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[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 799 points800 points ago*

Everyone should read Ulysses at some point in their life. It's a book unlike any other, a book that knocks you out of your comfort zone. A book that makes your brain strain like you're reaching for something on a high shelf. And it's really, really funny. I've read it a couple of times and here's my advice:

Step 1) RELAX. You're going to miss things. It's okay. Some things are worth missing, some things are boring, some things are references that don't make any sense in today's world, so who cares? Joyce didn't want people to puzzle out his book like the answers to an exam, he wanted to present a slice of life in all its freaky majesty and stupidity. Keep looking up at the stars, not down at your feet.

Step 2) Like a shark, keep moving forward. Reading this book is like trying to drink a waterfall. The point is the overall impression, not so much the individual details. Just keep pushing ahead, don't sit there with a magnifying glass trying to appreciate every single word. Joyce himself said he put in a shit ton of puzzles and tricks and things that don't make sense for literary critics and scholars, just to mess with their heads, so don't get hung up on them.

Step 3) There are no such thing as spoilers. Seriously. Buy yourself the Seidman Annotations. These are your best friend. The introduction to each chapter will get you oriented, and if you get hung up on a phrase, a detail, a bit of wordplay, they're like the board you stick under the wheels of your jeep when it's stuck in the mud.

Step 4) Remember that Joyce wasn't living in Dublin when he wrote this. He hadn't lived there in a long time. So what Ulysses is to some extent is his attempt to rebuild Dublin in his mind, recreating the sights and smells and mind set and beliefs and feelings and streets and people he remembered, but doing it in an impressionistic way. What the impressionists and modernists did for painting, Joyce is doing for books. That's why it reads like he wrote it on drugs. Keep this in mind, the way you keep the north star in mind when you're navigating a ship (which I'm sure you do a lot, right?). This is why the book is "important," because it's an amazing act of sustained imagination. The same way that Superman has the Kryptonian city of Kandor trapped in a bottle, Joyce has one day in Dublin in 1904 trapped in a book.

Step 5) It's funny. It's really funny. You just have to rewire your brain a little to get the jokes. Joyce always thought of himself as someone who was writing, primarily, a comedy. He's sending up the epic form by using the structure of The Odyssey to talk about people going to the bathroom, and masturbating, and getting drunk and making idiots out of themselves. But by doing this, he's not only elevating everyday life to the level of an epic but he's lowering the epic to the level of everyday life. But also: fart jokes. Everywhere.

Step 6) It's okay to skip. Even the biggest Joyce scholars in the world agree: some chapters in Ulysses suck. Here's my breakdown of the book, chapter by chapter. I'm using the chapter names that Joyce gave the book in another document, not the chapter titles that are in the book:

1- TELEMACHUS - come on, it's the first chapter. You've gotta read it. It's basically two roommates squabbling over money.

2 - NESTOR - a bit of a bore but also relatively short

3 - PROTEUS - this is the first long, boring, skimmable chapter. If you're deep on Joyce it's very "important" but it's also pretty impenetrable.

4 - CALYPSO - now we're in Leopold Bloom's part of the book and this is one of the three most famous chapters in ULYSSES (the other two are "Circe" and "Penelope")

5 - THE LOTUS EATERS - fine chapter, a bit dense, but readable

6 - HADES - one of the best in the book in my opinion, just totally Irish and death obsessed and there's even some plot!

7 - AEOLUS - from this chapter forward to "Cyclops" you're in a dense, unforgiving part of the book. I recommend breezing through these chapters and keep up with what's going on with the annotations.

8 - LAESTRYGONIANS - not so bad, but tough stuff.

9 - SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - ouch. Even Joyce scholars think this one's like getting hit in the head with a brick. Lots of academic nattering about Shakespeare.

10 - THE WANDERING ROCKS - a neat trick (19 bits, told from around a dozen points of view) but otherwise it's really just a walk around Dublin

11 - THE SIRENS - a sweet, lovely chapter but it's all pretty wordplay

12 - CYCLOPS - alert! alert! The least loved and worst chapter in the book. No one can read and understand this one. Fortunately, it's the end of the worst section of Ulysses.

13 - NAUSICAA - a really perverted, really dense, very funny chapter.

14 - OXEN OF THE SUN - scholars love this chapter and it is fun, but don't take it too seriously. The point is to trace the history of the English language from early speech to 20th Century speech in one chapter. It's very complex and kind of unrewarding, which makes it a bit like "Cyclops" but not nearly so bad.

15 - CIRCE - essential

16, 17, 18 - EUMAEUS, ITHACA, PENELOPE - the last three chapters, and completely lovely, moving and awesome.

So my recommendation is to read about it as you read it so you can know what's going on, and save your strength for the better chapters, while avoiding getting hung up on chapters like AEOLUS (which is a bunch of hot air, like its namesake) PROTEUS and CYCLOPS. Also, this is one of the few novels you can read in almost any order and enjoy. If you just want the highlights, I recommend the following order:

  • TELEMACHUS
  • CALYPSO
  • HADES
  • NAUSICAA
  • CIRCE
  • EUMAEUS
  • ITHACA
  • PENELOPE

Then you can go back and read the tougher chapters however you like.

[–]thehappyhobo 162 points163 points ago

7 - AEOLUS - from this chapter forward to "Cyclops" you're in a dense, unforgiving part of the book. I recommend breezing through these chapters and keep up with what's going on with the annotations.

Once I got the title reference, I thought Aeolus was hilarious. A chapter named for the Keeper of Winds about a clutch of windbags declaiming on windbaggery. Every time a gust blew through the office I felt like Joyce was nudging the reader and saying "What a complete load of wank that man just said."

Also

I recommend breezing through

ಠ_ಠ

[–]Tarn 19 points20 points ago

In Aeolus, Ulysses begins to "advertise its own artifice", and one can identify the precise moment: ""I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of the match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives." This parody of portentous narrative, a la Henry James, is different from what has gone before in that it can't be identified as part of anyone's stream of consciousness, but it introduces the literary parodies that Joyce will use for the rest of the book. It is almost as if Joyce started out with the intention of developing the Dubliners story about the journey around town, in roughly the same style as that book, and then changed his mind during the Aeolus episode, to write a book of very funny, self-conscious literary parody.

[–]IAmSteven 21 points22 points ago

This kind of thing makes me think it's not worth it to read it on my own because I never would have known that part was parody.

[–]EatBooks 27 points28 points ago

Okay. Okay, I'm gonna try this. I tried my senior year of college and gave up after 100 pages. "Trying to drink a waterfall" is a really, really apt description.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

Thank you. I have started it numerous types but always get hung up. I'll have to get the annotations.

[–]Versk 23 points24 points ago

12 - CYCLOPS - alert! alert! The least loved and worst chapter in the book. No one can read and understand this one. Fortunately, it's the end of the worst section of Ulysses.

Seriously? After Hades It's my favourite. the funniest chapter in the book, although maybe only if you are Irish. you say Cyclops is impossible to read and understand then say that Oxen of the Sun is fun? thats kinda crazy

Otherwise you make a few good points but this Cyclops hate is mystifying

And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And He answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.

makes me lol every time

[–]dokkeynot 11 points12 points ago

Plus the "blinding of the Cyclops" is arguably one of the best moments in the book.

"Your God was a Jew! Jesus was a Jew!"

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 30 points31 points ago*

Some people may find chapters I called out as "tough" hilarious, and some may find the chapters I found "necessary" pointless. This is just the way I did it, so your mileage may vary. But that's why Ulysses is so much fun. Everyone likes different parts. Like pizza! I'm there for the cheese, other people are in it for the crust or the toppings. None of us are wrong.

[–]chass3 7 points8 points ago

Seriously, Cyclops is HYSTERICAL. I love it. How can anyone say it's the most difficult and least loved? I'd put that label squarely on Oxen of the Sun.

[–]MUTILATOR 0 points1 point ago*

I seriously can't believe someone would say that Cyclops should be passed over or is boring. Cyclops is incredible, hilarious and accessible. Please give it a try for yourself if you are reading Ulysses; it and Nausicaa are my favorite chapters in the book, and I am hardly a pedant or a scholar.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

Being Irish, did you get any of the Irish language jokes/references/meanings?

[–]The_Reckoning 9 points10 points ago

This is wonderful; you've rekindled my desire to read this.

[–]Geminii27 4 points5 points ago

'Tis only after the deepest confusion that we find the most wonderful Joyce.

[–]Madame_Q 0 points1 point ago

I see what you did there.

[–]mpm4[S] 8 points9 points ago

Awesome post. I think the thing I need to most realize is that in books like this, I am not going to understand every single event/character/quote and need to just accept it.

[–]ProG87 4 points5 points ago

Exactly how I felt when I got about halfway through Gravity's Rainbow. After more obscure references to things that I probably wouldn't get even if I was old enough to get 1940's references than I could handle, I just decided to make a go of it and try to enjoy the bits I could understand.

[–]CydeWeys 0 points1 point ago

Having just finished reading Gravity's Rainbow for the first time a week ago, that's precisely how I made it through it.

Also, there's a pretty useful Pynchon wiki that I spoiled the hell out of myself on immediately upon finishing the book. The cleared up a bunch of things I missed as I was reading along with the book.

