Ulysses Atempt

[winzer]

I read Dubliners by Joyce and absolutely loved it. I would like to read Ulysses sometime in my life time. However, I think I am in need of prep, alot. Ulysses is a complex work, to say the least. If I were to start it now, I wouldn't have the skill or the endurance to finish the thing. How should I proceed? Are there other complex works I should start out with? By the way I have started Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

[mono]

Welcome to the forum, winzer.
Very brave and noble of you to plan to read Ulysses; I think it safe to say that if you got through A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, with all of the determination that takes, you could read Ulysses, while Finnegans Wake seems in its own category of difficulty. Joyce makes many allusions, some more obvious than others, and I would definitely suggest reading into some Greek mythology and literature, especially Homer's The Odyssey and The Iliad, perhaps some bits and facts about Judaism, too, as well as a bit of Hamlet trivia.
In reading Ulysses, understanding Joyce's allusions seems one task, but attempting to comprehend his stream-of-consciousness style seems another - lots of internal monologues, pages of seemingly irrelevant thoughts, whole chapters of perceivingly almost useless dialogues. Again, Portrait will give you a great introduction into his style that, unfortunately, neither Dubliners nor Exiles offered, and reading Joyce will give you an experience you will never forget; reading anything by him seems not only a literary encounter, but also something resembling an amusement park ride - lots of ups and downs, twists and turns, parts where you regret boarding the ride, parts where you love it, but there always exists that sigh of satisfaction afterwards that says "can we do that again?"
Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

[NickAdams]

I find Ulysses, which I'm currently reading, and other books that are said to be complex, easy to get through if you're not determined to grasp it in one take.

[Barbarous]

make sure you run through Hamlet, ya know, just in case!

Ulysses is a fun piece to read, and has been one of my favorite. It also gets a lot easier with every reread, heh.

[WiseCookie]

Maybe the complexity of it and the difficulty in understanding everything at once (or ever) is part of the experience that Joyce wants you to have. I would suggest reading it for the pleasure of reading it, rather than trying to "get" everything, and then looking to secondary sources or re-reading it if you want to delve deeper into its meaning. Use all your life experiences as your preparation and just start reading it. Just my opinion.

[winzer]

When the time comes, I'll read it once just to get through it. Second time I'll probably have take notes.

[egale]

Originally Posted by winzer

I read Dubliners by Joyce and absolutely loved it. I would like to read Ulysses sometime in my life time. However, I think I am in need of prep, alot. Ulysses is a complex work, to say the least. If I were to start it now, I wouldn't have the skill or the endurance to finish the thing. How should I proceed? Are there other complex works I should start out with? By the way I have started Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

If you loved Dubliners (as I did) you will fall in love with Ulysses. It is a great work. I should say that you are in the right way by reading his previous works. My personal experience with The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is that I read it in one afternoon and could not leave it until I finished it. Something similar happened to me with Dubliners and although I would have wished to, I could not do the same with Ulysses because of its lengh. It is a book to be read slowly, like when you eat somehing delicious and want enjoy every single bite.

By the way, didn't you find Joyce´s particular way of climbing to a climax and then let it vanish amazing?

[RichardHresko]

Two recommendations:

There is a wonderful set of lectures on Joyce's Ulyssesby Professor James Heffernan issued on both CD and DVD by the Teaching Company (you can google the teaching company or check at a library). When it is on sale it is only about $50.

A good book to have handy is Weldon Thornton's Allusions in Ulysses: An Annotated List. It has a page-by-page explication of references. You'll find that after a while there will be relatively few times when you will feel you really need background to understand the passages.

One common observation is that Ulysses can not be read, only re-read. I have found this to be true, and worth every bit of attention I have given it.

Good luck!

[Mutatis-Mutandi]

I read The Odyssey, then Portrait, and quit about a third of the way through Ulysses. I just wasn't enjoying it at all, and at my current mindset, I'm just not in the mood to tackle a book that is difficult for the sake of difficulty. I may try again some day.

[mono]

Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

I read The Odyssey, then Portrait, and quit about a third of the way through Ulysses. I just wasn't enjoying it at all, and at my current mindset, I'm just not in the mood to tackle a book that is difficult for the sake of difficulty. I may try again some day.

One can contribute a lot of your frustration with Joyce to the writer's near-desire to feel misunderstood. I love James Joyce, but would not hesitate in calling him pompous, and, convinced of the genius he knew he owned, I feel that he confused readers getting confused over his writing with readers thinking him a genius, both of which occur even today; I feel confused by him (especially by Finnegans Wake), think him genius (one of my favorite writers, in fact), and, as odd as it sounds, feel like he would have stated less by writing more simply. I do not intend upon creating a bastardization of all flight-of-consciousness literature, which he innovated, if not created, but I think this genre of literature certainly seemed the momentous medium through which he made himself confusing/genius.
I think, Mutatis, your post also proves the importance of reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before Ulysses, especially that the latter involves a few of the same characters from the former; Dubliners and Exiles actually read with some surprising ease, in comparison to Ulysses, while Finnegans Wake just reads with both the most painful difficulty and smooth ease simultaneously, depending on how you read it.