Joyce's Ulysses

[WICKES]

Ok...I have postponed this long enough. I am going to give Ulysses a try. I have taken the advice of Stephen Fry and decided to read it out loud the whole way through (not in public I should add!). I don't expect to understand it all, I just want to get a feel for the language (then I might get a couple of books explaining the novel before I try re-reading it slowly and carefully).

Can anyone give me any tips or guidance? Are there any particular passages I should try reading aloud to get a feel for Joyce's langauge before I begin?

[Charles Darnay]

Stephen's inner monologue should definitely be read aloud

[McGrain]

I've read it twice and I haven't tried the out loud thing, though I guess i get that.

The second time I read it along with this -

http://www.ucd.ie/scholarcast/images/kiberd_main.jpg

Which took ages but was very very rewarding.

My advice is just read it like any other book, try to enjoy it. It's readable, and things leap out at you. The more you treat it like homework the more like homework it will be.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

There's plenty of other stuff out there to read.

[Emil Miller]

I've read it twice and I haven't tried the out loud thing, though I guess i get that.

The second time I read it along with this -

http://www.ucd.ie/scholarcast/images/kiberd_main.jpg

Which took ages but was very very rewarding.

My advice is just read it like any other book, try to enjoy it. It's readable, and things leap out at you. The more you treat it like homework the more like homework it will be.

Is that Marylin Monroe, bless her little cotton socks even though she isn't wearing any, pretending to read Ulysses? If Marylin Monroe has to pretend to find it worth reading, why not anyone else?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I've heard Marylin Monroe was actually quite erudite.

[McGrain]

Erudite may not be the right word, taken literally I mean, although I understand why you would have heard that. She wasn't so much scholarly as determined and genuine - she forced herself through these books. I don't doubt for a second she got to the very end. It takes a certain bloody-mindedness not to give up on that book.

[cafolini]

Ulyses is like the waking up of many repressed things. It's Joyce project to wake up from history's chains. And he does a great job. And at that point people were so paranoid of what he had to say that they burned the shipment of his book to America. Not for nothing.

[osho]

I like the book the way it is stylistically though my several endeavors at digging into the stuff failed. Not that I did not enjoy the book, I did every bit and piece of it. I enjoyed it in parts not in wholes. Since I cannot remember the story in entirety. That is why it could not gain popularity though it had aired much applause and clapping it has yet to win the heart of the common reader. Some of the bigwigs like Derrida had it of his choice. He had purposely presented it thornily as he himself had conceitedly said he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant". This book is my ideal despite I hate it like the way every clerk hates his boss but he wants to be like him. I myself want to write enigmatically and when my readers will have difficulty in understanding my book I will feel my superiority though in many people's eyes it will be my loftiness, the height I purposely I climbed to dwarf the stature of my friends and readers. Therefore my contempt and fondness go together

[Emil Miller]

I've heard Marylin Monroe was actually quite erudite.

So have I but I don't believe everything I hear.

[JBI]

Well, look at the picture, she isn't even at the middle, she is near the end! much further than most have made it! pictures say a 1000 words as they say.

Besides, she looks hot reading it.

[Emil Miller]

Well, look at the picture, she isn't even at the middle, she is near the end! much further than most have made it! pictures say a 1000 words as they say.

Besides, she looks hot reading it.

Or in the case of Joyce, 1000 pages.
I bet Arthur Miller was standing just out of camera range and saying: "No, don't sit there reading the first page, turn to the end."

[JCamilo]

According to some she used Molly monologue in one test for a play or something...

[cyberbob]

I like the book the way it is stylistically though my several endeavors at digging into the stuff failed. Not that I did not enjoy the book, I did every bit and piece of it. I enjoyed it in parts not in wholes. Since I cannot remember the story in entirety. That is why it could not gain popularity though it had aired much applause and clapping it has yet to win the heart of the common reader. Some of the bigwigs like Derrida had it of his choice. He had purposely presented it thornily as he himself had conceitedly said he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant". This book is my ideal despite I hate it like the way every clerk hates his boss but he wants to be like him. I myself want to write enigmatically and when my readers will have difficulty in understanding my book I will feel my superiority though in many people's eyes it will be my loftiness, the height I purposely I climbed to dwarf the stature of my friends and readers. Therefore my contempt and fondness go together

So you like it and you enjoyed it but you hate it?