[–]masterdebater88 0 points1 point ago

That's how I was at 17 reading Rushdie. I was like wtf is going on, who are these people/abstract concepts?!

[–]otherwiseyep 48 points49 points ago

I hate to discourage anything that encourages broader appreciation for Ulysses, but I almost completely disagree with this methodology.

Frankly, Ulysses is a book for very advanced readers, for literati, for people who have their Shakespeare and capital-C "Classics" (Plutarch, Ovid, Homer, etc) down pat. All the humor, all the fun, and most of the artistry and entertainment is in advanced and puzzle-like word-play and structural interplay. Just "forcing yourself through it", skipping difficult passages, and "drinking in the waterfall" is like forcing yourself through Einstein's equations without knowing pre-calc, just because it's "important".

The thing is, there are plenty of small-c "classics" that are likely to be very entertaining and enjoyable, and probably a better use of time, and a better introduction to complex literature. Nabokov's Bend Sinister and Invitation to a Beheading are great places to start. Or Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, or the slightly more difficult Third Policeman. Thomas Pynchon is maybe a sort of halfway point.

What all the above share in common with Ulysses is a puzzle-like construction and deft use of multiple word meanings, suspect narration, implied lies and trickery, and other complex literary devices. They are probably more accessible by virtue of being somewhat more diluted and obvious, with more forthright elements of humor, horror, mystery, and plot. Of course, Shakespeare is the best of all at this, but you need a good edition with extensive footnotes your first few times through, and it's a bit ungainly on first read, since untangling 400-year-old grammar and word-meaning is a project in and of itself.

I think where people fall down or get overwhelmed by this stuff is that they are used to reading straightforward stories or morality tales. Stuff like Huxley, Orwell, Dostoevsky, Poe, etc makes its way into the small-c "classic" pantheon by telling great stories or illustrating philosophical concepts. They are books that could make a great movie.

The best dramatic writer of all, Shakespeare, worked with similarly dramatic, tightly-woven plots: bloody, romantic, fast-paced, twisting and turning, full of double-crossings and intrigue, constant tension-building, and so on. Probably 70% of all Hollywood plots are based on Shakespeare, because he was the best in the business.

But the other side of Shakespeare, where he also remains the towering giant, is the literary complexity. Hardly a line in Shakespeare has fewer than three possible meanings or interpretations, and they are all intended. Every word means everything it could possibly mean, and those multiple meanings have permutations and repercussions throughout. You could read his plots a million different ways, draw a million different and conflicting lessons from them, and it's all deliberate.

Shakespeare is taking delight in the depth of meanings, and in the stretching of physical, philosophical, and metaphysical concepts to breaking point. He's not making a case, he's just riding the roller-coaster of case-making. He's making them all. This is vastly different from simpler stuff like Orwell or Dostoevsky.

What makes "hard" modern literature like Ulysses difficult and inaccessible to casual readers is that it basically forgoes the tight, Hollywood-type plotting, and dives right into the complex literary and conceptual gamesmanship. It's not like Brave New World or Frankenstein or Animal Farm. It's not a "lesson" nor a "story", it's a complicated literary puzzle, made by and for active, critical, skeptical, analytical readers.

The problem with just "drinking in the waterfall" and "skipping the hard parts" is that Ulysses is not that kind of book. It's not a very good story, and it doesn't really have any kind of lesson or philosophical point. Reading it that way is kind of like filling in the letters of a crossword puzzle by "feeling". I doubt whether it will be very satisfying, or a good use of time.

It is like a brilliantly-designed lock, of primary interest to locksmiths and engineers, not a like a beautifully-sculpted door. I do hope that more people will engage the kind of multi-layered, analytical thinking of this sort of work, but I don't think this submission is the right approach.

[–]huyvanbin 7 points8 points ago

How do you know which of shakespeare's meanings were intended? At any rate I guarantee that there are some modern interpretations that Shakespeare did not intend.

[–]otherwiseyep 163 points164 points ago*

How do you know which of shakespeare's meanings were intended?

You don't. But if you read Shakespeare carefully and often enough, you will find that all meanings are equally valid throughout the course of his plays. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that all were intended, even the evil ones.

Shakespeare died around 400 years ago, and credible, informed, and intelligent people are still arguing over whether he was a Catholic, a Protestant, an agnostic, or an atheist.

This is not a trivial question to Shakespeare's life or writings: he lived in the thick of the back-and-forth aftermath of the "War of the Roses", and wrote quite a lot of politically-charged plays on the Catholic-vs-Protestant wars and feuds, in a time when people were alternately being put to death for being of the wrong persuasion. The thing is, even now, people with multiple PhD's are arguing over which side Shakespeare took, since he made some of the most compelling arguments for both, or neither, in the entire literature.

Most of his work was done under protestant rule, but there are historical reasons to suspect catholic sympathies. And plenty have read the conflicting and politicized ambiguities in his writings as evidence of atheism, agnosticism, or non-denominationalism.

Same with homosexuality, or monarchism, or liberalism, or marital fidelity, or the nobility of war, or pacifism, or anti-semitism, or racism, or anti-intellectualism, or blind loyalty, or romantic love, or feminism, or almost any other universal theme.

Shakespeare's writings are mostly plays, and the characters in his plays tend to be exemplars of whatever their role is. They offer intelligent, articulate, and impassioned defenses of all conflicting motivations, ideas, and philosophies. Quoting "Shakespeare" is like quoting Darth Vader and attributing it to George Lucas.

Shakespeare, in his day, was not generally regarded as any special literary giant, he was instead seen as a popular entertainer, maybe like Stephen King. Nobody bothered to record his life and thoughts, nor to interview him. In fact, many people today think that Shakespeare (the actor) did not in fact write the plays and poems attributed to "Shakespeare" (the author), thinking that an otherwise unremarkable actor could not possibly have created the works that tower so much further above their art than any other artist or scientist towers over his field.

In any case, nobody has any record nor any idea what Shakespeare "really thought". We do not even have a consensus on who he was. The "intended meanings" can only be divined, by inference, from his work, and people are still arguing about that 400 years later.

In my book, when the most-studied, most-translated, most-annotated, most-revered artist in the history of the world has made such compelling cases for so many points of view, such that, 400 years later, his words are still the best at bolstering opposing positions... those meanings were intended.

Shakespeare was not making a case for one side nor the other, he was making all possible cases, better than anyone has done since. He wasn't trying to prove a point nor express his beliefs, he was an artist. He was depicting people proving their points, expressing their beliefs, following their motivations.

What makes him an almost supernatural genius of the first order is that his fictional characters were realer, smarter, more articulate and impassioned than most real people. Shakespeare's villains were more admirable and sympathetic than many real-life heroes. Shakespeare did not include straw-men in his stories. He didn't do the stuffed-shirt bad-guy.

In short, he meant it all.

[–]chazzmcgee 17 points18 points ago

Who are you?

[–]otherwiseyep 10 points11 points ago

A man.

[–]pretzelzetzelGibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1 point2 points ago

Are you familiar with the writings of Jorge Luis Borges?

[–]otherwiseyep 0 points1 point ago

A little. Someone gave me a collection in translation.

It is very difficult to sort out the differences between mediocre translation and mediocre poetry.

For example, how do you translate the term "blue jeans" to a space alien? You do so literally, calling them heavy canvas trousers, typically fastened with rivets and double-seams and dyed with the indigo plant, but this completely disregards the cowboy/James-Dean historical associations. Translating them as "casual, inexpensive trousers with associations of lackadaisical American informality" similarly disregards the extremely prominent "designer jeans" phenomenon-- "blue jeans" is not interchangeable with "work pants". You almost need multiple pages of footnotes to explain what it means. Translating as "casual pants" could mean anything from pleated khakis to pajama bottoms to cargo pants, none of which are accurate.

So I withhold judgement on Borges.

[–]pretzelzetzelGibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 0 points1 point ago

Poetry should never really be read in translation anyway... I was more talking about his short fiction, as Shakespeare is one of his obsessions that he returns to from time to time in his writing.

[–]RIPterriers 0 points1 point ago

Funnily enough, this reminded me of Louis CK for some reason. Certainly no Shakespeare, but the dude does a damn good job of writing for all sides.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

[–]ModernAlias 0 points1 point ago

I wouldn't be too sure about that. I'm not.

[–]i_toss_salad 11 points12 points ago

This is the best reply I have ever read on reddit. This is the best thing I've read this year.

[–]HDMBye 6 points7 points ago

You have given me a great erudite erection.

[–]UncleMeatThe Plague 4 points5 points ago

I feel so utterly discouraged that I know that Shakespeare was such a pillar of literary might and that I will probably never be able to understand most of it. Reading the plays with annotations isn't really enough. In high school I remember walking through "A Midsummer Night's Dream" very slowly and carefully and being simply blown away at home rigorously and perfectly even the syntax could convey meaning. It seems like you really need a teacher for this stuff.

[–]Ezterhazy 9 points10 points ago*

Don't read it. Go and watch it performed. I think it was RH Blyth who said that if you really want to understand Shakespeare, go and see it performed in Russian. In other words, what he wrote was so good, so universal, so timeless, that just seeing competent actors performing it - even in another language - is incredibly meaningful, vibrant and profound. I can't read a page of Shakespeare without putting the book down but I've never seen a performance (couple of times a year since I was a teenager) that I haven't got something from.

