Ulysses

Good read

Having read Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and also Dubliners, I decided last summer to tackle his novel Ulysses, to which several literary associations have deemed the greatest twentieth century novel. Today's sophisticated younger reader may ponder the accolades professors and scholars have showered upon a novel that rambles for well over 700 pages, but there are significant reasons that I would like to briefly elucidate.First, as many have pointed out this is a book of language, and specifically one that attempts to import all of English lexicon in order to examine where its vocabulary leads us and where we ultimately run up against road blocks. This monumental task had never been accomplished in the English language since the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer.Second, this is a novel of experimentation. A 19th century staple, the novel was overdue for an update that would capture the complexities and anxieties of the 20th century. For too long, the novel reflected a mathematical plot line divided evenly into clear physical events, which, frankly, failed to detail the organics of human thought and development. Ulysses does the unthinkable: Our thoughts and actions cannot be explained away by chronology;there is a real-time universal presence to them, as some would later read in Faulkner's works.Third, there is an authentic examination of the individual. Reading his biography and Ireland's history, Joyce repeatedly hammers home the colossal battle between individuality and social conformity. In Ulysses, outside forces such as the Catholic church, parents, ignorance, politics, and peers attempt to squelch the voice of the individual by attempting to dictate what happiness and contentment are. It is through allusions to the mythological story of the Odyssey that our most heroic feat today is learning how our voice can Bloom in a world that too often expects us to conform.Fourth, it is an honest, realistic story about life in general. Whether we want to admit it, much of life is spent within ourselves, as Joyce unearths through the three characters' streams of consciousness. We do talk to ourselves; our thoughts are random, not linear; we scrutinize ourselves hoping to make connections among scraps of thoughts that only we and God have access to. No novelist up to this point had created what amounted to a confessional that was unafraid of society's taboos and mores. Where else could a young modern reader, for example, read about a character's sexual acts in unadorned detail?Finally, contrary to what critics have stated--i.e. several novelists of Joyce's age called the work a mess--there is a compelling story. At the time of its publication, virulent anti-semitism consumed not only colonized Ireland but the rest of the world. So enters our modern day Ulysses, Bloom, a baptized Jew who exhibits the attributes of Christ but is condemned by his society for alleged ancestral sins. And then there is poor Stephen, whose triumphant announcement to the world that he is an artist contrasts sharply with his doldrum existence, refusing to pray for his dying mother, rejecting his largely absent father, and holding a teaching position that is less than inspiring.There's Molly, a singer by trade who is blazed into sleeping with a talent agent so that she can further her career and can also help provide for Bloom when money is tight. Molly and Bloom may be jovial in name, but underneath is the tragic loss of their infant son who managed to live only eleven days. To me, this is an unflinching look at real life. And yet, epiphanies still happen, and new friendships such as what Stephen and Bloom display provide us with what really matters most: love and acceptance. Bloom is the father who unconditionally accepts Stephen, and Stephen is the son Bloom has dreamed of since Stephen clearly needs guidance.Many readers have pointed out that the traditional literary community has hailed Ulysses as the seminal novel of the twentieth century, and, therefore, today's reader must adhere to its proclamation. If Joyce were alive, I think he would be appalled simply because freedom of expression was his guiding principle. Joyce's main point is that the path toward freedom is not merely a straight line or even a winding one; rather, it is a confluence of thoughts, feelings, and relationships that eventually crystallize into an overarching personal epiphany. Ulysses certainly is a challenge, but then again so is life. Each day is worth a seven hundred page book--Joyce's merit is that he actually proved it.

UlyssesThe rails of cast stealBucket list book, reputation preceded it, but Ill deserved, dated, still banned in Tennessee but Tame by current standards,Knowing this books reputation obfuscation? Or is that a word for difficulty, why difficult? Sentences that made as much sense when read backwards as forward. One percent per day, concentrateProfessor Stanley Unwin speakingType of jest on the readerCourt trial of Bloom a Monty Python skit“I see. Said the blind man”. Waiting for the young Master Bates, type of juvenile humorHelps to know Latin, French, Shakespeare, Greek mythology, English/Irish history, a bit of physics“…no pun intended” joke on reader?Molly pulls it all togethersesquipedalia, “he hit his head” vs 40 plus polysyllabic words from Joyce.If you are going to read a “guide to” why bother reading the book?

