One of the very great stories about politics is James Joyce’s “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.” Not because Joyce portrays politics as anything beautiful. I’m from Chicago, I know politics isn’t beautiful. (It’s the people who expect it to be that I’m most afraid of.) But in “Ivy Day” there’s a kind of shabby intimacy I always find a little hopeful.
A gloomy day in Dublin and the caretaker and some canvassers are taking a break from campaigning to sit (or stand) around the committee room and warm up by the fire. I forget how many there are. I don’t have the book in front of me. But stories, for me, have always had more to do with what I remember than what happened, word for word, on the page. That’s where the power is. It’s in what sticks in my head. It’s in what’s recalled days, months, years after reading a story—even if what’s recalled is my own invention. Stories give me memories and memories are, by their very nature, often inaccurate.
So, in my mind, a few Dubliners are gathered around a fire on a rainy afternoon. These men get to talking about how much they dislike the candidate they’ve been out stumping for. But at least he’s better than the other guy. Or is he? One of the men—the only one aside from old Joe the caretaker who’s not a canvasser—speaks up for the other side, suggesting that the opposition candidate may be better for the working man. I forget the details, but the upshot is, as I recall it, that this other man, this outlier in the room, speaks up and shakes up the conversation. It emerges that both candidates don’t really satisfy anybody in the committee room. That’s politics. What politician satisfies everybody? Ultimately, at least in this story, what matters is who pays up, and these guys are waiting on the money they’ve been promised for their canvassing work. Eventually, the candidate comes through with a crate of beer. It’s not a paycheck but it’s something.
The story ends with the outlier character — what was his name? Hines? — being encouraged to recite an old poem about the renowned Irish leader Charles Stuart Parnell. He does so, and if I remember, the poem takes up about a page and a half and most of it is sentimental drivel. But in that drivel is love for a man who, for a while anyway, had the fortitude to stick it to the British. That was before he got ruined by a sex scandal. The Church went after him and that was it. The way it goes in Ireland. But somehow the nostalgic poem in honor of Parnell works. It pulls at the hearts of those damp, cynical men in the committee room who only want to get paid. And the reader’s too. Even the heart of a Chicagoan who knows politics is never beautiful. Because sometimes, yes, there are politicians with a little fortitude. Imperfect, but they’ve got some fortitude.
Peter Orner is a novelist, story writer, and essayist—as well as chair of the English and Creative Writing department at Dartmouth. His most recent book, Still No Word from You, was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. He is a volunteer with the Norwich Fire Department.