Edited to add: the best performances have been unforgettable - Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream performed on a rocky Atlantic clifftop; the latter play done in English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Sinhali, Marathi and Sinhala with singing, dancing and acrobatics; Henry V set in contemporary Afghanistan with a parachuting, machine-gunning leap into battle after the St Crispin's Day speech; Hamlets, Twelfth Nights, Tempests, Macbeths, Romeo & Juliets, every different production of a Shakespeare play I've seen I can remember vividly.

[–]bright_ephemeraThe Three Musketeers 3 points4 points ago

I am so jealous of you for having gotten to see the performances you describe.

Then again, I've never felt cheated watching low-budget community and school performances. You can take this material a hundred different ways, even just take it as a few people standing on a bare stage, and it works.

[–]Noobleton 1 point2 points ago

If you're ever in London I recommend the RSC performing in the Globe Theatre - I saw Macbeth there and it's probably the best performance I've ever seen.

[–]brennnan 1 point2 points ago*

The RSC don't perform at the Globe do they? I thought the Globe had its own troupe.

[–]Eszed 1 point2 points ago

You're right. The RSC don't perform at the Globe, although actors who have performed for one company often perform for the other. The RSC, in fact, for the last few years has not had a permanent London venue -- they used to use the Barbican Centre -- and has mounted shows in The Roundhouse, one of the Donmar venues (I think), and several other theatres as well.

[–]Noobleton 0 points1 point ago

Maybe you're right...it was three years ago now and I've always remembered it as being the RSC - but I was 16 so there's a good chance I'm stupid.

[–]feetofire 3 points4 points ago

Don't give up on Shakespeare .. I felt the same until I saw Hamlet - the 4 hour long version was best :)

[–]imatat 1 point2 points ago

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is one of my favorite films. I'm too lazy to verify this, but I vaguely recall at the time of its release that Branagh's performance was criticized by many as pretentious and narcissistic. That said, I also vaguely recall thinking those critics misunderstood Branagh's interpretation, but that's just me.

Julie Taymor's Titus is equally as brilliant. Not to downplay Sir Anthony Hopkin's performance, but Alan Cumming's portrayal of Saturninus is magnificent and leaves me wanting more every time.

Shit, even Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet is remarkable, despite the fact the script was abridged. Then again, I happen to think Leo Dicaprio is one of the best actors of my generation, so maybe I'm just biased.

[–]otherwiseyep 0 points1 point ago

Copying a similar reply:

Start with a good edition. Riverside is my favorite but the Annotated Shakespeare by A.L. Rowse is a bit easier and more flavorful. If you get deep into Shakespeare, you will find that there are lots of ongoing feuds in the footnotes. Whatever. Dover press offers a two-volume Shakespeare glossary if you choose to read an un-annotated public-domain edition.

In any case, you will need some help making sense of 400-year-old writings from the person with perhaps the largest vocabulary in the history of the world.

Start with the intense stuff. Check out Titus Andronicus: plot elements involve the protagonist disemboweling his enemies and burning their intestines while they are still alive, their mother arranging the rape and disfigurement of his daughter such that her hands are cut off and her tongue cut out so that she can neither say nor write who the culprits were, the protagonist finding out the culprits, grinding them into meat-pies, and feeding them to their own mother, while killing his own daughter in shame...

Starting with this kind of intensely brutal and repugnant material will make it easier to do the kind of flipping back-and-forth between footnotes and dictionaries. It does take some work to get a feel for Shakespeare, but it starts to become intuitive with practice.

[–]logantauranga 3 points4 points ago

In fact, many people today think that Shakespeare (the actor) did not in fact write the plays and poems attributed to "Shakespeare" (the author)

I'm surprised that you mentioned this without discrediting it. Let me take this opportunity to do so: anti-Stratfordians have a very weak basis for their beliefs and their views are most commonly attributed to elitism.

[–]otherwiseyep 3 points4 points ago

Frankly I think it's irrelevant. There is no painter, no scientist, no sculptor, no composer, no mathematician, who towers so far above all others as Shakespeare does. His talent is supernatural, or at least such an extreme outlier as to not fit into any coherent theory of human capabilities. Saying that an uneducated man could not have produced those works is a meaningless argument, because Shakespeare is miles away from the centimeter of difference between educated and uneducated.

Which particular human being was so supernaturally gifted, is almost a pointless question. Trying to prove that it was someone other than the guy whose name is and was universally attached to it is pointless wankery.

[–]barneysrubble 2 points3 points ago

Best dismissal of the authorship question I've ever heard.

[–]Krantastic 2 points3 points ago

That was beautiful. Thank you.

[–]leadunderground 2 points3 points ago

alright I have to read the first act of Macbeth today for homework and I was just going to sparknotes it, but you, sire, have inspired me to actually read it.

[–]working_overtime 0 points1 point ago

I think I love you.

[–]ErikaRedmark 2 points3 points ago

dives right into the complex literary and conceptual gamesmanship

As someone who never really got into the literary world this is kind of what gets me. So it's really just a puzzle? So it's really just a "lock"? I mean, I can definitely see why people would enjoy fiddling with intricate locks and mind games, but it just feels like a really complex video game or crossword. As an avid gamer I can definitely appreciate the fun of figuring out the rules that someone has set, of solving their puzzle, but in the end as non-gamers might say it's just a game. There's nothing to it other than the pursuit itself. So why is there a whole field of literary analysis for these locks, and none for video games? Ah well. It's like you say. I can appreciate Orwell or Dostoevsky, but when it comes to works like Ulysses I'd rather just play Street Fighter (which also involves multi-layered, analytical thinking... but not quite in the same way :P).

[–]otherwiseyep 12 points13 points ago

Setting aside the videogame analogy for the moment...

Ulysses is not a book that was made for popular entertainment. Nobody would call it a "page-turner" in the vein of John Grisham thrillers.

But there are people in the world who derive pleasure from things like chess problems, some of whom do not even play chess.

There are people who derive pleasure from, say, a six-part fugue, which requires an almost superhuman intellect to compose, regardless of whether the music is actually any good. Even trying to follow a six-part fugue is beyond the capabilities of most music-school graduates. It requires a staggering feat of intellect to compose one.

Similarly, there are people who regard sophisticated and elegant programming code as a work of art, and a thing of beauty in its own right, for achieving complex outcomes in simple, refined, and foolproof ways.

Other people will give a low whistle and wide-eyed admiration to the under-carriage of a high-quality car restoration.

These people are not entirely wankers or hopeless nerds. There is a place in the world for appreciation of extraordinary feats of human accomplishment, separate from monetary or popular appeal. Indeed, it is quite likely that the people wrote the books and movies you enjoy, who made the car your drive, who crafted the videogames you play, who performed the music you listen to... it is probable that all or most of those people have studied in detail works that you would find boring, difficult, or over-complicated. That's what makes them good at their job.

Back to this...

I can appreciate Orwell or Dostoevsky, but when it comes to works like Ulysses I'd rather just play Street Fighter (which also involves multi-layered, analytical thinking... but not quite in the same way :P).

Ulysses is not a book for consumers or "players" of the game, so to speak. There is multi-layered, analytical thinking involved when playing Street Fighter at a high level, but not nearly the same depth and rigorousness that went into creating the game, nor into conceptualizing the sort of technology that enabled the game's creation.

When you drill down deep enough, a sort of artist is at work, writing the code and designing the microprocessors. There is an art appreciable only to fellow artists, or deep-knowledge experts. One day, there may be something like an art gallery of code, or semiconductor design. For now, Ulysses is that for dramatic fiction.

[–]thehappyhobo 1 point2 points ago

I disagree with this very strongly. I don't have the kind of knowledge to make any in depth analysis of Ulysses or Shakespeares works and they were excruciating in my initial engagement with them, but I did make them accessible just by throwing myself at them.

To me, the biggest block to a new reader isn't the references and the symbolism and the word play, but how difficult it is to read these books fluently. You could be a classics major at the top of your class, recognise all the references and still find Ulysses a struggle because the style is so different from everything that you've ever read (not to mention how wildly it changes within the text itself.)

For me, the greatest joy in reading is when great prose begins to flow for you so naturally that you feel like it has become part of your own thoughts. You can't get that from Ulysses simply by decoding it, and by contrast you can get it without decoding it. And it is sublime when you do.

I got a lot out of Declan Kiberd's companion Ulysses and Us, the second time round. In the introduction he points out:

Joyce himself was not forbiddingly learned. He cut more classes at University College Dublin than he attended, averaging less than 50% in many of his exams....When he left secondary school at eighteen, Joyce knew most of the basic things you need for reading (or writing) Ulysses - the Mass in Latin, the life and themes of Shakespeare, how electricity works, how water gets from a reservoir to the domestic tap, Charles Lamb's version of the adventures of Ulysses.

[–]otherwiseyep 1 point2 points ago

I am happy for you that you enjoy the natural flow of prose for its own sake. For my part, some of my personal favorites are the lyrical/romantic types who induce a hypnotic/subconscious, imagination-firing state of mind: Shelly, Poe, Coleridge, etc.

You lump Shakespeare and Joyce together unfairly. Shakespeare is the basis for the overwhelming majority of modern plot-formulas. Shakespeare is by far the best writer. His plotting and story-telling is taught, complex, tightly-woven, fast-paced, humorous, romantic, and violent (as appropriate). His story-telling is visceral and immediate.

