Is Mercer Mayer’s beloved children’s character modeled after Joyce’s protagonist in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? You be the judge.
“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.”
Mercer Mayer
"The artist, like the god of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.”
Mercer Mayer
“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”
Mercer Mayer
"He bore cynically with the shameful details of his secret riots in which he exulted to defile with patience whatever image had attracted his eyes. By day and by night he moved among distorted images of the outer world."
Mercer Mayer
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The "Little Critter" Children's Books As Told By James Joyce