I’ve never read Joyce. Should I start with Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake?
I’ve never read Joyce. Should I start with Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake?
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Oh dear God. Neither. Start with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Far less difficult, but still has layers to explore.
Huh, each to their own… I’ve always found the child-voice segment at the beginning irritating and pretentious.
Well, I see your reaction was also Neither. 🙂
Neither, start with Dubliners.
My mom had a record of two Irish actors performing important sections of Ulysses. The woman performed the section near the end where Molly Bloom decides to lose her virginity. It was gorgeous. I have tried more than once to read the book on the strength of that passage, but I just can’t. And I am a lifelong reader. I wish you better results than I had.
And I do recommend looking for some performances from it.
Nope. I have to disagree with @Connor. Start with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and THEN hit Ulysses…
neither – seriously good luck
Ah, the stream of consciousness! Good luck, I hope you make it to the end of Ulysses, if you decide to take it on.
I would suggest reading a good book.
Completely agree!
I’ve read both A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. Just because I’ve read them both didn’t mean I LIKED them both. But, if the OP is interested in Joyce, then Portrait is a good starting point…
Neither!! I don’t think it’s possible to actually read Finnegans Wake. ?
I did Dubliners, then Portrait of the Artist, then Ulysses. I may get to Finnegan, but then again I’m sixty and there’s the question of how long it would take to read it 😉
Agreed. Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are where to start. Ulysses and Finnegan’s are… ambitious. Tried to read them in college. Yikes.
I read Portrait for a class and it was dull. In order to finish Ulysses, I had to assign myself the task of reading about 30 pages every day (from the Gabler edition). It. Was. Torture. I could appreciate it from literary/historical perspective, but it still felt like wading my way mentally through word vomit. Never read Finnigan’s Wake. Some people recommend Dubliners when starting Joyce. I still think Woolf did the whole stream-of-consciousness thing way better.
Neither. Start with Dubliners, then Portrait of Artist.
Nope never have, should I lol
Thanks everyone. My OP was a bit tongue in cheek tbh. Think I’ll give Dubliners a go!
I think the more valid question is, “Should I start Joyce?” Every time I ask myself that question, I lie down until the feeling passes and then pick up something, you know, good. 🙂
Exactly.
I have an annotated version of Finnegan’s Wake that I got from my dad’s collection. I haven’t read it yet, but my dad was a big fan.
Portrait, Dubliners, and maybe Ulysses if you have had a classical education. And I mean the sort of classical education that Joyce had more than 100 years ago. Took a graduate level class on Ulysses years ago -quite challenging despite double Masters degrees.
I took a graduate class on Paradise Lost a few years back. I imagine Ulysses would be in the same ballpark?
Paradise Lost is a skip in the park in comparison.
Start with Dubliners
The Dubliners is easier than Ulysses.
Neither! Try A Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man, or Dubliners (short story collection). Personally I think both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are unreadable!
Skip that Joyce and go with Graham Joyce.
The Tooth Fairy is interesting.
@Max did you read some kind of fairy tale?
No.
https://books.google.com/books?id=lf-QhJZRY7wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+tooth+fairy+novel&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiaot_1jsLXAhXFSyYKHZRLC4gQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=the%20tooth%20fairy%20novel&f=false
I’ve read Tooth Fairy (and enjoyed it). I think I’ve read everything he wrote, some of them more than once.
I will check out Some Kind of Fairytale. So many on TBR list.
But G Joyce was special. Strong writer, strong creativity, not many achieve his level. I was sad when he passed, at some point read the short story he wrote before he died, it’s called the silent land, and it says a lot about him.