I wrote this in response to a comment I received today on a YouTube video I did many years ago now. The woman was rhapsodizing on the many books she adored:

Ah yes, books, books, books. But referring to books, what could the young James Joyce mean when he has his alter ego Stephen in Ulysses think “coffined words?”

  One of the biggest reasons I contend that almost no one grasps what is actually taking place in the book is the fact that in Stephen Dedalus Joyce is really telling the world how he became the artist that he did. And when I say Artist I put him on a much profounder level than most of the so-called ‘artists’ of today. I believe that with this notion that Joyce is in reality sharing his own development, his own death and resurrection (just like Proust was in his mighty tome) into fully fledged Shaman/Buddha/Genuine Artist every single word and thought Stephen utters in Ulysses is absolutely crucial to understanding both what is going on in the novel but more importantly what we today are struggling to come to grips with. 

  “Coffined words” are the dead remains of what once lived, just like seashells on a seashore. Unless we ourselves succeed in plumbing to the depths of our own essence and divine mystery those words and those books remain up on a pedestal or shelf, or in the sterile confines of academia, to be ‘tackled’ by educated blowhards and parroted back for grades. (Haines the academic used that term ‘tackled’ when referring to his conversation with Stephen in the opening chapter. He was utterly incapable of grasping on an experiential level what the young Joyce was trying to say.)

  Good luck with all the books, books and more books….

 Because in the end…

 Life is ALL there is!