I don't think everyone who hates their boss wants to be like them, they just want the bosses level of success. You could write enigmatically if you wanted to, you just can't write enigmatically WELL.

How can you want to write in a style that you hate to read? That doesn't sound like the attitude of a writer to me, that sounds like the attitude of a charlatan.

[blazeofglory]

Yes osho's comment is misleading and it is confusing.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Actually, I think osho's comment, which IS a bit confusing, is quite apropos in that sense in terms of the book it's commenting on.

[YesNo]

I've only read the first chapter (twice when attempting this at two different times) which I think was the first 50 pages or so before I began skipping around and then giving up on it altogether.

However, I do remember scenes from the first half of that chapter especially when the guys are purchasing milk from the lady and she is measuring out their portion. Nice description. There is also a line about believing in God and the beginning of the universe out of nothing that I recall quoting in a post. So I don't regret reading what parts of it I did.

The string of words toward the end did seem incomprehensible, but I'm no literature genius. Since it looks like Marilyn skipped to the end as well, I feel like I'm in good company. Perhaps she thought that was the beginning of the book? I suppose the ending could be read backwards with as much enjoyment as reading it forward.

I agree with Mutatis-Mutandi: "There's plenty of other stuff out there to read." But since Ulysses keeps coming up as a great book, I suspect someday I will foolishly think I have grown up or down enough to start it again and actually finish it.

[mona amon]

:mad5: Grr... I don't see why, just because Marilyn was attractive, or blond... it automatically means she didn't read or understand Ulysses. The book isn't that difficult anyway - I enjoyed it and thought it was beautiful and interesting and funny and I don't consider myself a great erudite intellectual.

I'm having a bit of a problem at the moment reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy though - what's wrong with me? :confused:

[Calidore]

I've read it twice and I haven't tried the out loud thing, though I guess i get that.

The second time I read it along with this -

http://www.ucd.ie/scholarcast/images/kiberd_main.jpg

Which took ages but was very very rewarding.


If I was reading it alongside Marilyn Monroe in a swimsuit, it would take me ages as well.

[Charles Darnay]

:mad5: Grr... I don't see why, just because Marilyn was attractive, or blond... it automatically means she didn't read or understand Ulysses. The book isn't that difficult anyway - I enjoyed it and thought it was beautiful and interesting and funny and I don't consider myself a great erudite intellectual.


I agree with this. It is unfortunate that Ulysses has earned the reputation of being horribly difficult, because that is how people (myself included) enter into it. Just read it for what it is, accepting that Joyce was esoteric so there will be certain minute details that you probably won't pick up on.

But with such passages as:


-God, he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbour mouth of Kingstown.

-- Our mighty mother, Buck Mulligan said.

How can you not like it?

[WICKES]

Well, I'm about 20 pages in and quite enjoying it. I've been reading it aloud (which I'd recommend). I have also skipped about and read some random passages out loud to my girlfriend (like the report of a boxing match between an English and Irish fighter). Strange, but he is easier to actually read than, for example, Joseph Conrad, who writes ordinary, conventional prose.

My only fear is that, with its reputation as possibly the greatest novel of the 20th century, I will start convincing myself that I'm enjoying it more than I really am. Does that make sense?

[Charles Darnay]

Well, I'm about 20 pages in and quite enjoying it. I've been reading it aloud (which I'd recommend). I have also skipped about and read some random passages out loud to my girlfriend (like the report of a boxing match between an English and Irish fighter). Strange, but he is easier to actually read than, for example, Joseph Conrad, who writes ordinary, conventional prose.

