I am currently reading Ulysses. Who else has read it, and what did you think of it?
I am currently reading Ulysses. Who else has read it, and what did you think of it?
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I am currently reading Ulysses. Who else has read it, and what did you think of it?
I started it three times and every time I got discouraged.
Ugh. Can’t do it.
I’ve read it several times. Some of the chapters are brilliant but others leave me cold. I think the constant experimentalism is wearying eventually. But it fundamentally changed the novel in important ways, showing that a novel can be as much “about” the language as about the characters or the plot.
I read it in graduate school, and used a concordance wh took extra time but wh explained volumes. I knew things that the professor didn’t (ha ha ha)
What is your overall opinion of the work?
I read it once. It left me perplexed. Maybe I’ll try it again now that I’m a couple decades older.
It seems like to me that each chapter is on something completely different. In parts, I would describe it as “a stream of consciousness, Joyce gets a random thought in his head and goes off with it to a random place”
I started reading parts of it in high school, having no clue! Read more in college, meh! Spent a Summer at Trinity College in Dublin reading it with a prof who wrote his dissertation on Joyce and finally came to understand and enjoy it. We walked the streets, finding settings, discussed the story in bars and tea shops, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I discovered the Irish Jewish Museum in a decommissioned temple which addressed the Jewish Community in Cork, from which my Aunt Sylvia’s family emigrated. I needed to find a connection before I could make it my own.
I’ve been thinking about trying again. Maybe Cliff notes are a good idea!
I am old enough to know what most of what he wrote refers to, however, Marilyn French wrote The Book as World: James Joyce’s Ulysses https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Book+as+World%3A+James+Joyce%27s+Ulysses
I have it but have not read it yet.
It’s okay, extremely long with bits of interest in it. One might find more joy if one looks into the philosophical aspects of it.
Read it forever ago in highschool and don’t remember it now. ?
I’ve tried several times. Each time, I realized my time is too valuable to spend trying to decipher that book when there are so many others to read. Glad some people like it, though.
I’m listening to it right now via audiobook (the whole thing, takes about 50 hours or so) and I enjoy it very much. Which surprises me a little, even though I was curious I thought it might be no book for me. Guess I was wrong. And I already noted it down to read as a print copy later again.
@Joanna I’ll try the audiobook. I do a ton of reading that way and will enjoy revisiting this one.
I found out yesterday that had been banned in Australia along with The Dubliners.
Do you know why?
@Jamie no idea
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/titillating-titles-20120315-1v46i.html
Couldn’t get thru it…too much Irish dialect that I couldn’t understand.
It was my last read.
Quite a mouthful, I must say.
I’ve read Dubliners and just started POTAAAYM. I was working up to Ulysses. I had some other local people doing this track with me, but they freaked out and left.
A lady in my book club yesterday said she couldn’t get anyone to read either, so she joined a goodreads group for discussion.
Hey, if she wants to meet up, I’d be willing to chat about it with her. I prefer discussions in person.