To my surprise the book was inexpensive -- about $10 with free delivery. It looked as though no one had even opened or read it.

Joyce first encountered Odysseus in Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses—an adaptation of the Odyssey for children, which seemed to establish the Roman name in Joyce's mind. At school he wrote an essay on Ulysses entitled "My Favourite Hero."Joyce told Frank Budgen that he considered Ulysses the only all-round character in literature. He thought about calling Dubliners by the name Ulysses in Dublin, but the idea grew from a story in Dubliners in 1906, to a "short book" in 1907, to the vast novel that he began in 1914.Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904 (the day of Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle). Ulysses is Odysseus, the hero of Homer's poem Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the poem (e.g., the correspondence of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus).

Best taken in small doses. For me it seems easier to understand than Finnegan's Wake, which is still mostly gibberish to me still.. This on the other hand is a little easier to understand. The first chapter is almost fifty pages long. You aren't even introduced to Leopold until chapter two. So again, my humble opinion and advice is tiny sips. Enjoy. 😉

As a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers I embraced this booki. I had gone to Ebbet`s field many times as a youngster and it made me feel good on how Roger not only told you about their time on the team, but where they ended up in life after baseball.

Couldn't pass on this one, the price was great and I want to continue adding to my library! The extensive Introduction and notes set the stage and provided insight for this amazing novel. Will buy more Wordsworth Classics to complete my collection!

I tried so hard to like this book, I really did. it seems to crack every "critic's" top 10 all-time novels. but I... I just couldn't. I found it to be one of the most self-indulgent books i've ever read, packed with arbitary, erudite references that seemed to serve no practical purpose but to alienate readers that hadn't come from a similar academic, elitist background.

'Ulysses' is widely regarded by the literati as Joyce's masterpiece. To those of us less well- (and perhaps less expensively) educated, while unquestionably mesmerisingly clever, it's a medley of impenetrable, discursive, highbrow allusions glued to a linear narrative so obfuscated by esoteric symbolism, grammatical mischief and wordplays that the storyline becomes incidental. (Before each episode I read Wikipedia's overview and found doing so invaluable). The paragraph in my photograph beginning, "O, look we are so!" perhaps tells you all you need to know.

OK, so the book's reputation is deserved. Joyce's writing is spectacular. You can see how so many other writers have been influenced by his numerous revolutionary techniques. Some of it is pure poetry – a novel to change all novels.But reading it isn't much fun. There are sections (the first featuring Bloom) that are a delight. Even the last chapter with no punctuation is readable. But in between, you have to tolerate Joyce's tedious showing off. For example, the section written in the style of popular newspapers. It's amusing for a few paragraphs, but when it goes on for pages and pages and pages, you think; "OK. I get it. You've used that technique. Let's move on."And that's the story of pretty much every chapter. Wouldn't it be fun to write in a sort of Middle English? Sure! Why not! For fifteen pages? NO. What about a section in the form of a play? Great. Let's try it. For twenty pages . . . Now I want to die.Joyce is that guy in the pub who likes the sound of his own voice. He's amusing for the first five minutes, but then he won't shut up. Ever. EVER!This book could have been fifty per cent shorter and still been history's greatest novel. It's really no fun to read. He wasn't writing for a reader. He was writing to be part of literary history.

This book is to the art of literature what a Picasso is to the art of painting. A "masterpiece" only in the dead end of Modernism. It can only become real provided you can switch off your senses and accept the opinions of some peculiar academics who seem to decide public taste. It has no centre or purpose. There is no point to it all, it is not an education of the senses and neither does it increase anyone's artistic vocabulary. My background is in Greek literature and I'm telling you, this work has nothing whatsoever to do with the Odyssey by Homer, other than the fact that Joyce stole the name in order to sound clever.

With just one well-thumbed copy of a James Joyce book on my shelf (that of Dubliners- which I thoroughly adored), I thought it time to finally attempt Ulysses! After much deliberation, I've decided to devour it by taking it slowly. Yes, I agree with many who find it at times overwritten, but I put that down to the extremely modern world/society we find ourselves living in. To me, it's more a challenging read (yet still an invigorating one) which I feel you often need when working that grey matter!