My only fear is that, with its reputation as possibly the greatest novel of the 20th century, I will start convincing myself that I'm enjoying it more than I really am. Does that make sense?

yes, yes it does. Just be conscious and remember, despite how public reading can seem (what? a whole series of fora dedicated to discussing reading? What is is this?) reading is a relation between you and the book. Don't feel bad if you don't like it, just because it is hyped up. It's like people who have to hide their hatred for The Godfather, or Citizen Kane. Don't. Be honest.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Hey, I can't stand Shakespeare. We all dislike something we thinker "should" like.

Plus, it isn't like Ulysses doesn't have detractors. There are more than a few scholars and credible critics who don't like it.

[mortalterror]

Well, look at the picture, she isn't even at the middle, she is near the end!

Yeah, but she's reading the endsheet.

[mal4mac]

Last attempt, I read Kibard and Ellman's books before - and found them very good reads. Still didn't make it more than abut fifty pages through Ulysses though! I don't treat books as an academic exercise and did try and 'just read' Ulysses but was bogged down in confusion very quickly. I can't see how anyone can find Conrad more difficult! I've read several of his novels straight though... as easy as Biggles (with slightly more depth :)

[mal4mac]

I've heard Marylin Monroe was actually quite erudite.

I read her IQ was about 140, higher than Einstein's and Feynman's...

If only she'd lived longer she might have solved the problem of Quantum Gravity... which is easier than reading Ulysses...

[Emil Miller]

I read her IQ was about 140, higher than Einstein's and Feynman's...

If only she'd lived longer she might have solved the problem of Quantum Gravity... which is easier than reading Ulysses...

I don't believe everything I read either.

[KCurtis]

So have I but I don't believe everything I hear.
Good, because then you would know that the media, in portraying her, was wrong. She was the most exploited actress in her day. She was a gifted comedic actress, I love watching her. And if she was well read, what is the surprise?

[Emil Miller]

Good, because then you would know that the media, in portraying her, was wrong. She was the most exploited actress in her day. She was a gifted comedic actress, I love watching her. And if she was well read, what is the surprise?

Well from what I know of Hollywood many actors and actresses were exploited. You might do well to watch The Big Knife, directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Jack Palance. If Hollywood destroyed Marilyn Monroe, it's worth remembering that it created her also. Even the bit about her reading a page of the Encyclopaedia Britannica every day was dreamed up by the studio to offset the joke that the archetypal dumb blonde had married one of America's foremost intellectuals.

[KCurtis]

Well from what I know of Hollywood many actors and actresses were exploited.

Not nearly as much as she was in her day.

[/QUOTE]. Even the bit about her reading a page of the Encyclopaedia Britannica every day was dreamed up by the studio to offset the joke that the archetypal dumb blonde had married one of America's foremost intellectuals.[/QUOTE]

Of course it was, that is exactly how she was exploited!!!!!

[Des Essientes]

I only read the start of Ulysses too, but it was really great in parts. I especialy appreciated the references made to Plutarch's life of Pyrrus which is my favorite of all the Lives. Poor Stephan Daedelus is stuck remembering how he couldn't pray with his mother on her deathbed while teaching how an Argosian crone saved her boy's life by unhorsing the most scary Greek soldier ever. However Daedelus' nose-picking and Bloom's bowel movement were just too disgusting for me to bear, but someday soon I will try to read it again. It looks like Marilyn Monroe finished it in that photo and it shames me.

[osho]

Some swanks think they can read the book effortlessly, among my friends I mean and I know for certain their level of erudition, their range of vocabulary. It is really designedly grandiloquent; he has deliberately complicated the text to bamboozle the critics that he had done something great and unprecedented and that is why most critics want something sophisticated, erudite and undecipherable full of enigmas and puzzles.

