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goldpython
08-15-2005, 03:40 PM
I'm reading Ulysses, enjoying the first part at the moment, and note similarities with another book I like very much: Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

Both are complex and elicit comments about difficulty of reading and the like. Difficulty notwithstanding, I found Dhalgren one of the most interesting and thought provoking books I've read and feel like I'm well on the way to similar experience with Ulysses.

Has anyone else read Dhalgren and Ulysses? Or for that matter, other books similar to Ulysses?

John Gargo
11-27-2008, 10:09 AM
I'm reading Ulysses, enjoying the first part at the moment, and note similarities with another book I like very much: Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

Both are complex and elicit comments about difficulty of reading and the like. Difficulty notwithstanding, I found Dhalgren one of the most interesting and thought provoking books I've read and feel like I'm well on the way to similar experience with Ulysses.

Has anyone else read Dhalgren and Ulysses? Or for that matter, other books similar to Ulysses?
Never heard of Dhalgren, but thanks for the recommendation.

Here's another one... Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin. The story goes is that Döblin was almost through writing the book but then he read Joyce's masterpiece and went back and retooled the book. You can really see the Ulysses influence in Döblin's modernist novel, as its full of experimental prose, stream of consciousness narration and literary allusions. I highly recommend it.

I haven't read either, but apparently Nabokov's Ada and McCarthy's Suttree are supposed to be heavily indebted to Joyce. If you want to get technical, you could argue that almost everyone these days is.

Shem the Penman
12-08-2008, 02:20 PM
I never read Dhalgren...

In fact, I just want to mention that Berlin Alexanderplatz was addapted for the cinema by Rainer Werner Fassbinder... It is the longest movie ever made... 15 hours long. =O