Check out Titus Andronicus: plot elements involve the protagonist disemboweling his enemies and burning their intestines while they are still alive, their mother arranging the rape and disfigurement of his daughter such that her hands are cut off and her tongue cut out so that she can neither say nor write who the culprits were, the protagonist finding out the culprits, grinding them into meat-pies, and feeding them to their own mother, while killing his own daughter in shame...

This is not abstracted, ephemeral appeal, this is gruesome, full-blooded, meat-and-bone plot. It also happens to be depicted in the most lyrical, multi-layered, multi-meaning-ed verse ever written.

The thing about Shakespeare is, you don't get to say "well, sure, he was good at this, but what about that?"

Shakespeare was better than everyone at everything, and it's usually not even close.

Ulysses is not a book for plot-followers nor for "drink it in" fans of abstracted verse. The education of the author is irrelevant, since his talent surpassed anything teachable.

[–]chazzmcgee 0 points1 point ago

I enjoyed reading your comment.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points ago

Care to do a smililar breakdown of Gravity's Rainbow?

[–]llimllib 3 points4 points ago

I'm halfway through... maybe I'll do so after I finish it? It's not as neatly wrapped into chapters as Ulysses is.

(I find it pretty accessible! You just need to kind of slug through the first ~150 pages.)

[–]douring 3 points4 points ago

I second this. Yes, please!

[–]glasschamber 0 points1 point ago

Here's a nudge. Its here I learned that Malcolm X may have had a hidden bisexual side to him :O

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

I can't get through it! I wish someone would break it down for me. Seriously!

[–]mramoth 12 points13 points ago

Thank you so much for writing this

[–]chass3 4 points5 points ago

I aggressively disagree with you about Proteus. If you're gonna skip it, you're skipping the emotional and philosophical basis for everything Stephen is and feels. It's difficult, intellectual, confusing, inconsistent, pretentious, and alienating. SO IS STEPHEN. Just read it out loud to yourself and then move on, but don't skip it. Don't skip anything. Read every word. You'll be so proud when you're done.

If you're getting lost, backtrack a little AND START TO READ OUT LOUD. it'll slow you down but also, like Shakespeare, help you understand through the rhythm and music of the language. Joyce uses punctuation sparingly so sometime long sentences need to be read out to get them.

[–]fermatafantastique 2 points3 points ago

Reminds me of The Sound and The Fury. It's one of my favorite books of all time but reading it is tough as hell.

[–]fapficionado 2 points3 points ago

If you find Eumaeus moving, Joyce failed completely. It's supposed to be the most boring thing ever written, packed densely with clichés and stock phrases and tautologies.

It is, however, great to read if you can't get to sleep.

[–]graffiti81 8 points9 points ago*

I'm pretty sure its not even written in english. I tried to read it and, while I recognized the words on the page, I couldn't understand even the basics. I'm not dumb, but it's certainly the hardest cadence I've ever seen. Also, if the punctuation was actual modern punctuation, I think I might be able to read it.

EDIT: I've read some difficult books. I red Les Mis as a sophomore in high school and Hanta Yo last summer. (The latter was incomprehensible for the first 150 pages. I didn't know who I was reading about, who the main character was, what was being said, why it was being said or why I should care.) At least those had some semblance of a story I could follow.

[–]dreamriver 18 points19 points ago

Now try Finnegan's Wake.

[–]judgegregmathis 6 points7 points ago

Joyce was trolling, im sure of it. People can talk about Celtic history and the Irish map as much as they want, anything can have meaning if you dig that deep. Im convinced The Wake was a seventeen year experiment in seeing if pompous "intellectual" types would swallow whatever a reputable author commit to paper.

[–]chass3 24 points25 points ago

You're absolutely 50% right. He is trolling you. But it's a delightful, moving, frustrating, pun-tastic trolling that will make you see that all of life is one giant ridiculous unpleasant deeply feeling preposterously clever and yet unaware joke and then everything becomes hilarious and sad at the same time.

[–]Analbox 4 points5 points ago

all of life is one giant ridiculous unpleasant deeply feeling preposterously clever and yet unaware joke and then everything becomes hilarious and sad at the same time.

I cried when you said that.

[–]chass3 4 points5 points ago

I learned that from reading Joyce and then looking around.

[–]lalilulelo09 13 points14 points ago

That or it's a fractured cyclical single moment inside of a dream.

[–]cates 10 points11 points ago*

F I N N C E P T I O N

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]cates 3 points4 points ago

ty. it was my first. i added an "N" as well to help add a little more "Joyce".

[–]finneganscake 7 points8 points ago

Usually the people that say this just haven't put too much time into reading it. It's incredibly difficult, but that also makes it extremely rewarding. Joyce is trolling a tiny bit, but he took Finnegans Wake very seriously. After his death, his wife once expressed confusion about why she was so often asked about Ulysses... she thought Finnegans Wake was supposed to be the important one.

[–]QuixoticNeutral 4 points5 points ago

There is a reason to doubt this: the contemporary novel did not really command widespread acceptance as a serious object of scholarly study until the mid-twentieth century, and literary studies then does not much resemble what it is now. The present-day stereotype of pompous overanalytical critics who say anything about anything (itself only half true) only dates back to the seismic shift in attitudes circa 1970—which gave us schools of thought for which Ulysses was the perfect object of study, as it forecasted postcolonialism, deconstruction of the canon, and postmodern pastiche all at once. Ulysses didn't lampoon these scholars; it practically created them. It's no small wonder that Nabokov used to teach it (and he was big on making it as clear as possible instead of fogging it up further).

And it's also worth noting that among the Irish (the ones I've spoken to, anyway), Ulysses is an immensely popular work. Like Don Quixote and Gulliver's Travels before it, it's received so much attention for being a cornerstone of literary history that a lot of people aren't even aware of all the toilet humour until they've read it. Ulysses was a banned lowbrow obscenity before it was ever highbrow.

I only ever made it about 150 pages in myself, but I absolutely plan to give it another shot.

[–]fegh00t 2 points3 points ago

I find it hard to believe someone would spend the last 17 or so years of his life writing a "joke" book. Just because it's mostly incomprehensible, it doesn't mean he was "trolling"!

[–]judgegregmathis 3 points4 points ago

"Just because its mostly incomprehensible, it doesn't mean he's trolling"

Listen to yourself, take a step back and reconsider.

[–]fegh00t 3 points4 points ago

I see where you're going with that!

I suppose I should have said "incomprehensible to most readers."

Since its publication, scholars have toiled over it. It's not incomprehensible if you study it enough--heck, there's a detailed plot summary on Wikipedia!

[–]Cpt_Mango 1 point2 points ago

Critics disagree on whether or not discernible characters exist in Finnegans Wake.

[–]fegh00t 1 point2 points ago

That doesn't mean a whole lot.

[–]ecuadorthree 1 point2 points ago

a) Finnegan's Wake is a song about a random punter who fell off a ladder.

b) Finnegans Wake is a book by Séamus Seoige.

c) 10 There was an old man named Michael Finnegan 20 He grew whiskers on his chin again 30 The wind came along and blew them in again 40 Poor old Michael Finnegan 50 Begin again 60 GOTO 10

[–]ecuadorthree 1 point2 points ago

Damn line breaks. The interpreter won't like that.

[–]RandomMandarin 1 point2 points ago

Robert Anton Wilson (co-author of Illuminatus! and my favorite author) was a Joyce fanatic, and he explains Wake as being filled with words crammed together so that there were not one or two meanings but several. Here's a noted example: thuartpeatrick In addition to these meanings, Wilson suggests there's also an element of sexual or urinary frustration here (thwart peter) and perhaps a hint that religion is a "pea trick." All this in 14 letters.

See The Straight Dope on whether Finnegans Wake is a joke

[–]donkey_goatee 2 points3 points ago

"He prophets most who bilks the best." I found that one both relevant and funny.

[–]ecuadorthree 7 points8 points ago

I don't think it's impenetrable, but it's very Irish, and I can imagine people used to standard international or American English being a bit thrown. I know a lot of people (mostly older people) who talk like that, very indirect (partly due to speaking English using Irish grammar), talking in riddles, bending syntax and words on the fly. There's a recording of Joyce reading a bit of Finnegans Wake, and it reminds me of being in a pub when I was a kid, soaking it all in, listening to old men talk, me and a glass of red lemonade with the fizz gone out.

Also, bear in mind that up to not that long ago (certainly up to my dad's time and after), Latin/Greek/classical studies was more or less compulsory in Irish schools, especially ones run by religious orders like the ones Joyce went to (i.e. almost all of them), so Joe Soap had a good chance of catching those references. Also there's the odd bilingual pun if you can speak Irish.

Lots of the references in Finnegans Wake are stuff you learn/learned in history in school in Ireland too. Basically, yes, there's stuff in there that's designed to make the head of the average literary critic divide by zero, but the overall level isn't pitched too high for the average Irish person at the time that he wrote the books.

[–]thehappyhobo 3 points4 points ago

Did you get as far as Calypso? I found that episode significantly easier to read than the preceding three.

It's strange - when I return to it now, I find it as easy to read as any other book. It's stranger than most certainly, but there are very few places where I can't follow the action. Having got to this point, I am very glad to have put in the effort. It's the only book I would actually be distraught to not have a copy of.