Of course there is art and beauty and this comes along with a little bit flamboyance and it is with wordplay and long-winded syntactic structures at the expenses of semantic minimalism that he has preceded in his magnum opus

[WICKES]

There have been many passages I've found beautiful, but I have to be honest and say no more beautiful than my favourite passages in Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley, Fitzgerald and C S Lewis. Still, that probably says more about me than Joyce!

I'm not very far in as I'm determined to read the whole thing out loud, so I have to wait until the house is empty. Anyway, thought I'd share a couple bits I like.

This is Buck Mulligan responding to Stephen's anger at Mulligan's insensitive reaction to the news of Stephen's mother's death:

"And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She calls the doctor Sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from Lalouettes.

I also thought this was a great description of an elderly swimmer climbing out of the sea:

"An elderly man shot up near the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his sagging loincloth"

If I had had to write such a passage I'd have written something like:

"An elderly man emerged from the sea, his face red with cold and exertion. Water dripped from his grey hair. As he stood, water poured from his shoulders and wooshed in torrents from his loincloth. He was bent and puffing, but smiling."

While Joyce's image is vivid and real, almost tangible, mine is conventional and flat. Joyce's old man is alive, mine isn't.

[My2cents]

This is one of my favorites.


Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, spat phlegm on the floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it and bent, showing rawskinned crown, scantily haired.

Just a seemingly throwaway description of a random character of no account, but how vivid and real.

[YesNo]

Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way.
Yes, that was a nice description. I'll have to remember the part about getting the Jesuit strain injected the wrong way.

I'm curious to see how far you get in the novel. Perhaps you'll finish it.

[Kafka's Crow]

I have read it 2 or 3 times but I have heard it countless times. Get an Audiobook version. Makes a hell of difference in terms of understanding. BBC's unabridged version uses sound effects to differentiate between the real goings on and the stream of conscious/ inner monologue. Your second best friend on long walks with your doggy!

[stlukesguild]

Seriously, I did not find the book all that difficult. Perhaps a little experience with poetry and writing that breaks away from the strictly literal helps. I found certain passages and entire chapters brilliant, and others (one entire particular chapter) less so, yet as a whole it is far from being among my favorite books... even of the last century.

If difficult is your goal, I suggest Finnegans Wake which puts Ulysses to shame.

[cafolini]

Seriously, I did not find the book all that difficult. Perhaps a little experience with poetry and writing that breaks away from the strictly literal helps. I found certain passages and entire chapters brilliant, and others (one entire particular chapter) less so, yet as a whole it is far from being among my favorite books... even of the last century.

If difficult is your goal, I suggest Finnegans Wake which puts Ulysses to shame.

I never had any problem reading and understanding Joyce. People should use their imagination to cooperate with the writer. The writer is not there to satisfy anybody's prejudices or address what they want to hear. A little knowledge of the times when he wrote should be helpful, but not absolutely necessary. And there is a lot in it that teaches about the times.

[Alexander III]

I never had any problem reading and understanding Joyce. People should use their imagination to cooperate with the writer. The writer is not there to satisfy anybody's prejudices or address what they want to hear. A little knowledge of the times when he wrote should be helpful, but not absolutely necessary. And there is a lot in it that teaches about the times.

It's also personal taste. I read The Potrait of a man as a young artist, and I saw greatness in it - but I found no thrill in it, It was all the wrong color for me so I gave up halfway trough - I still think it was great, but I just dont like it.

[cafolini]

It's also personal taste. I read The Potrait of a man as a young artist, and I saw greatness in it - but I found no thrill in it, It was all the wrong color for me so I gave up halfway trough - I still think it was great, but I just dont like it.

When dealing with works of that magnitude and influence, "I like it" or "don't like it" is a fair statement. No work can be fairly criticised without a genuine interest in it. Fair enough. It leaves it open to taste.

[mal4mac]

I like literal and don't read much poetry - maybe that is my "problem". But I don't think it's a problem, there's plenty else to read.

Fans of Marilyn Monroe should like:

The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by
Andrew O'Hagan

... a good read but "Be Near Me" was even better. Thankfully many literary authors haven't gone down the same path as Joyce...

