading the Wake at the age of sixteen.
RAWIllumination: You are in California, a good place to launch such a book, are you trying to set up dates at local libraries, etc.?
Eric Wagner: In all honesty the idea didn't occur to me until you suggested it. Working two jobs, I find my energy very low this decade.
RAWIllumination: If I recall correctly, Robert Anton Wilson advised you to read Ulysses 40 times. Can you please tell me about that conversation and tell me what the context was?
Eric Wagner: On page 157 of the second edition of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson in an interview with Dr. Wilson, I say, "I have a good facility when writing poetry, but prose comes very slowly to me. Pound talks about, 'Go read forty novels by Henry James,' which I haven't done yet."
Bob responded, "Uh-huh. I'd say read Ulysses forty times." This conversation took place in Bob's room in a hotel in Anaheim in 2000. Richard Bandler had brought Bob down from Capitola to participate in an NLP seminar. Dr. Bandler kindly allowed me and a couple of other friends of Bob to attend for free the portions of the seminar where Bob spoke. The day after the interview Bob told me that he had never had much success reading Henry James either. So far I have only read Ulysses thirteen times.
RAWIllumination: Your book, including the substantial contribution by Michael Johnson, discusses James Joyce's influence on RAW. If people want to understand RAW's writings, should they read your book, even if they haven't read much Joyce?
Eric Wagner: I think this book will greatly increase anyone's understanding of Bob Wilson's work, and I think also it provides a good introduction to Joyce's work. I deal in different ways with Joyce's major works, Finnegans Wake, Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Dubliners and their relationship with Bob's writing. Michael did a wonderful job with his long essay which I think really fits in well with my work.
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