[–]graffiti81 1 point2 points ago

To be honest, I couldn't make it past the first chapter. Even that was a viscerally unenjoyable experience.

[–]thehappyhobo 3 points4 points ago*

Well, here it is. I love this episode.

http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/calypso.html

Some of the difficulty lies in that Joyce is doing his damndest to give you the most intimate account of Bloom's inner thoughts. So for example when he says:

Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects (refracts is it?) the heat. But I couldn't go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it.

You have no way of knowing that he chose the black suit because he's going to a funeral later (though you might make an educated guess if you were very astute.)

You're dropped into the world without reference into the heads of characters who are thinking for their own purposes and not for the sake of exposition. (And then of course, the hand of the author occasionally reaches down from on high and bends the genre and style for the audience's amusement.) This means you will miss a lot on the first go round, but the result is a deep, deep world which contains an inexhaustible wealth of detail and symbol.

[–]graffiti81 2 points3 points ago

Just that description makes me feel like I wouldn't find it a terribly interesting book. I've never liked stream-of-consciousness writing. It's just a style I've never gotten into.

[–]OneBillion 0 points1 point ago

Joyce is by far the best Stream of Consciousness writer, I'd give him a fair shot.

[–]14domino 0 points1 point ago

Haha, that is quite a good read, actually. I see the charm now. I may want to read Ulysses. I like the cat's ridiculous onomatopoeic distorted 'meow' and how it subtly changes.

[–]fridgetarian 6 points7 points ago

Joyce didn't want people to puzzle out his book like the answers to an exam

Sure he didn't.

[–]Naskin 4 points5 points ago

The one good thing, for me, to come out of James Joyce was getting a badass Knowledge Bowl question correct:

Questioner: In James Joyce's Ulyss--BEEP!

Me: (crap, was going to guess Portrait of an Artist when I heard "James Joyce") "...uhh, stream-of-consciousness?"

Questioner: Correct!

The looks of WTF?!?! on everyone's faces in the room were priceless.

(I read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and I still deem it as the worst book I've ever read. Just could not get into it. That this one has parallels with the Odyssey... well, it definitely sounds better, but I still think I'll avoid it because of how much I hated the writing style of Portrait.)

[–]NailPolishIsWet 4 points5 points ago

Best of'd. I've been struggling with Ulysses for the better part of two years, in fits and starts. Now to attack it like a shark!!

[–]Rocketman83 1 point2 points ago

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I picked up Ulysses after seeing on the top of the list of the best novels of the English language. Like others, I put it down before I got 100 pages in, because I just didn't get it. I even sat in one of the pubs in Dublin, and that didn't help. I promise to try again, and maybe I will skip around a bit to get a better feel for it. BTW, I couldn't finish "A Brief History of Time" either, because I kept trying to do the math and the physics and it hurt my head!

[–]siguresen 1 point2 points ago

Wow, hey, I might get to this someday, and when I do, thanks!

[–]arrezzo 1 point2 points ago

Thank you. Always been scared of this book.

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

Be careful. It can smell your fear.

[–]westernsociety 1 point2 points ago

Really appreciate this. I have the book and while I LOVE reading challenging books like this I could never get through more than the first 150 pages without giving up. I tried AT least 6 times and could never manage....this post gives me reason to try at least once more!

[–]BoringSurprise 1 point2 points ago

Even if this is all bullshit, which I don't believe to be the case, thanks for taking the time to write that. Reading this, right now, is very likely the difference between me ever reading Ulysses and completely skipping it.

[–]mburke1124America's Forgotten History, Part One 4 points5 points ago*

Holy shit. Thank you. Copy, paste, print. This will be going inside my copy when I finally get around to reading it.

EDIT: I'm confused. This has 150+ karma. Yet my post is down voted for thanking the person for it? Oh that's right people just clicked on my name because they didn't like my other comments and down voted all of mine. Got it!

[–]arrezzo 2 points3 points ago

You have my vote. Previous comments unread.

[–]WhenthenighthascomeSomething something something 1 point2 points ago

Oh thank you so much for this, a great explanation. Could you explain the strings of letters like "kkkghhgkkbh"?

[–]cathalmcDracula 1 point2 points ago

Just try to read it out loud, it's there for the sound.

[–]WhenthenighthascomeSomething something something 0 points1 point ago

Ah, thought so. Saw Meow as Mghthhsow

[–]cathalmcDracula 5 points6 points ago

Also, quite famously: Mrkgnao!

[–]Glucksberg 0 points1 point ago

Sounds like Nigel Thornberry when he gets a fly sucked up his nose.

[–]101011Catch 22 1 point2 points ago

I'm just replying so I can find this post when I read this book. Thanks for writing this!

[–]ediesamor 1 point2 points ago

+1

[–]selfabortionThe Hunger Angel - Herta Muller 0 points1 point ago

Well done, sir. I've said similar things to others but not half so well. Love Ulysses, don't fret if you miss things on a first pass. Nobody gets everything out of Joyce, not even lifelong scholars. Finnegans Wake is worth a read as well but probably only after a couple passes through Ulysses.

[–]psych0mach1a 0 points1 point ago

replying so I can find this once I actually get to read it :)

[–]yowlando 0 points1 point ago

Excellent!

[–]lotictrance 0 points1 point ago

I have never once tried to read this book, but I think I just might now. Great post, thanks for that.

[–]ameoba 0 points1 point ago

Until you get to specifics, you make it sound like a lot like Burroughs (Wm. S., not E.R.)

[–]vintagepinto 0 points1 point ago

replying for future reference. Great response!!

[–]niceworkthere 0 points1 point ago*

Many thanks. Do you know if one can one find the Seidman annotations separately somewhere? I already bought the book twice, plus that version costs $34 here.

e: Well d'uh. Bought them anyway and realized that they don't contain the actual book as I had inferred from the title & description.

[–]s-mores 0 points1 point ago

Makes me want to read the book. I've only read Dubliners and that didn't exactly endear me to Joyce. Thanks for the tips, saved!

The way you describe the book reminds me a lot of one of my favorite books: A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

While certainly not a heavy read it does knock you out of your comfort zone at times but then it does something quite extraordinary -- it takes a step back and examines clinically why your comfort zone was there in the first place!

[–]maateo 0 points1 point ago

I agree, except for the fact that 12 - CYCLOPS is the chapter where I really started to like the book...

[–]Ladymia69Catherine the Great 0 points1 point ago

Got it! So now...can you guide me through "Finnegan's Wake"?

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

I am not a masochist. I have the same reaction to Finnegan's Wake that the OP had to Ulysses - lost! baffled! help!

[–]PillowMonster 0 points1 point ago

I just "save"d the shit out of your post, thanks.

[–]infinitejesting2666 0 points1 point ago

I've got the Annotations book you recommend. But is reading The Odyssey helpful?

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

It's probably helpful, but not necessary. As long as you're familiar with the basic outline of the Odyssey you're okay. And Gifford & Seidman are there in the annotations to chime in on anything you might miss.

[–]direbowelsOrson Wells - 1984 0 points1 point ago

When I started reading this coment I was under the impression tht this book was about the military General in the American civil war and I never intended to read the book.

Now I am intrigued beyond refusal.

[–]DreamCatcher24 0 points1 point ago

I am going to try this I got through 200 pages last summer, and I just couldn't keep it going. I saw the film though, not sure how it holds up to the novel.

[–]23packsaday 0 points1 point ago

This is a huge help. ...Mind explaining "Araby" to me?

[–]Glucksberg 0 points1 point ago

Good approach! I got through the first three chapters with the help of the recording of the 30-hour long radio version, and I'll get back to it once I read Gravity's Rainbow.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

As long as we're talking about Ulysses, can someone please explain what the hell page 285-286 means? This was the part where I gave up and decided Joyce was a weird crank:

Krandlkrankran. I'm sure it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Karaaaaaa. Written. I have. Pprrpffrrppfff. Done.

This is me after reading that.

[–]TheGoodDrStrawngarm 0 points1 point ago

What is that gif from?

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

This is me, sounding pretentious as shit:

Those lines you excerpted and that made you blow out your brains out are the last lines in chapter 11.

The beginning of that chapter does a really cool thing where Joyce reproduces with writing the effect you get when a movie starts a scene out of focus, and then sharpens the focus. It takes place in a bar, and the beginning is all fragments of overheard words, sentences, songs, sounds. Then it sharpens and comes into focus and settles down after a page or so.

The end of the chapter (that you've excerpted above) is the main character basically spacing out while he listens to a bunch of sad, self-pitying drunks go on and on about "the old country" and Ireland and how great it is. In his mind, what's mixing is the people talking around him ("One, two...karaaaaa" is probably the sound of someone starting a song), his own train of thought ("I'm sure it's the burgund," is what he's thinking to himself, blaming his wandering thoughts on the burgundy he's just drunk) and then, "Let my epitaph be written. I have done." are the famous last words of Robert Emmet, an absolute moron who tried to get Napoleon to invade Ireland and free them from English rule. His genius plan was to take over Dublin Castle and give it to Napoleon as a foothold for his invasion. By all accounts, it was a total farce, that saw Emmet get his head lopped off in a public execution, which was also botched (whoops). But Emmet's last words were full of patriotic fervor, and so he became a Romantic Hero of Ireland. Apparently Joyce was fascinated by how this dolt was transformed into a hero, and he was taking a jab. That "Pprrpffrrppfff" between Emmet's "I have." and "Done." is either a mental raspberry or, more likely, a fart.