P.S. Please don't accuse me of being a complacent, blinkered realist... I've tried *hard* to read Joyce, but I can't rip the blinkers off... Still you can run fast & enjoyably with blinkers on...

[Alexander III]

I like literal and don't read much poetry - maybe that is my "problem". But I don't think it's a problem, there's plenty else to read.


But thats kinda like a man saying, I love films but I don't like the talking ones. You put yourself at a huge disadavtange. Out of 120 years of film, you only watch 20 years of film.

[prendrelemick]

This is Buck Mulligan responding to Stephen's anger at Mulligan's insensitive reaction to the news of Stephen's mother's death:

"And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She calls the doctor Sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from Lalouettes.

.

A bit of background that might be of interest.

Buck Mulligan is actually the poet Oliver St John Gogerty. He lead a very full life and wrote about it, including his times with Joyce, in his auto biographical , "Rolling Down the Lee" and "It Isn't This Time of Year At All". They are good background detail for Ulysses and are very entertaining - he was a natural and skilled writer.

[mal4mac]

But thats kinda like a man saying, I love films but I don't like the talking ones. You put yourself at a huge disadavtange. Out of 120 years of film, you only watch 20 years of film.

You would soon run out of entertainment, never mind art, if you watched only silent movies. The same is not true about the kind of novels I like. Note, I'm not suggesting one should read only pre-19th century novels, I'm (quite) happy reading O'Hagan, Roth, Whitehouse, Barnes, Sartre, Camus, Mann, Orwell and the like. I do continue to dip into Joyce, Proust and their ilk, but usually need several months of readable novel reading to recover... So I'm only really avoiding "high modernism", the film equivalent would be to avoid extreme Continental art house movies... that leaves a lot of good viewing...

[AuntShecky]

One of the ways that Joyce distinguishes himself from other writers is his facility with language, not just the English language, but multiple languages.
As a whole Ulysses is about several topics--some contradictory!-- all at once: the obvious parody of the Homeric poem whose hero Joyce's title reclaims; the very real city as well as the ideal of Dublin on June 16, 1904; and the metaphorical family of Bloom, Molly, and their virtual son, Stephen. But it is also about civilization as displayed by human speech and thought -- a kind of language "game" in which multiple layers of meaning can be constructed through the use of elaborate word play and multilingual puns. (This ability becomes even more skillful in Finnegans Wake where it's not only actual language that is created and "re"-created but a "dream" language as well.)

You can learn much from Ulysses with a first-time "cold" reading but you can get even more from subsequent readings. I found things about it which I obviously didn't catch when I read if way back in high school.

Critics specializing in the works of Joyce critics, mentioned, can shed even more light on the subject. LitNutters much more astute than yours truly mentioned Richard Ellman.

A highly accessible critic to consult is Anthony Burgess, who in a gentlemanly way credited Richard Ellman's book as "a wonder of fact, wit and qualified affection." Burgess praises Ellman's "ingenuities" as discovering the "asymmetrical book-ends of of the opening and closing words--'stately' and 'yes' " as well as showing that "Buck Mulligan's mock-transsubstantion at the beginning of the work is contradicted by Molly Bloom's real menstruation at the end." Burgess adds "Joyce is the novelist's novelist, although neither Ulysses nor Finnegans Wake can properly be termed a novel. If fiction is the art of fitting the sensations and emotions of life into a structure which shall have some of the shapeliness and autonomy of of a piece of music, then
Joyce is all our daddies."

The book is difficult, no question about it, but the rewards are worth it.

[JCamilo]

Seriously, I did not find the book all that difficult. Perhaps a little experience with poetry and writing that breaks away from the strictly literal helps. I found certain passages and entire chapters brilliant, and others (one entire particular chapter) less so, yet as a whole it is far from being among my favorite books... even of the last century.

If difficult is your goal, I suggest Finnegans Wake which puts Ulysses to shame.

