Is anyone interested in a Ulysses reading group?

[Victoria2133]

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.

[Virgil]

That is a great idea Victoria but I just don't have the time. I've read Ulysses twice and have gotten to appreciate it more. But it's exhausting and time consuming, so I cannot be counted to participate. I do want to move on with other literature. I guess if you get a good group together I could pull out my copy and see what notes I've made in the margins and pop in the thread and say something. But I will not be able to read along.

[Victoria2133]

I guess at some point everyone has to move on, though I'm sure even those types of comments would be helpful. Thanks.

[Scheherazade]

I would be interested in if we read it with a relaxed pace. It is one of those books that have been hanging over my head for so long.

[Victoria2133]

That's my goal - a slow reading.

[J.D.]

In a way, I've spent about three years reading Ulysses without picking up the book. What I mean is that the first time I "read" Ulysses, the allusions were so beyond me that I decided I had to go back and try to learn what Joyce knew. I got so lost on my journey through classical literature and history that I never really made it back to Joyce. I owe a lot of what I've read to Joyce, and yet I've never even finished his most famous book.

[sdarcy]

I have been an informal Joycean for 30+ yrs occasionally dipping in & out of his work and I've yet to figure it all out nor have I become tried, bored or disengaged.
I'd love to have a slow read w/this & that commentary as one plods along.

[blazeofglory]

Joyce is what I really want to read and I as a non native speaker of English find it a very tough job to read his book, for first I suffer limitations of words, the power to understand highly structured sentences, and very sophisticated styles in his works.

As a reader I want to read his book, and I made many endeavors, yet I never could complete it for he used so many allusions and references that came out of his limitless knowledge and learning.

I am a small writer and do small writing jobs and it will be a great venture to read a work of art by a great wirer and the idea of reading collectively and of sharing what we know already is really a thrilling thing. I am impatient to do it but I do not know how I can access it or get a chance to participate in the discussion.

[HerGuardian]

I'm in. I need a motivation to read such a book. Thanks for the opporunity.

[mayneverhave]

I'm just now finishing up the novel (about halfway through Ithaca), but I would love to have some other people to discuss the novel with.

I'm currently attending a university for an English degree, but you'd be suprised how few people have actually read the book (or even have any interest in it) despite being in what one would consider an academic community.

I wish this thread was around when I first started reading. Novel was quite the struggle, but equally rewarding.

[sdarcy]

I believe that the 1st sentence, Stately plump Buck Mulligan... exactly matches the cadence from the 1st sentence from Homer in the original Greek. See this ref to the work in Greek: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0135:book=1:card=1 (this is fully annotated and links to an English translation). I can see Joyce having one of thousands of chuckles as he created the sentence. And then beats the reader over the head when he says to SD teaching him about the Greeks.
Joyce said he wanted to keep the critics buzzing for a hundred (or a thousand) years. He's done that.. and he knew he was going to write Finnegans Wake when he wrote Ulysses; there's tons of hints and allusions along the way- they both begin looking at water and hint toward eulogy.
It's fun already and I've not finished the 1st page.
SD

[nietsche]

i am reading Ulysses now and it will be a good and helpful idea to share the experiences while reading
first of all i would say this novel is for the academics to puzzle about as Joyce said and really i ddnt find any pleasure reading it -until now - yet as i study literature and interested in the modernist era and products in literature i have to dissect it if i dare say

now i think we must understand the technique by which the story will be told before reading too much of it ...the stream of consciousness =
after conversing a little about this one could move on to tackle the symbols and puns and so on
waiting for reply


with my best regards

[mona amon]

Count me in, Victoria! :)

I love Ulysses. It's funny, and I love a funny book more than anything else. I've never had an opportunity to discuss it with anyone and a slow read and discussion sounds great.

[kacsing]

Has a group been formed for this? I know this is an old post, but I'm interested in reading this book and would love to have a group to do it with. Let me know if there is still any interest.

[jupiter]

I would like to discuss this book with people on this site. I just started it. Can anybody help with translation of latin? I'v read "Portrait" twice (a long time ago) and can understand why SD is so serious. The jovial (Stately?) Buck Mulligan is counterpoint. SD can't be "The Artist". I imagine Joyce quite amused at mankinds lot. Your thoughts?

[jupiter]

The reading becomes easer after the first section. Or maybe I'm getting use to the style.

[JBI]

The reading becomes easer after the first section. Or maybe I'm getting use to the style.
The Telemachiad is the easier part. Once you get to the last 6 or so sections it gets wacky beyond belief.

[Virgil]

The Telemachiad is the easier part. Once you get to the last 6 or so sections it gets wacky beyond belief.

The Circe section is nearly incomprehensible. Wild man, wild. It'll blow your mind. :D

[jupiter]

SD's inner dialogue as he walks on the beach gives us wonderful words: postprandial, sanguineflowered, paintingcase. And that's one page of my book! And later we have a cat that says "mkgnao". I never thought "meow" was hackneyed till I read this.