Most of that stuff is covered in the annotations, and it's all there to be unpicked and enjoyed if you want to. But you can also just relax and figure that the same way the scene was blurry and then sharpened into focus at the beginning of the chapter, alcohol is causing it to go blurry and lose focus as it goes out of the scene at the end of the chapter.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

I sort of figured. I'm not a literature expert by any means but I have read a fair bit of criticism, although not Joyce criticism, so I kind of know what to look for, but Ulysses is still about 80% noise to my brain.

The sheer amount of research I'd have to do to appreciate it, reading into Irish history plus all the cultural references and jokes I couldn't possibly otherwise understand... well, it just doesn't seem worth it. Especially when so many American novelists by this point have successfully applied Joyce's techniques in a more familiar (to me, anyway) setting. (I'm American, in case you haven't guessed.) Pynchon, Delillo, all the great meganovelists. Ulysses really seems more interesting as a reference book of literary techniques, a bountiful Eden of lit crit thesis topics.

[–]Taar 0 points1 point ago

I don't see the point in trying to read something that was intentionally written to be incomprehensible. If holding one day in Dublin in your head is the goal, he could have written that clearly. Adding noise just to make it impenetrable? No, that's not writing, that's simply fucking with people.

[–]BeestMode 0 points1 point ago

Would you mind providing a list of books that are of a similar caliber and worth reading? It can be as long or as short as you'd like.

[–]KinkyTraficCone 0 points1 point ago

I was told this was the book that killed the novel.

not in a bad way but in a

"there is absolutely nothing else original you could possible do now" kind of way.

i need to read it.

[–]greenchaos 0 points1 point ago

I found these episode summaries helpful, if a bit pedantic at times.

http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/James_Joyce

[–]Jakecus 0 points1 point ago

Does the "Seidman Annotations" book also contain the actual novel or do you need to buy it separately?

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

The novel is not included with the annotations - I think that would wind up being a 50 pound book!

[–]soulcaptain 0 points1 point ago

You have inspired me after 10+ years of trying and quitting, trying and quitting this book. Awesome post.

[–]snoharm 0 points1 point ago

I suddenly find myself iwth a desperate urge to read Ulysses.

[–]hoogizHoward's End | For English coursework! 0 points1 point ago

I forwarded this to my English teacher, he said it was great, but not to quote the bit where you say "some chapters in Ulysses suck".

...no shit!

Thanks though, this is a great read... I'm sure I'll attempt it some day! My godfather attempted the whole thing on Bloomsday, and failed.

[–]Praxidikae 0 points1 point ago

I may have to tackle this now.

[–]secondidaround 0 points1 point ago

Thank you for the post. Reading Ulysses felt to be too much of an intellectual task, and I found myself too intimidated to pick up the book.

Given how familiar you are with the text, how much of your enjoyment came from the Joyce's details and descriptions of the Irish culture?

I've never been able to enjoy lauded 'period pieces' like the Master and Margarita, because I've never really felt comfortable or appreciative of the voluminous cultural annotations and references in such novels.

tl;dr I'm wondering if admirers of Ulysses appreciate the book for the same reasons admirers of Master and Margarita love the work?

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

I don't know that much about Irish culture, and I got schooled on the finer points by the annotations. I mean: Ireland, leprechauns, whiskey...that's about as far as I go. So no: it's not necessary!

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 1 point2 points ago

It doesn't much matter which edition, as long as it's unedited. But I think the standard one that Gifford and Seidman used when they did their annotations is the 1961 edition.

[–]MamaDaddySlaughterhouse Five 1 point2 points ago

maybe the free one - all formats

[–]jonskeezyBlood Meridian -5 points-4 points ago

Everyone should read Ulysses at some point in their life.

This is bullshit.

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 9 points10 points ago

I'm curious why you think that. Could you expand? To me, most people shy away from Ulysses because it has a reputation as "too hard" and that's no reason to avoid a book. If you like books, and you like reading for reasons other than pure story, it's definitely a book you should have read/tried to read/thrown across the room at some point before you die. To me, loving books and not trying to go a few rounds with Ulysses is like loving art and never seeing anything by the impressionists. You're not going to explode or anything, but you're avoiding something major that you might find yourself liking.

[–]cleanyoungbobThomas More - Utopia 4 points5 points ago

To me, loving books and not trying to go a few rounds with Ulysses is like loving art and never seeing anything by the impressionists.

I think it would be fairer to compare this single - albeit historically significant - work to another single, important work, rather than conferring it the weight of a whole artistic movement. Consider an art lover saying likewise: "Loving art and not going to see Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is like loving novels and not reading a single piece of modernist literature"; it sounds somewhat hyperbolic.

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

You're right. My only issue with that is that Ulysses is the best-known modernist novel and the rest have sort of fallen out of the public eye, so it's almost like that one book DOES represent the entire field.

What would you suggest are other modernist experimental novels that are widely-known? There's Finnegan's Wake but it's by Joyce, too, and even Bob Seidman who wrote the Ulysses annotations with Don Gifford says that Finnegan's is impossible to read. TS Eliot is a poet, and Gertrude Stein doesn't have one work that's as well-known as Ulysses but I have a pretty limited exposure myself. Open to suggestions!

[–]jonskeezyBlood Meridian 19 points20 points ago

I'm a reader, and I'm definitely a fan of huge, difficult books. I've spent some time with Ulysses, but I've never finished it. That said, I want to make sure this is not seen as sour grapes. I'm not singling out Ulysses as an inferior book. I'm railing against prescribing ANY book as something that must be read. I think that attitude is one reason, admittedly one among many, that people tend to hate reading.

[–]Me0wcenary 1 point2 points ago

Geeze, what ever happened to colloquialism? Give the guy a break lol.

[–]HeroicGomez 0 points1 point ago*

I think that anyone who makes a 'everyone must read X' statement needs to qualify it with some specific arguments beyond "It's amazing (this) and incredible (that) and this passage is (awesome) and it will change the way you (blank)." What in particular about the book makes it seem so (great), let alone makes it a necessary read?

Sadly, Grady's overlong treatise above offers too many qualitative superlatives yet doesn't offer nearly enough fundamental detail to back up the main idea.

Yes, that's asking for some critical thinking. But I assume that anyone willing to sing its praises has done some critical thinking to reach that conclusion. A lot of us don't have eons of time and mountains of attention span. You've got to offer some more substantial reasons for a reader to spend their time with this book rather than something else.

[–]Me0wcenary 0 points1 point ago

I don't feel like fanboying something, and sharing how,"although it may be difficult, it is doable for those who haven't done it" necessarily requires an essay submitted to MENSA prior posting on Reddit. I don't see how this has become some great contract in which OP must present empirical evidence in order to recommend a book.

[–]seanobaronUlysses (James Joyce) - 2nd attempt 19 points20 points ago

Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' is in a very similar style to Ulysses, is shorter, easier and is sort of a prequel, at least in regards to the character of Stephen Daedelus.

[–]LonelyPiperAncient Irish History 3 points4 points ago

Before delving into Ulysses I would recommend reading Portrait because it helps the reader acclimate to Joyce's writing style.

[–]precursormar2001: A Space Odyssey 4 points5 points ago

Alternatively, one should read Portrait simply because it's fucking awesome.

[–]StandingInForTheHost 9 points10 points ago

Also if you want to get some basic Joyce into you first read his short story collection Dubliners.

Some really beautiful shorts in there.

[–]LonelyPiperAncient Irish History 8 points9 points ago

Good luck with Finnegans Wake.

[–]fridgetarian 4 points5 points ago

DO NOT READ FIRST!!!!

[–]Versk 5 points6 points ago

ULYSSES FIRST PAGE SYNOPSIS!!!!

Buck Mulligan is chilling out at the top of an old Military tower on the coast just south of Dublin, Ireland. He's having a shave and generally being a bit of a bit of a douche. He pretends to be a priest because he is wearing a robe, holding the shaving utensils like a cross and speaking latin mass-quotes.

He calls out to his friend Stephen to come up, also calling him a fearful jesuit on account of his attendance at a christian brothers school as a youth and his generally grimness.

Stephens comes up to the roof as well, and Buck continues his mock mass, Joking about problems regarding the transubstantiation of Blood, the central act of a Catholic mass.

the word "chrysostomos" here is kinda important, its the first instance of the stream of consciousness style that defines the book. While buck is continuing his performance, Stephen looks at his teeth and the gold caps there in and associates him with Dio Chrysostom, the golden Mouthed greek Philosopher. Stephen has some beef with Buck to be dealt with in the next few pages.

Buck finishes the mock mass and pokes fun at Stephens unusual second name, and the mockery of a Jesuit and Catholic having an ancient greek name.

END OF FIRST PAGE SYNOPSIS!!!

[–]QuixoticNeutral 0 points1 point ago

This would make a killer parallel text, especially now that Joyce is in the public domain in the UK/EU. "Ulysses: New Reddit-English Translation" (2012).