Even finnegans does not present the continuity difficulty of Proust. I think most people wants to decypher Joyce and not read him, they try to find even little allegory and keep giving importance to his allegories, which are for all accounts just emblishment and Joyce's sense of humour and end not reading a book that is otherwise quite logical and chronological, which basic work with the language is the work with with prose-poetry.

[YesNo]

A highly accessible critic to consult is Anthony Burgess, who in a gentlemanly way credited Richard Ellman's book as "a wonder of fact, wit and qualified affection." Burgess praises Ellman's "ingenuities" as discovering the "asymmetrical book-ends of of the opening and closing words--'stately' and 'yes' " as well as showing that "Buck Mulligan's mock-transsubstantion at the beginning of the work is contradicted by Molly Bloom's real menstruation at the end."

Interesting. It does make me think I'm missing something, but I wonder what.

Why are the words "yes" and "stately" asymmetrical--or symmetrical for that matter? It seems that one could take the first and last words of any book and proclaim they are significant and it would make as much sense as these two words.

I recall Buck Mulligan's "introibo ad altare Dei" at the beginning of Ulysses but how does that relate to anyone's menstruation?

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE]It seems that one could take the first and last words of any book and proclaim they are significant and it would make as much sense as these two words.

If you read my book Pro Bono Publico, you will see that the first and last word encapsulates the whole of what is in between.

[mal4mac]

One of the ways that Joyce distinguishes himself from other writers is his facility with language, not just the English language, but multiple languages.

Like the tower of babel - a major cause of pain and disruption.



You can learn much from Ulysses with a first-time "cold" reading...


...yes, you can learn about pain and confusion by actually experiencing it.



The book is difficult, no question about it, but the rewards are worth it.

They were not worth it for me.

Given the number or critics that are now prepared to stand up and say, like Stefan Sullivan, that "Ulysses is a pretty awful novel" there are signs that more and more people are recognising that modernism is a busted flush:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_3_36/ai_n6181300/

"The cultural standing of literary modernism has eroded (when was the last time anybody at a cocktail party cared whether you were familiar with Ezra Pound's Cantos?), the monuments of the early 20th century increasingly appear to demand too much work and provide too little enjoyment. And none of these monuments is larger or more assailable than Ulysses..."

"Bloom himself would never and could never have read Ulysses or a book like Ulysses," John Carey writes in his book Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books. "The complexity of the novel, its avant-garde technique, its obscurity, rigorously exclude people like Bloom from its readership. More than almost any other 20th-century novel, it is for intellectuals only."

"Since the 1970s, modernism's usual gang of idiots--Joyce, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and a handful of others--has been largely displaced from the position of cultural dominance it enjoyed through most of the 20th century."

"...the virtue of difficulty, the notion that being hard to understand was a badge of literary honor, has fallen into serious and perhaps irreversible disrepair, and some once-major figures (Blast editor Wyndham Lewis springs to mind) are all but forgotten."

[mal4mac]

Interesting. It does make me think I'm missing something, but I wonder what.

Sense?

[cafolini]

Joyce is a postmodern work. No modernist will ever grasp it.

[Charles Darnay]

"Bloom himself would never and could never have read Ulysses or a book like Ulysses," John Carey writes...

I know this is kind of ironic considering how often Bloom puts words in authors' mouths (telling Ashbury that he is influenced by Stevens despite the poet's disagreement) but John Carey is surely mistaken considering how much Bloom has written on Ulysses and Joyce.

Ulysses has its critics, and there are valid points of criticism against it, but to denounce books for being to much work is very off-putting.

[mal4mac]

I know this is kind of ironic considering how often Bloom puts words in authors' mouths (telling Ashbury that he is influenced by Stevens despite the poet's disagreement) but John Carey is surely mistaken considering how much Bloom has written on Ulysses and Joyce...

He's talking about Leopold not Harold.

[Charles Darnay]

He's talking about Leopold not Harold.

