Ulysses

brianthebard

Have been reading this for English, its a fantastic novel. I didn't like portrait much in first year and had planned to read this so I could rip strips off it, but it honestly is a wonderful novel. I haven't gotten through it all because time doesn't permit me to, but there are just so many different levels to it. I firmly believe you could read it simply for the linguistic expressions, finish the book and not have clue what the story was. Any opinions on it or joyce in general?

John

Love Joyce (although I haven't read A Portrait... yet) and I definitely have missed out on most of what was going on in Ulysses. What I did get I loved and the as you say, the language is so rich that you could dispense entirely with the layers of meaning and it would still be worth reading. Currently tackling the Wake and it makes Ulysses look like an Ann and Barry book! Still great though but what little plot and metaphor I got from Ulysses is encycopedic compared to what I'm getting from this!

Shutuplaura

There was a course on it in college that went through it chapter by chapter. Sorry I didn't do it so I could pretend to have read it. Found it pretty tough. I liked Joyces two accessable works, especially Dubliners (The Dead is a mindblowing short story) and I've always liked the idea behind Wake and Ulysses but I doubt I'll ever try any of them again. I heard that Yeats couldn't read it either.

brianthebard

That could be because Joyce kept making digs at the revivalists! Its a hard book, but not impossible by any means. It becomes quite accessible the more you read. Molly Blooms soliloquay, while unorthodox, is extremely natural and easy(ish) to read.

John

It's the sort of thing that you need to read once, be boggled for most of it and then read again and go "Oh!"

I read a quote from Joyce earlier on a mailing list I'm on that I thought was brilliant: "It took me ten years to write it, it should take you ten years to read it" (or something along those lines).

BossArky

As Brian said, you can read this book without having a clue what is going on, but still enjoy the language.

I'd recommend a chapter at a time, then referring to this handy resource if you are a tad lost:

http://www.bway.net/~hunger/ulysses.html

(scroll to bottom of page and flick through the one line explanations / pictures of what is going on)

brianthebard

Ah Ulysses, great to read, a b!tch to try and write an essay on....****ing essays....