In late 2016, His Holiness Pope Francis rebuked the mass media in startling terms. In criticizing the proliferation of “fake news” and tawdry, sensationalist exploitation, he diagnosed “the disease of coprophilia: constantly looking to communicate scandal, communicate ugly things, even if they are true. […] And since people have a tendency towards coprophagy, it can be very damaging.” With their work cut out for them, Catholic apologists have hurriedly produced glosses such as this: “Our choice to read smut over real news is a major reason why media outlets continue to degrade and publish garbage instead of real news. We have an obligation to consume media intelligently, and to insist upon accurate news, not smut. Otherwise, we become consumers of our own excrement.” There are two aspects to this extraordinary papal statement worthy of serious consideration: the equation— or is it a comparison?— of the consumption of “fake news” with the consumption of bodily waste, and the strikingly broad and matter-of-fact assertion about “people” and their “tendency towards coprophagy.”

Behind all of this is a very modern and ever more pressing question: what is to be done with our shit? The Pope's comments echo the common wisdom and all of the anxiety behind it: we don't really know, but whatever you do, don't eat it! If we can set taboos and reflexes aside, the reasonable rejoinder to this decree is to ask why not? Especially if we don't know what else to do with it? (And here one cannot help but think of the forbidden fruit of Eden: what was that fruit for, if not to be eaten?)

In suggesting that Joyce is rather interested in these questions, I wish to revisit and revise the diagnosis of Joyce's “cloacal obsession,” as H. G. Wells had it (and it is a little strange to recall that this observation was made about A Portrait, well before the more conspicuously stained and malodorous Ulysses). Wells, in polite defense of artistic license, coined this phrase with a comparison to Swift.