Well then, serves me right for not looking into the matter fully.

[Alexander III]

L
"The cultural standing of literary modernism has eroded (when was the last time anybody at a cocktail party cared whether you were familiar with Ezra Pound's Cantos?), the monuments of the early 20th century increasingly appear to demand too much work and provide too little enjoyment. And none of these monuments is larger or more assailable than Ulysses..."

"Bloom himself would never and could never have read Ulysses or a book like Ulysses," John Carey writes in his book Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books. "The complexity of the novel, its avant-garde technique, its obscurity, rigorously exclude people like Bloom from its readership. More than almost any other 20th-century novel, it is for intellectuals only."

"Since the 1970s, modernism's usual gang of idiots--Joyce, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and a handful of others--has been largely displaced from the position of cultural dominance it enjoyed through most of the 20th century."

"...the virtue of difficulty, the notion that being hard to understand was a badge of literary honor, has fallen into serious and perhaps irreversible disrepair, and some once-major figures (Blast editor Wyndham Lewis springs to mind) are all but forgotten."

I read that and the first thought that came into my mind was, that a hipster college undergrad with mediocre abilities in literature wrote those (/sarcasmon) brilliant little paragrpghs bursting with wit and genuine rethoric (/sarcasmoff).

Just me maybe ?

[lowradiation]

Like the tower of babel - a major cause of pain and disruption.



...yes, you can learn about pain and confusion by actually experiencing it.



They were not worth it for me.

Given the number or critics that are now prepared to stand up and say, like Stefan Sullivan, that "Ulysses is a pretty awful novel" there are signs that more and more people are recognising that modernism is a busted flush:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_3_36/ai_n6181300/

"The cultural standing of literary modernism has eroded (when was the last time anybody at a cocktail party cared whether you were familiar with Ezra Pound's Cantos?), the monuments of the early 20th century increasingly appear to demand too much work and provide too little enjoyment. And none of these monuments is larger or more assailable than Ulysses..."

"Bloom himself would never and could never have read Ulysses or a book like Ulysses," John Carey writes in his book Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books. "The complexity of the novel, its avant-garde technique, its obscurity, rigorously exclude people like Bloom from its readership. More than almost any other 20th-century novel, it is for intellectuals only."

"Since the 1970s, modernism's usual gang of idiots--Joyce, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and a handful of others--has been largely displaced from the position of cultural dominance it enjoyed through most of the 20th century."

"...the virtue of difficulty, the notion that being hard to understand was a badge of literary honor, has fallen into serious and perhaps irreversible disrepair, and some once-major figures (Blast editor Wyndham Lewis springs to mind) are all but forgotten."

What a horrible group of quotes, Joyce, forever related to high art and pretentiousness when in fact he wrote about us, the everyday, the every-man.

To quote Stephen Fry, Ulysses is about as pretentious as a baked bean.

[Charles Darnay]

To quote Stephen Fry, Ulysses is about as pretentious as a baked bean.

Which in itself is a very pretentious quote, albeit true.

[Emil Miller]

What a horrible group of quotes, Joyce, forever related to high art and pretentiousness when in fact he wrote about us, the everyday, the every-man.

To quote Stephen Fry, Ulysses is about as pretentious as a baked bean.

Well, coming from the master of pretentiousness, he should know.

[lowradiation]

I don't see how he is pretentious?

T.S Eliot was pretentious, Joyce about as far from pretentious as possible.

[JCamilo]

Nooo, he was humble right? Writing about a mundane man does not equate being a mundane man. Victor Hugo was not, Flaubert was not, Tolstoi was not, and Joyce was certainly pretencious and vastly ambitious, even if he was not the kind of intelectual like Eliot. Which means nothing, the quotes are vastly pointless.

[Emil Miller]

I don't see how he is pretentious?

T.S Eliot was pretentious, Joyce about as far from pretentious as possible.

I was referring to Stephen Fry.