[blazeofglory]

In point of fact I have taken up this colossal exercise many a time but every time I feel immature to comprehension his points, and while I like the style of the writer immensely and incalculably I receded every time with a fatigued and strained mind. As a voracious reader of literature I feel I can climax if I comprehend the book and the last book I hold with so much high regard but it is like a star we can keep on admiring and feeling the sheen of it but can not touch it.

Once I realize that I can not reach the maturity level or height this writer scaled in life notwithstanding the fact that I am not less dogged in life when it comes to admiring and living an arty life.

You showed up from nowhere and I can not slip away, for this is like coming upon a pool of water when mostly all you stumble upon mirages thru your ventures.

I am really excited to be a very active participant.

[jupiter]

Reading a work of Joyce for the first time is like letting a strong wave wash over you. (We all know to really understand takes multiple readings, the problem with that is there is so much else to read.) So far(so far!) the thoughts of LB, or Poldy (as his wife, clearly above his class calls him) are simpler that SD's. A remarkable insite and great portrayal of how different people think. LB likes to get somthing to eat, try to crunch numbers in his head and exchange missives with a mistress he has never seen! I look forward to where this all goes.

[jupiter]

Reading a work of Joyce for the first time is like letting a strong wave wash over you. (We all know to really understand takes multiple readings, the problem with that is there is so much else to read.) So far(so far!) the thoughts of LB, or Poldy (as his wife, clearly above his class calls him) are simpler that SD's. A remarkable insite and great portrayal of how different people think. LB likes to get somthing to eat, try to crunch numbers in his head and exchange missives with a mistress he has never seen! I look forward to where this all goes.

When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ...

[optimisticnad]

I'm in - I need the motivation too. But how is this going to work?

[jupiter]

optimisticnad: do you think SD's experience on the beach shows him to be an arrogant scholar getting stuck in the mud as a couple and their dog stroll happily by?

[optimisticnad]

optimisticnad: do you think SD's experience on the beach shows him to be an arrogant scholar getting stuck in the mud as a couple and their dog stroll happily by?

Sorry, I've not started it yet!! It's heavy, my hands hurts after a while. I'll get back to you soon. But arrogant scholar....yeh that sounds about right, i like your adjective. :lol:

[mayneverhave]

optimisticnad: do you think SD's experience on the beach shows him to be an arrogant scholar getting stuck in the mud as a couple and their dog stroll happily by?

Sure Stephen is difficult and overconfident, but can you blame him? Look at the type of people he hangs about with.

I sense in Stephen (especially in Proteus), that despite his outward confidence, inwardly, he is self conscious of his artistic ambitions.


Btw, as for the Circe section, by far one of my favorite passages is at the end when Bloom misinterprets Stephen's quoting of Yeats's "Who Goes with Fergus", and thinks Stephen is constantly coming up with new lines of love poetry. Comic brilliance!

[Shem the Penman]

I believe that the 1st sentence, Stately plump Buck Mulligan... exactly matches the cadence from the 1st sentence from Homer in the original Greek. SD

Very nice comment, sdarcy. :)

It would be completely Joycean to do such a thing.

In fact I attempted to make the escansion of the rhythm in the Joycean text to check it. I did not loose too much time with it, but it seems to me that the rhythm of the first sentence keeps a pattern which is very similar to the dactylic, which Homer used...

[Shem the Penman]

By the way, I would suggest you to read Dubliners and the Portrait before reading Ulysses.... So you'll learn about Dublin, Stephen Dedalus before reading Ulysses... And it would also help you to accompany the progressive development of Joyce's technique and treatment of his subject.

I'd also suggest you to get a copy of Ulysses Annotated, by Don Gifford. According to my experience, many people give up reading Ulysses because they think it is a common book. In fact, some people get scared when they reach a chapter like Proteus - it demands so much on you, that it is very easy to give it up. No other book, besides Finnegans Wake, demands so much on your previous knowledge.

Joyce was not kidding when he said that the perfect reader for his books would be a life-long one, with the ideal insomnia.

There's a Rapidshare download link for Ulysses Annotated somewhere, but I don't know if it is allowed to post things like that here...

As I said to Victoria by private message, probably I would not have too much time to participate on the group because 2009 is going to be very busy for me... However, I'd like to accompany it, if it happens, because it has to do with my research projects on Literature and Translation Studies (I'm analyzing the Portuguese translations of Ulysses - one of them was made by my teacher =) ).

If you know anything about this reading group, tell me..

If you want the link to Gifford's Ulysses annotated, try to look for it at Google. Otherwise, send me a p.m. or e-mail me at wolfsheim1 ((at)) gmail (dot) com.

---
Jonathas

[Shem the Penman]

Here's the download link for Ulysses Annotated...

It will help you a lot!

http://rapidshare.com/files/180838908/Ulysses_Annotated.pdf (31 mb)

[dolon]

i have read the book and i dont understand all but i do understand little bit of it after reading again and again so any help and discussion would be good for me i'm in

[mal4mac]

Can anybody help with translation of latin?

Several of the guides translate all the foreign language phrases.

I just typed in the first Latin phrase (on page 1!) into Google - this not only got me the translation but also turned up some useful sites.

The inexpensive "Oxford Classics" Ulysses comes with a guide. Small print, though.