Literature Network » James Joyce » Ulysses

Ulysses


Advanced Search
Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States--and H. G. Wells was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language.

Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is: What happens? In the case of Ulysses, the answer might be Everything. William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the books stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.

Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call Early Yeats Lite--will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naive curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival:

"Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?"

~





Fan of this book? Help us introduce it to others by writing a better introduction for it. It's quick and easy, click here.

Please submit a quiz here.

Recent Forum Posts on Ulysses

U.P.: up

In Lestrygonians, Bloom meets an old girlfriend, Mrs Breen, who shows him a postcard received anonymously by her husband. Bloom reads it aloud: UP? Mrs Breen answers, U.P.: up, and goes on to explain that Mr Breen is suing the author of the postcard. My first reaction was that this is a death threat: U.P. spelling out 'up' emphatically, as in "your time is up". I don't think it specifies the type of action Breen is taking in sueing the author. I was intrigued by this episode so I read around a bit, and it seems to be assumed that he's suing for libel. The most common interpretation seems to be that Breen's erectile function is being called into question. But since Mrs Breen mentions her children earlier in her conversation with Bloom, this seems unlikely to me. Any thoughts?

Posted By Tsuyoiko at Thu 21 May 2009, 6:40 AM in Ulysses || 0 Replies

Gave up on Ulysses

Well, I started Ulysses, and it was just too much for me. I have been reading canonical works lately, as I am studying to be an English high school teacher, so I am familiarizing myself with works I never read. Since Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, I figured I would read the best. I even came here to get some advice, which I took some. I would read the summaries and analysis on Sparknotes. Barely in depth, but good enough to make me at least understand what was happening. So, I was reading when I realized I was torturing myself, so I quit. Do you think Joyce wrote this with the main goal of screwing with lit professors' minds? Because, it seems that way to me. He even said something like, "this book has enough puzzles in it to keep scholars busy for centuries." He couldn't have had the goal of creating it for entertainment purposes, or even "art for the sake of art," as it must have been a helluva job to write. My theory is this at least partly the case, and it seems kind of sadistic, don't you think? I also read a quote about Finnegan's Wake from Joyce that was something like, "It took me a lifetime to write it, it should take you a lifetime to read it." Ego, anyone? I'll probably read it eventually (an annotated version), but there is too much other stuff to read. EDIT: Could a mod change the title? I didn't know if the italics would work, and it obviously didn't.

Posted By Mutatis-Mutandi at Thu 19 Mar 2009, 5:56 PM in Ulysses || 20 Replies

Reading Ulysses

So, I'm reading Ulysses for the first time, and was wondering if anyone had any tips for me, other than having a dictionary handy, lol.

Posted By Mutatis-Mutandi at Sat 7 Mar 2009, 11:31 PM in Ulysses || 15 Replies

Aeolus episode of Ulysses question

I read Ulysses a few months ago (before joining the forum, for certain) and had several questions, one of which concerns this paragraph (which falls beneath the "ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM" headline in the seventh episode, Aeolus): "I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of the match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives." I don't understand this. it doesn't seem like a piece of anyone's consciousness; it is in the past tense; how could it be? But the novel is narrated in third person, so if it's not S.O.C., where did this first person narrator appear from? What it seems like to me is Joyce mocking a popular contemporary novel or play or something; it's very dramatic, and it's not realistic at all to think that one act could determine the course of a life (unlike the novel itself: complete realism). What does anyone think?

Posted By amb at Tue 17 Feb 2009, 6:07 AM in Ulysses || 1 Reply

Ulysses

Has anyone read that before? Anyone patient enough to give me an exegesis please? I would really want to understand this novel. To me, the harder and cryptic it gets, the more I want to digest it. By the way, I found the almost every line nonsensical. Forgive my stupidity.

Posted By CataclySm1c at Tue 9 Dec 2008, 8:13 AM in Ulysses || 5 Replies

Is anyone interested in a Ulysses reading group?

I recently attended the James Joyce Summer School and left Dublin with such a love for Ulysses. I spent one week studying the novel and talking to great people about it and, honestly, I miss that experience. I live in Chattanooga, TN, so finding a Ulysses reading group will be hard to do. If anyone is interested in participating in an online reading group, please let me know. We could read it slowly, maybe concentrating on one episode a month while keeping conversations going about our experience with reading it. Also, if you've been thinking about picking it up, but have been intimidated or just haven't found the motivation, a reading group is a great way to approach such a huge text. You'll be spurred along by everyone's discussion and you'll get to see various points of view as you move along.

Posted By Victoria2133 at Fri 25 Jul 2008, 3:48 PM in Ulysses || 28 Replies

Bloom's Dublin

This is my first post. I have just read Joyce's Ulysses, mostly as preparation to get something special out of a visit to Dublin. I'll be there for Bloomsday, June 16, will visit the James Joyce Center, listen to the readings, and do the walking tours of Joyce's Dublin. It took reading the first quarter of the book before I could actually care about what might happen next. Now that I care, I'm finding The James Joyce audio collection fabulous, very enjoyable, without the hard work of reading and trying to appreciate Joyce's literary experiments. Also the Gifford & Seidman annotations have made Ulysses much more accessible, but I'm glad I persisted and read cover to cover. Now, as I go back into parts of the book that stay in my thoughts, I know where Joyce goes from there. I'll welcome any suggestions about mining Bloomsday in Dublin for any light it can shed on Joyce's work.

Posted By maryeisman at Thu 29 May 2008, 12:28 AM in Ulysses || 2 Replies

joyce, genius or not

i was speaking with a gentleman on the trian who was reading ulysses and said he was strugling, was near the end but hadn't a clue what was going on. i tried to read it a couple of years ago but felt like it wasn't going anywhere and decided i had better books to read. he said he was just going to finish it for bragging rights, haha. anyone actualy read it?

Posted By jikan myshkin at Wed 21 May 2008, 6:22 AM in Ulysses || 50 Replies

Your thoughts on Ulysses

1 2 3 4 5

Posted By S.MacConmidhe at Sun 4 May 2008, 7:46 PM in Ulysses || 1 Reply

Annotated Dublin map?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew where to find an annotated (or even unannotated?) map of Dublin of decent size on the web, I tried to look but I haven't found anything nice or more than something like a third of a page - much too small. Thanks

Posted By Etienne at Mon 14 Jan 2008, 11:59 PM in Ulysses || 2 Replies

Post a New Comment/Question on Ulysses



Shakespeare wrote over 150 sonnets!
Join our Sonnet-A-Day Newsletter and read them all, one at a time.
Email:
As Seen In: USA Today "Hot Sites"