[mal4mac]

I read that and the first thought that came into my mind was, that a hipster college undergrad with mediocre abilities in literature wrote those (/sarcasmon) brilliant little paragrpghs bursting with wit and genuine rethoric (/sarcasmoff).

Just me maybe ?

Well it's a wrong thought! If you look at the article you'll see the quotes are from "serious players" like, John Carey (Oxford Professor), critic Dale Peck, acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle, "the" Martin Amis, writer Stefan Sullivan.

The jury is out and split...

[AuntShecky]

Interesting. It does make me think I'm missing something, but I wonder what.

Why are the words "yes" and "stately" asymmetrical--or symmetrical for that matter? It seems that one could take the first and last words of any book and proclaim they are significant and it would make as much sense as these two words.

I recall Buck Mulligan's "introibo ad altare Dei" at the beginning of Ulysses but how does that relate to anyone's menstruation?

These findings came from Ellman, and later Anthony Burgess, as I didn't catch them upon my initial readings of the novel.
"Slately" is the first word, "yes," is the last, which are kind of anagrams of each other, no?
In the opening of the book, Buck Mulligan is not presiding over an actual Mass, but presenting a blaspheming parody of it (perhaps adding fuel to the subsequent hue and cry about the shocking aspects of the novel.) Transubstantiation in the ritual sense is changing bread and wine into Flesh and Blood, and Molly's undeniably earthy physical condition at the end of the book is the exact opposite.

And Mal4Mac, on your reply #49:

Burgess says that Joyce presents puzzles for the reader: "Joyce loves mysteries but does not
like them to go on too long. He hides the keys in drawers which themselves have no keys. He is never easy, but he is never impossible." On the other hand, Joyce himself once remarked that potential readers of Finnegans Wake should be prepared to devote their lives to the analysis of his final work. (But I think he was just being facetious.)

[Alexander III]

Well it's a wrong thought! If you look at the article you'll see the quotes are from "serious players" like, John Carey (Oxford Professor), critic Dale Peck, acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle, "the" Martin Amis, writer Stefan Sullivan.

The jury is out and split...

Martin Amis is a mediocre novelist, I have read his major novel and it just lacked.

Also personaly speaking, I attend Oxford, I asssure you the proffesors can be very dull and simwitted at times, with the difference that they all seemed convinced of their genius.

[YesNo]

I do see the word "yes" as part of "stately", but I don't see "stately" as a rearrangement of the letters in "yes".

[AuntShecky]

I do see the word "yes" as part of "stately", but I don't see "stately" as a rearrangement of the letters in "yes".

We have to ask Richard Ellman about that one, if he's still among us mortals.

[mal4mac]

Martin Amis is a mediocre novelist, I have read his major novel and it just lacked.

Which one was that? I must admit the couple I've attempted didn't seem that great! Still he is one of the big names amongst modern writers.



Also personaly speaking, I attend Oxford, I asssure you the proffesors can be very dull and simwitted at times, with the difference that they all seemed convinced of their genius.

That's your opinion! But it's literature professors, literary critics, and literary writers, who determine what is literature. Who else? Carey is far from dim witted - try his "Literature and the Masses".

[Catamite]

delete

[cacian]

Erudite may not be the right word, taken literally I mean, although I understand why you would have heard that. She wasn't so much scholarly as determined and genuine - she forced herself through these books. I don't doubt for a second she got to the very end. It takes a certain bloody-mindedness not to give up on that book.


It takes a certain bloody-mindedness not to give up on that book.[/:lol:
I am so glad I don't have to suffer it.
I don't understand the point of a story that does not want to make itself clear from the word go or at least halfway there.:nonod:
what is it hiding one might wonder?:nonod:

[dfloyd]

which is taught by a very able PHd from Princeton. I read a chapter after I viewed the course material for that chapter. After starting the book several times and giving up on Chapter 3, I finally finished it. Teaching Company courses are available on dvd, and are on sale priodically, but many libraries carry their courses (that's where I got mine).