[–]PoeticallyInclinedModern, Spring & All 5 points6 points ago

The thing about reading Joyce is that he's just smarter than you--his vocabulary is larger, his memory is more prodigious, and he's read far more than you have. That being said, I think the most important thing that Joyce has on the rest of us--and probably the easiest to remedy--is that he just loves language, and is interested in figuring out what he can do with language on the level of the word, the sentence, the paragraph, the chapter, and the book. Everyone else has already covered what's going on at the book/chapter/plot level, so I'll try and shed some light on what's going on at the word/sentence level in terms of innovation. Innovation is the right word to use here, but keep in mind that what's in it for Joyce is ultimately linguistic fun. Think of someone who knows he's good, but doesn't quite know how good and just wants to figure it out. Onward!

First, Playing with Language. My favorite example of this is at the beginning of chapter 7. Joyce has a pair of sentences that go "Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores" (pg 96). The first thing to note is the alliteration--there's a ton of d's and b's clanging around in those sentences, and to a lesser extent the g's, which also ring off the other two letters. In most cases the primary letters are also accompanied by r's. That's just Joyce trying to squeeze in as many similar sounding letters as he can in order to get a kind of amusing bouncy feel. The second thing to note is that the second sentence is basically the first one backwards. That way you get the first sonic symphony all over again, just backwards. Strictly speaking, these sentences add nothing to the plot (or what semblance there is of one) and are kind of just forgotten later, but the point is that it's a sort of amusing use of language, just one fun sounding sentence and then "I wonder if I do this again, but backwards?". These kinds of things are all over the book, and finding the little linguistic quirks is what makes the whole experience so enjoyable.

Next, Plays on Words and Puns. Puns and such are all over this book, and they're something that sticks with Joyce into Finnegan's Wake (which is really just impossible, more on that later). The puns range from the large involved conceptual puns--like the character in the cyclops chapter that is always referred to as "says I," with "I" as in "eye" as in cyclopses are known for having only one eye--to the more vulgar play on words "poronosophical." You could write an academic treatise--and I'm sure someone has--on how all the various puns in Ulysses link ideas together or subvert the pseudolinguistical such-and-such, but I prefer to just enjoy them for the witty plays on words that they are. Another good example is in Circe (ch 15) when Bloom imagines he's become a priest and he spouts of "Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah.." (pg 397) you get the picture, a lot of stereotypically Jewish words in a nonsensical sequence, then in the next line someone refers to him as "His Most Catholic Majesty." It's not laugh out loud funny, and it sped right by me the first time I read it, but now it kind of makes me chuckle a bit at best, and at worst I'm bemused with irony. These little ironies and jokes are all over the book, you just have to pay an absurd amount of attention to find them.

Last, the Meta-Stuff. I said Joyce had a more prodigious memory than you and I--here's proof. Ulysses is exceedingly self-referential. Here are a couple of the easiest places to see it. At the beginning of Ch 11 (pg 210, don't remember what its name is) there's a longish section spanning a little under two pages that reads as one of those frustratingly nonsensical (post)modernist poems, where one phrase has nothing to do with the next. Most of those phrases (I want to say all, but I've never gone and checked each one) pop up in one form or another throughout the rest of the chapter once the beginning bit ends with "Begin!" (another little joke). You can see it the easiest in the first words of the chapter which are "Bronze by gold,"--also the very first words after "Begin!" Chapter 15, as well, is full of these types of self-referential lines. One particularly good spot is when "The Daughters of Erin" say "Kidney of Bloom, pray for us / Flower of Bath, pray for us / ... Wandering Soap, pray for us / Sweets of Sin, pray for us ... / Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us" (pg 407) All of the things in the list are things that occur in the book, mostly things that Bloom does or encounters or possesses throughout the book. The kidney is the same as the kidney that Bloom eats when we first see him. Sweets of Sin is the book he picks up (I think, that or it's the one his Wife is reading, it's been a while since I've read Ulysses). The wandering soap refers to the bit of soap that floats down the river throughout the entire book (you can track this soap throughout many of the chapters in the book--look for it, it's kind of fun to see if you can find where the floating soap pops up). My favorite one is the Potato--Bloom carries a shriveled potato in his pocket as a good luck charm (he's an Irishman, har har). The other thing Joyce does is allude to things. well, to everything. I don't have examples of these off the top of my head, but the bible is a big thing he references (particularly in passages that deal with Stephen), Shakespeare, as well--Greek/Roman literature, obviously, hence Ulysses.

The last thing I have to say is that if you're really interested in learning about Joyce, read him in order. Start with the Dubliners--which is one of the best short story collections in all of English literature. It gives you a sense of where Joyce started, and one of the themes that really interests him--people, social interactions. The Dubliners is a set of stories about people living in, you guessed it, Dublin. The stories interact with each other enough to make it a stellar collection, but not enough that you could term it a novel. Then move on to Portrait of the Artist--that'll give you all the Stephen Dedalus you could possibly want, and it starts to show Joyce's stylistic shift to something more "experimental" and more radically psychologically "internal." Then there's Ulysses, which moves full force into the experimental and the psychologically internal, but it does sort of what Dubliners does, it creates a portrait of the city, except this time we have a main character, and the interactions between the different stories going on becomes more apparent. Then Finnegan's Wake. I don't recommend this, as it's not actually enjoyable to read because it's so dense and obscure. The language in it is lovely, the jokes are hilarious (when you can get them) and Joyce is at his most innovative, but on the whole, it's entirely too obscure. If you thought the "says I" to cyclops pun was a stretch, then Finnegan's Wake is certainly not for you. There are tons of multilingual puns, yes, that's right, Joyce is punning between different languages, and the sound play is surpassed only by Hopkins, but plot... well, there really isn't one--sort of, we think.. scholars are actually in debate about this. Same with characters, they come and go, there's only "Here Comes Everybody" the main character and his relations, who I find difficult to keep track of.

Last thing: if you want a good guide to the book, i suggest this one as it has a different Joyce Scholar introduce and walk you through each chapter, it's the one I ended up using when I went through Ulysses the first time.

TL;DR Pay attention to the individual bits of language that Joyce is using, there are plenty of little jokes and ironies there. Also, fuck Finnegan's Wake.

Also also, page numbers refer to the "Garbler Edition" of Ulysses.

[–]dokkeynot 3 points4 points ago

You should read Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist first. Characters from Dubliners show up all over Ulysses, and the first three chapters of Ulysses are a "sequel" to Portrait.

[–]depanneurRise and Fall of the Third Reich 3 points4 points ago

Don't force yourself to read a book you're not interested in at the moment. It really takes away from the pleasure of reading when you force yourself to cram down pages you don't really want to read. Maybe in the future you'll get interested and read it, but don't make yourself hate the book if you're not into it now.

[–]Syric 2 points3 points ago

Have I ever got the podcast for you: line-by-line analysis of every single thing.

There are a zillion episodes to this podcast and the guy is only on chapter 2. But anyway, listen to as many of them as you find interesting (and Frank Delaney's enthusiasm for the book is quite infectious). I did this when I read Ulysses last year; it carried me through Chapter 1 and gave me a huge appreciation for what exactly Joyce was doing with this book.

After that point I was on my own, and I'm sure I only got at most 30% of the references and tricks Joyce crammed in there, but it was very rewarding.

And yes, some chapters are better than others. Delight in the prose. Enjoy the humor.

[–]Versk 2 points3 points ago

I just bookmarked the shit out of this

[–]marshall_banana_The Amber Spyglass 0 points1 point ago

been listening to this. it's really great. his enthusiasm is infectious.

[–]availle 4 points5 points ago

There's a comic adaption with explanations which is pretty good. After reading that, you can read the novel and even understand something.

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 6 points7 points ago

I think that about sums it up! I actually read Ulysses my first year in college because a girl I wanted to sleep with hinted that if I could read her favorite book I'd get to plunder her sheets for booty. I spent three months reading it and didn't understand a single word. But...the piracy did happen. It turns out she was stark, raving insane so the relationship didn't work out.

Years later, I wound up spending 2 years reading Ulysses with a lit professor who thought it was the funniest book ever written, and with the annotations by my side, and I wound up loving it.

I guess, in the end, the girl didn't last but the book did, which makes me predisposed to like it a lot.

[–]thehappyhobo 8 points9 points ago

This is what you're going to do. You're going to take it and read until you're finished. Most of that time you will spend in confusion, frustration, boredom and every imaginable and unimaginable combination of degrees of the three. You will repeatedly ask yourself why you read this book, when instead you could play XBox, hang out with friends, eat, sleep, catch up on work or do any number of enjoyable or productive things. No answer will present itself and nobody here or in any other corner of your life will present one for you. It is at one of these points that most people decide that they will settle for having made an earnest attempt and stop reading. You will not do this. You will, in spite of yourself, read on.

Then, a chink of light. A clever wordplay or spark of emotion. Not enough to justify the effort, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless. Another follows, too slowly, but then you find yourself transfixed upon a whole paragraph, a page.

And then, in a blaze of understanding the book opens itself (or opens you?) and you snap into it. It is for this that you are reading, though I can't adequately tell you what it is.

You will finish the book and immediately start anew and even later return again, in life's dark and dreary days, for comfort and advice.

[–]ares623The Lean Startup 2 points3 points ago

I stopped reading at the "Sirens" chapter. I found it difficult to transform the words into sound/music in my head.

I'll probably start over after finishing 1Q84.

[–]krups7203 1 point2 points ago

Use a guide or an annotated version. There are several out there. I used this one when I read it. Very few people have the education necessary to understand all his references.

I'd say it's worth the slog. Parts of it are pretty much incomprehensible even with notes; The Sirens chapter, for example. Other chapters are extremely readable and entertaining. Molly's interior monologue at the end is a great read in spite of having no punctuation for eighty-odd pages. I managed to get through it and I hadn't read Portrait or The Odyssey.

Good Luck.

[–]RippingYarnThe Children of the Sky 1 point2 points ago

It isn't a story so much as it is the self-indulgent experiment of a true genius. Let yourself be swept along the currents of language and remember, reading Ulysses is more like strolling through an art museum baked out of your mind than it is experiencing anything like human drama.

[–]RobzzzGeneral Fiction 1 point2 points ago

If you are finding it hard going from the start I would recommend the Re:Joyce it's a weekly podcast that takes a snippet of Ulysses and examines it. The narrator is brilliant and his enthusiasm is infectious. He also has a wonderful voice/accent that was made for reading Joyce. I feel it really gets you in the mode to enjoy Ulysses.

Also for your first read through don't bother with an annotated guide bs unless your an english student you don't need to "get" everything. When you find it tough going read it aloud to yourself appreciate a master of the English language.

As another poster mentioned if you get past a certain point it will still be frustrating but it will feel more and more worth till it gets to the point you are thinking of re-reading parts/whole.

Also having a general understanding of the Odyssey and Hamlet will aid in your understanding.

[–]tttt0tttt 1 point2 points ago

Just read enough of it to pretend that you've read it in polite conversation. That's what everyone else does.

[–]CreeDorofl 1 point2 points ago

I see only one other dude saying this so I'ma repeat it because I think it's spot-on:

there's no reason to force yourself to read a book you're not into. It's not like eating your broccoli, like "man I don't really wanna read this but it's good for me, I'm not versed enough in the classics."

If you read it before you're really into it, you get little out of it, and you probably won't wanna re-read it even if you gain a new appreciation for this sort of book.

[–]billanova 1 point2 points ago

Hell, I got lost just trying to pick the right edition to read.

[–]Kasatka 1 point2 points ago

Awesome summary and post. Definitely my favorite author. I recommend checking out Joseph Campbell's book on James Joyce. A great deal is dedicated to Ulysses. Check out Finnegan's Wake too for a hilarious hodgepodge of words. It might not make too much sense but you'll start to pick up the gist of it. Again, it's more about the journey.

What really interested me about Campbell's book was how he compared the structure of Joyce's work to Dante. Really interesting stuff there. Joyce was apparently modeling his work off of Dante's Divine Comedy and was believed to be working on a book after Finnegan's Wake that would complete the set. It would be quite short compared to his previous two works but would be "the purest language ever written" (if my recollection of Campbell's quote can be trusted).

[–]Freewheelin 1 point2 points ago*

At the risk of sounding like an elitist douche, I have to say that Ulysses really, honestly, is not as impenetrable as so many people say it is. Start with Portrait of the Artist, then with Ulysses I'd definitely recommending plowing through the thing and not getting hung up on things you don't understand, don't get lost in the density and the complexity of the technique and just try move through it unhindered. It's the most beautiful and invigorating novel ever written. Each and every chapter has its own complexion and flavour, and it's all so enjoyable to experience if you let it be. Joyce wrote it for everyone, he's really not trying to fuck you.

I would also recommend reading Homer's Odyssey beforehand, it really heightened the experience for me. As you probably know, Ulysses is a retelling of that great epic, but told in one day in Dublin in the summer. And instead of this great Greek hero, you have this little Jewish guy Leopold and his wife Molly. And it is the search for the son he never had in the same way Ulysses searches for his son. So there's the plot, or part of it anyway. Ulysses does have a plot!

And I guarantee you'll want to revisit certain chapters or passages once you're done.

[–]SubGothius 0 points1 point ago

Speaking of that little "Jewish" guy, as Robert Anton Wilson has explained, his being identified as a Jew is one of Joyce's provocative jokes (indeed, practically a "Jewish joke" in the Rabbinical sense) -- antisemitic gentiles revile and mock him as a Jew because he looks stereotypically Jewish since his father was a Jew, yet Jews would not consider him a Jew because his mother was not Jewish (a traditionally matrilineal ethnicity), and because he converted to Catholicism and has been baptized thrice, was not raised Jewish, has never practiced Judaism, and is not even circumcised. In Leopold Bloom, Joyce undermines and mocks antisemitism and by extension the very idea of ethnicity as any sort of inherent, fundamental property of any individual.

[–]bowtieninjaMalazan: Book of the Fallen, 10/10, Book 7/10, First-read 1 point2 points ago

I tried reading it around 5 years ago--I lasted a little over 200 pages. It was akin to reading the dictionary. I have the booking laying around somewhere, I'll try reading it again sometime in the future after I run out of awesome wizard and dragon books.

[–]rdarken 0 points1 point ago

I have tried to get through this book a few times, but the most I can do is about 20 pages... The stream of conscious thing throws me way off.

I always read it along with a guide, which helps.

[–]jabbasi 0 points1 point ago

Just keeping reading, for the first three chapters the book gets progressively "harder" as more and more stream of consciousness is employed. Joyce is the master of experimentation some chapters you'll be like wtf is going on, but if you're well read already you'll begin to understand what's going on. There are quite a few companion guides that can be read with the book, it wouldn't be a bad idea to read a chapter summary after each to get an idea of what's happening if you're lost. Enjoy Ulysses! It was my first experience with Joyce as well.

[–]Andrigaar 0 points1 point ago

I made it about 110 pages in before the stream-of-consciousness writing turned my head inside out and I had to put the book down to stem the flow of blood pouring out of nose, ears, and eyes. This alone took a few weeks of reading a few pages at a time.

Don't get me wrong, it was extremely entertaining, but the flow isn't there for me. However, an Irish jeweler I talked to about it said "It helps to read it with a lilt." So if one can find a rhythm that flows and probably fake a gaudy Irish accent in their head, the book may just transcend stories as we're told it is to do. If not, I'll just have another aneurysm and I'll continue to have them until I finish the book someday before I die. Of chronic aneurysms.

I've still never been so fascinated by a guy cooking kidney for breakfast though.

[–]TheRockefellersWhere the Dead Men Lost Their Bones 0 points1 point ago

There's a book called "Ulysses Annotated" that has all manner of helpful notes, maps, etc. It should help a first-timer get a grip on the plot.

[–]GradyHendrixOffbeat or Quirky 0 points1 point ago

This is by Robert Seidman and Don Gifford and it is THE book to have with you when you read Ulysses. It's really the best set of annotations for it.

[–]TheRockefellersWhere the Dead Men Lost Their Bones 0 points1 point ago

Also, you should get on this quick. "Getting" Ulysses is a prerequisite for membership in the Pretentious Institute for Cloistered Knowledgists (PrICKs). So until you finish the book, brace yourself for snide and anonymous scoffing.

[–]BethesdEnt 0 points1 point ago*

This is a wonderful source for Joyce and Ulysses and certainly the best website for it. Tons of analysis of the chapters, schema, etc. plus a lot of background information on Joyce himself.

http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/

The schemata is particularly important as it summarizes the technique, primary symbols, color, science, organ, persons, and correspondences to the Odyssey... For each chapter.

I read it my senior year of high school for a Joyce class and we spent three months on the book and that wasn't nearly enough time. I would recommend against reading it on your own (even with literary guides) and would suggest instead 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by Joyce. It is much easier read (though still complex) and ultimately will be more enjoyable.

[–]jsdeerwood 0 points1 point ago

Welcome to Modernism. My personal hell of English lit at Sixth form... Apart from T.S. Eliot, Mansfield and Waugh - they're freakin awesome.

[–]YouthsonicUlysses 0 points1 point ago

Sometimes I think I'm the only one that enjoyed Ulysses on the first read.

[–]AyendoraThe Devils Novice 0 points1 point ago

Just studied this for my Modernism module at Uni, I'm still no closer to knowing what the hell it's all about.

[–]fegh00t 0 points1 point ago

If you got lost on the first page, you're not ready. You're direly, direly unprepared, actually. The first bit is pretty easy/straightforward compared to much of the rest of the book.

And that's fine that you're not ready. It just means that you need to read more books, and harder books, first.

[–]lemonsharkA Clash of Kings 0 points1 point ago

I read somewhere that "Portrait of the artist as a Young Man" is a sort of prequel to Ulysses.

[–]AllTheZoltans 0 points1 point ago

I havent read it yet but i am going to once i finish speaker for the dead. Is there a connection between Ulysses and the Odyssey?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

I've been in college for a few years now and read a range of different books and novels, but I barely understood what was going on when I read the first page.

I think this is the Platonic ideal of a "trying to read Ulysses" experience.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

I read it (3 times now), but I didn't have a process on how to read it. It's like a Jackson Pollock or Guernica.

[–]timshel_ 0 points1 point ago

He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.

[–]OliveOliveo -1 points0 points ago*

Would anyone else agree that the following two recent works were heavily influenced by Ulysses and rival it in their ambitious scope?

1) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

2) Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace