Man this book is hard!

[FenwickS]

Hello to all fellow Literature Network users.
This is my first time posting here (although I've been a silent observer for a long long time)

I find this matter an adequate one to break my LN forum virginity.

As you might guess, I love classic literature, I've become aware of this beautiful world from age 15 (I'm 21 now) and I've had the pleasure of delving into the works of giants such as Dickens, Twain, Alcott, Pushkin and (my favourite by far) Dostoevsky.

Therefore, knowing whole heartedly that I was up for a challenge, I decided to read the massive Ulysses, by James Joyce.

Man this book is hard!
I'm currently halfway through it, and I think I've bitten more than I can chew.
I believe, not unreasonably, that the time period differences and the MASSIVE cultural differences (I come from the other side of the world), make this book pretty much vastly uncomprehensible to me.
This has caused me sour feelings, but oh well... I'll survive.

Upcoming challenge: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

Just wanted to hear from you guys if there was any book that you felt pretty lost through.

Commiseration is bliss!

[Charles Darnay]

You will fine Mme. Bovary an easy change from Ulysses. There are plenty of discussions here on Joyce's puzzle, if you search it you will find some good stuff. It is the cultural and literary allusions that tend to make it very difficult - and the play with language. My only advice is to seek out some help during a first read and then, some time later, read it again. It is a novel that really does grow on you the more you read it.

[kelby_lake]

Everybody finds Ulysses hard, don't worry. The Russian books started confusing me at first because of all the names but when you get used to it, they're not bad. Some of them are epic.

[Irishcrusader95]

must get around to reading that myself at some point

the only book i ever completely gave up on because of being totally lost with it was a book on Descartes key philosophical writings, not a good start for those new to philosophy.

i found Dostoevsky's books a bit tough at times yet i held through, the Idiot i found very hard to finish just because i found the story very boring and couldn't see the point to it all. the Brothers Karamazov while being difficult both for its length and complicated parts i got through ok and Crime and Punishment wasn't too hard at all to read and is my favorite of the three i have so far read.

[cafolini]

Joyce was so hard, so hard, that the shipment of his books to America had to be burned. As it usually happened with hard to read books to protect from hardness. LMAO. Otherwise it might have been too easy.

[mal4mac]

Ulysses is definitely top of my list of hard novels that I couldn't read. I've tried wading through it three times in the last thirty years, with no joy. The last time I'd read most of his earlier works, and the standard biography, but was still lost. (I really enjoyed "Dubliners" and "Portrait"... )

Why are you feeling sour? Some people think it's a 'must read' novel that tops their list, but you don't have to agree with them. Your 'world of literature' will not collapse if you can't read it, it's just a small corner, a hard rock climb... I prefer gentle strolling...

There are hundreds of other great novels, and, like me, you appear to be enjoying most of them. That's enough, surely? Why get sour because you don't like one or two on the list? As you like the Russians why not try Tolstoy and Chekhov? They are wonderful!

I liked Madame Bovary. But be careful of the French, Proust is another author I couldn't get a handle on, and Sartre is problematic...

[VERONIQUE]

Cafolini,the reason why Ulysses was banned was because it was judged to be obscene.Its not very hard to understand but it takes patience ,an open mind and a few handy reference notes etc.The one joyce book where he really went for it was Finnegans Wake which is like a dream within a dream within dream where the river of language meets the river of history and where the narrative is more like " sensed" music made of splicing different languages into together.

[Emil Miller]

Hello to all fellow Literature Network users.
This is my first time posting here (although I've been a silent observer for a long long time)

I find this matter an adequate one to break my LN forum virginity.

As you might guess, I love classic literature, I've become aware of this beautiful world from age 15 (I'm 21 now) and I've had the pleasure of delving into the works of giants such as Dickens, Twain, Alcott, Pushkin and (my favourite by far) Dostoevsky.

Therefore, knowing whole heartedly that I was up for a challenge, I decided to read the massive Ulysses, by James Joyce.

Man this book is hard!
I'm currently halfway through it, and I think I've bitten more than I can chew.
I believe, not unreasonably, that the time period differences and the MASSIVE cultural differences (I come from the other side of the world), make this book pretty much vastly uncomprehensible to me.
This has caused me sour feelings, but oh well... I'll survive.

Upcoming challenge: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

Just wanted to hear from you guys if there was any book that you felt pretty lost through.

Commiseration is bliss!

Not lost, but bored to distraction with Kafka's The Trial; it's one of the few books that I gave up on halfway through.
I have just finished reading Evelyn Waugh's complete short stories and wondering what I should read next. Perhaps I will pop along to Foyles in Charing X Road tomorrow and sort something out but it won't be anything by Joyce because I don't like unnecessarily obscurantist writers.

[Jack of Hearts]

The end of Steppenwolf. Wtf?

Madame Bovary isn't a hard book at all. Do yourself a favor and get a well regarded translation-- preferably something recent. This reader suggests Lydia Davis' translation...

because the quality of translation can make or break a reading experience, something this reader discovered after reading no less than six translations of Plato's dialogues; the newest translation in contemporary english was most clear and heartbreakingly beautiful.









J

[cafolini]

Cafolini,the reason why Ulysses was banned was because it was judged to be obscene.Its not very hard to understand but it takes patience ,an open mind and a few handy reference notes etc.The one joyce book where he really went for it was Finnegans Wake which is like a dream within a dream within dream where the river of language meets the river of history and where the narrative is more like " sensed" music made of splicing different languages into together.

In those days, they had obscenity coming in and out of their ears. They had so much to ban if that were the case. Joyce was banned because the book made a big, easy to read impact. So you are agreeing with the freaks that it was banned because of obscenity. LMAO.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I've never had any desire to read Ulysses.

[VERONIQUE]

cafolini, Ulysses was banned because it was the 1920s it was puritanism which ruled the law.Ulysses was proscecuted for obscenity.I did not say I agreed with this or give a damn either way but we are talking about the 20s here .Secondly it was banned for a while because a court case of pornography was brought against it not because it had a big easy to read impact,thats ridiculous and hilariour. Emil Miller ,you think Joyce is an unnecessarily obscurantist writer,? thats interesting and hes not, and Kafka is a very interesting sometimes difficult writer.I will probably leve this thread as some people here are not too educated and I dont like wasting mt time with morons.AND I am a writer as well by the way

[Emil Miller]

cafolini, Ulysses was banned because it was the 1920s it was puritanism which ruled the law.Ulysses was proscecuted for obscenity.I did not say I agreed with this or give a damn either way but we are talking about the 20s here .Secondly it was banned for a while because a court case of pornography was brought against it not because it had a big easy to read impact,thats ridiculous and hilariour. Emil Miller ,you think Joyce is an unnecessarily obscurantist writer,? thats interesting and hes not, and Kafka is a very interesting sometimes difficult writer.I will probably leve this thread as some people here are not too educated and I dont like wasting mt time with morons.AND I am a writer as well by the way

Well I know that Joyce's Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are said to be easier to read than Ulysses, but Finnegan's Wake is written in a deliberately obscure manner. I did not find The Trial difficult but, as I said, tedious, and because I was reading it in German it wasn't a case of poor translation that led me to that conclusion. I am also a writer and have written three novels and am considering a fourth.

[cafolini]

cafolini, Ulysses was banned because it was the 1920s it was puritanism which ruled the law.Ulysses was proscecuted for obscenity.I did not say I agreed with this or give a damn either way but we are talking about the 20s here .Secondly it was banned for a while because a court case of pornography was brought against it not because it had a big easy to read impact,thats ridiculous and hilariour. Emil Miller ,you think Joyce is an unnecessarily obscurantist writer,? thats interesting and hes not, and Kafka is a very interesting sometimes difficult writer.I will probably leve this thread as some people here are not too educated and I dont like wasting mt time with morons.AND I am a writer as well by the way

If you don't give a damn either way, why are you so interested in this. The rolling twenties were days of puritanism? LMAO. The shipment was burned upfront, not simply banned by a court decision that could be appealed. Also, there might be a lot of obscurantists in this forum, and many do not lack education and are not morons as you put it. And that you or Miller are writers remains to be shown.
"History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to wake up." J. Joyce, 1922. That's the subject of the book; a rich exploration of its dimensions. Puritanism didn't have a hold on the roaring tweties. Prohibitions came as maffia fights. Solong, time waster.

[Jack of Hearts]

Well I know that Joyce's Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are said to be easier to read than Ulysses, but Finnegan's Wake is written in a deliberately obscure manner. I did not find The Trial difficult but, as I said, tedious, and because I was reading it in German it wasn't a case of poor translation that led me to that conclusion. I am also a writer and have written three novels and am considering a fourth.

Dubliners is pretty straightforward reading for the most part. There are a few stories where a gnomon is at play, such as the masturbation scene in 'An Encounter' and pretty much the entire story 'Clay'; also, some of the stories are quite metaphorically dense, such as 'The Dead'. And of course the repeatedly utilised epiphany--

but they're perfectly clear, readable stories whether or not you understand these things. Dubliners is the best thing he wrote.

Jack of Hearts recommends:

'Araby'
'Eveline'
'The Dead'







J



EDIT: This poster used to have a short story based on 'Eveline' in the short story subforum, if any Joyce fans want to see somebody make a mess... go search.

[Desolation]

I love Ulysses - James Joyce is my biggest prose hero, but I think that you should toss it aside if you aren't enjoying it. This whole idea of "everybody-must-read" books is absurd. Read books that you enjoy or think you'll get something out of (or that have been assigned in a class), don't waste precious time with big tomes that other people have dubbed important.

[Emil Miller]

I love Ulysses - James Joyce is my biggest prose hero, but I think that you should toss it aside if you aren't enjoying it. This whole idea of "everybody-must-read" books is absurd. Read books that you enjoy or think you'll get something out of (or that have been assigned in a class), don't waste precious time with big tomes that other people have dubbed important.

The sound of a nail being hit squarely on the head.

[The Kid]

I've never read Ulysses, but I have read The Odyssey. Are there any similarities? (sorry if this is a stupid question). Based on these comments, I don't think I'll even attempt Joyce for a while.

[Charles Darnay]

The overarching structure of Ulysses is based on the Odyssey: where Odysseus' literal journey to find home is replaced by Bloom's metaphoric journey to find a home, being the epitome of "stranger in a strange land".

Ulysses is broken down into episodes, each episode loosely (sometimes really loosely) models an aspect of the Odyssey. The third episode, for example, is modeled after Proteus (who is briefly mentioned towards the beginning of the Odyssey. The reason for this this is because that particular part of Ulysses is, like Proteus, very changeable.

[FenwickS]

I think I can conclude this experience as a miscalculation, giving in to the urge of expanding my literary repertoire, as opposed to connecting and really feeling and enjoying the book (and oh! understanding it), cause hey! That's what it's all about!

I believe that being a classical literature lover is like being an opposite junkie: there are too many goods to explore, and that can drive one crazy!

But hey! I'd choose it anyday ;)

[mal4mac]

Cafolini,the reason why Ulysses was banned was because it was judged to be obscene.Its not very hard to understand but it takes patience ,an open mind and a few handy reference notes etc.

You're making it sound much easier than it is. Have you taken advanced university classes on Ulysses? If you have a really good knowledge of classical literature, a teacher, lots of time, a library of reference books to access, etc, then it may not be "very hard to understand"; in the way that an advanced Quantum Physics text is not very hard to understand for a dedicated, very able, student of physics, with lots of time & all the learning resources he or she requires.

[Desolation]

You're making it sound much easier than it is. Have you taken advanced university classes on Ulysses? If you have a really good knowledge of classical literature, a teacher, lots of time, a library of reference books to access, etc, then it may not be "very hard to understand"; in the way that an advanced Quantum Physics text is not very hard to understand for a dedicated, very able, student of physics, with lots of time & all the learning resources he or she requires.

If any of that were actually required to read Ulysses, then it would be a terrible book.

The novel can, and should, be read cold. Don't approach it like an academic or a scientist, it will ruin all the fun. Let the prose drift over you, experience it, don't get so caught up on pointing out all the references or what you don't understand. Save all that for the 3rd or 4th reading, if you like it enough to want to revisit it (as I do). It's challenging, but far from impenetrable, and it doesn't absolutely need anything to be read or enjoyed other than the text itself.

[mal4mac]

His work "portrait of an artist as a young man" is even worse, and I consider myself to be a decently intelligent human being, but to be honest, I don't know what the hell that book was about...

It's a portrait of an artist as a young man :)

I enjoyed reading it, although I gave up with Ulysses. I did need the excellent notes in the cheapo Wordsworth edition, though!

I was so impressed with that Wordsworth edition that I ran out and bought their version of Ulysses - and then found it had no notes (!) In retrospect I can't harangue them too much for this omission. I reckon you need several books longer than Ulysses to get you through Ulysses, or be able to take a larger dollops of perplexity in your reading than the average reader, or both, or the necessity of passing a course in it, or something else (?)

Has anyone read Ulysses without it being a course requirement? If so, did you enjoy it, or take it as a challenge you had to conquer (an Everest of literature...)

[mal4mac]

If any of that were actually required to read Ulysses, then it would be a terrible book.

The novel can, and should, be read cold. Don't approach it like an academic or a scientist, it will ruin all the fun. Let the prose drift over you, experience it, don't get so caught up on pointing out all the references or what you don't understand. Save all that for the 3rd or 4th reading, if you like it enough to want to revisit it (as I do). It's challenging, but far from impenetrable, and it doesn't absolutely need anything to be read or enjoyed other than the text itself.

I read for fun, certainly not as a scientist, I had enough of that in my day job, and certainly not as a literature academic, as I'm not one. I've tried reading it three times in as many decades, in the way you describe, and just ground to a halt. I have to understand a little of what's going on, I just don't find it pleasant or enlightening to let Joyce's prose drift over me. Maybe I'm tone deaf to Joyce, but I don't mind, most classic authors give me joy and there are plenty of classic authors.

I'd certainly recommend anyone having a crack at reading the novel, too many sensible people like yourself rate it highly; although, also, many sensible people do not. Just borrow it from the library...

After a reasonable bash (say forcing your way through fifty pages) give up, or not...

[WyattGwyon]

I read Ulysses last year, taking something like the relaxed approach Desolation suggests, and enjoyed it a lot. Had I read it as a youngster, as you have FenwickS, it is likely I would have stopped within the first 100 pages, because at that time I hadn't yet been exposed to novels that require rereading to fully appreciate. My original motivation was largely historical—I had been hearing for years that my favorite novel, Gaddis's The Recognitions, along with several others I love, couldn't have been written without the precedent of Ulysses—then I learned that Gaddis had only gotten to page 40 before putting it down. So, to further agree with Desolation: there are plenty of challenging novels you will like on first reading. Read those and then maybe come back later in life for Ulysses.

[mal4mac]

I agree that it's worth coming back to a novel at a later date for a second or third try. This worked for me with Don Quixote, but I think I'll have to wait for a later rebirth to "get" Ulysses...

[VERONIQUE]

Ulysses is a great book which is not that hard to understand given a decent IQ, Finnegans Wake is his really difficult work but you know he was not interested in writing Harry potter style for idiots? Dubliners is magnificent as is The Portrait" but these are beautiful conventionally narrated style masterpieces which use but do not extend the 19Th Century techniques as mastered by Dickens ,and the great French and Russian masters.Joyce wanted to go further and he did, along with Virginia Wolff ,PROUST ETC Yes he is pushing the reader to go beyond traditional methods which themselves were artificial devices and conventions of fiction.Go back to Joyce but dont stop at Dubliners or A portrait of the artist as a young man" for the artist wh was joyce matured into the great man of modernism who wrote Ulysses and Finnegan Wake

[VERONIQUE]

mal4mac, did you know that Joyce actually was involved with Quantum Theory,, Quarks THE SUB ATOMIC PARTICLE FOUND IN THE SIXTIEScome from Finnegans Wake, and were given that name by Murray Gellman scientist and Joyce freak.
Richard feynman suggested "PARTONS" the great american scientist,he also said that he didnt understand quantum physics himself.

[TenderButtons]

Hmm. Never read it...is it supposed to be understood? Or experienced? Many people find things difficult when they can't savor the experience.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I love Ulysses - James Joyce is my biggest prose hero, but I think that you should toss it aside if you aren't enjoying it. This whole idea of "everybody-must-read" books is absurd. Read books that you enjoy or think you'll get something out of (or that have been assigned in a class), don't waste precious time with big tomes that other people have dubbed important.
This, this, this.

I attempted to read Ulysses a few years ago and failed in my attempt. I'll get back to it, eventually.


Ulysses is a great book which is not that hard to understand given a decent IQ, Finnegans Wake is his really difficult work but you know he was not interested in writing Harry potter style for idiots?
You should check out the current thread on snobbishness...

[mal4mac]

Ulysses is a great book which is not that hard to understand given a decent IQ...

I think motivation and/or attitude is more important than IQ; you need to have a lot of patience to look up those obscure references to Dublin, Catholicism, Irish politics, etc... Or you need to take the view that understanding everything isn't so important, just let it wash over you, and take in any pretty flotsam that jams up in your brain. (I can't take that approach, and enjoy the experience ... Desolation seems to be able to ... I don't think it's to do with his IQ being greater than mine, though it might be... his OQ is obviously much higher - the Obscurity Quotient is a measure of you ability to withstand living with obscurity.

I don't think you can say Joyce went further into greatness than Dickens, Shakespeare or Tolstoy. Further into obscurity, certainly... maybe a good thing, maybe not... it seems to entertain a lot of people.. so probably a good thing... but it also upsets people like the OP, so they need to know that Joyce is a strange walk into a very strange (possibly great) wilderness... but you don't have to go there to be a lover of literature.

[Desolation]

That's an excellent way of putting it, mal.

Reading Ulysses doesn't make you smarter than anyone (I'm certainly not smarter than anyone here, not by a long shot). That's ridiculous. Everyone has their own personal aesthetic that affects the way they approach and enjoy a work. I like it weird and obscure - Joyce speaks to me, while I find Dickens, or Homer himself, incredibly difficult. A reader doesn't have to enjoy/understand anything, be it Joyce or Flaubert or Shakespeare (though, you probably do have to read Shakespeare), to be a lover of literature anymore than anyone has to enjoy Public Enemy or Mozart to be a music lover. People are different, and nuanced...It's not so simple as saying "If you're smart, you'll enjoy X."

Also, I might have to steal your "OQ" concept.

[Jackson Richardson]

I struggled with it to the end. The difficulty is principally, as I remember, Joyce is trying to convey the way people think and experience reality in their minds. We don't think in grammatical sentence and all sorts of recollections come into our mind.

I'm probably the only person who got all the Gilbert and Sullivan references in Ulysses, and I was amused to spot them.

[mal4mac]

Everyone knows that people do not think in grammatical sentences, and all sort of strange associations are made. But do I need to peruse the confusing, random perambulations of Joyce's mind to realise this? I just need to peruse the random fluctuations of my own mind to see this in action! And I wouldn't want to impose my obscurities on anyone else.

I guess I just like more order in my literature than Joyce's fans. That said, it's certainly a valid exercise to try and capture a stream of consciousness. But, like rugby, it's not an exercise I wish to pursue myself, but fair wind to Joycean fly halfs... each to his own game...

P.S., I do not like Gilbert & Sullivan, yet another reason for me not to read the book!

[mal4mac]

I'm certainly not smarter than anyone here, not by a long shot.

Humility is a nice attribute, but don't take it too far... :)


Also, I might have to steal your "OQ" concept.

Feel free, who said minor artists borrow, great artists steal?

[AuntShecky]

I wrote a response, including quoted replies, but the cyberpunk gremlins snatched it out from under me! Before it was all gone, I said that the landmark court case lifting the ban on Ulysses on December 6, 1933 can be found in the front of any Vintage edition of that book. Also (shameless plug!) I said once again that cries of obscenity, political incorrectness, and any other seemingly offensive aspect of a book may be a pretext or disguise for reader resentment-- why? Because the work's inherent excellence makes
it difficult-- of "hard,"the very same question the original poster asked. For more on this topic, please refer to this link:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?59356-Railing-at-Greatness-Why-Critics-Educators-and-Readers-are-so-Touchy-These-Days&highlight=Railing%20Greatness

[Jackson Richardson]

mal6mac - I far rather read Edward Gibbon for his prose style rather than Joyce. I'm not a great fan of Joyce, I was just trying to indicate what he was about.

I "did" Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for A level, and didn't like the character of Stephen Dedelaus at all - he's an insufferable prig and like a number of other lapsed Roman Catholics I've known, has a nasty sense of superiority.

Since Dedelaus is based on Joyce himself, I'm not sympathetic.

I'll say this for Ulysses - it a modernist masterpiece with a very modest bloke - Bloom - at its centre, which makes a nice change from Mrs Dalloway and the like.

[mal4mac]

I'll say this for Ulysses - it a modernist masterpiece with a very modest bloke - Bloom - at its centre, which makes a nice change from Mrs Dalloway and the like.

I'm very attracted by the everyman character of Bloom, which is probably the main reason I tried so hard to read the book. Maybe I'm too much like Bloom? I wish. A famous critic, I forget who, said that Joyce had created a superb main character but one who could never, and would never, attempt to read a book like Ulysses.

[Jackson Richardson]

A famous critic, I forget who, said that Joyce had created a superb main character but one who could never, and would never, attempt to read a book like Ulysses.

That's rather good.

[mona amon]

I'm very attracted by the everyman character of Bloom, which is probably the main reason I tried so hard to read the book. Maybe I'm too much like Bloom? I wish. A famous critic, I forget who, said that Joyce had created a superb main character but one who could never, and would never, attempt to read a book like Ulysses.

Love Bloom! One of my all time favourite characters. I think he'd definitely have tried to read it - doggedly, looking up every other phrase, LOL. He's always trying to understand and analyse stuff in a pseudo-scientific way.

[manuscript]

my mother bought Ulysses for me when i was 20 and i started it several times when i was younger but this year i finally read it. at the start of the year i read a third of it then i put it away and i read the rest of it in september and october while i also read other books that were easier and more enjoyable reading like some austen and wharton and i think some genre fiction. it is definitely the most challenging thing i have ever read and probably the most rewarding. partly because i wanted to show myself that i could do it, and because i was proud of what i achieved, but even more so because of all of the ideas that at times transported me completely. i think it is meaningful what Desolation says about letting it wash over you. i think it is very natural to feel frustrated about not understanding many details but there are reasons why you have to be OK with not understanding those details. the most obvious reason is because Joyce intended for this book to puzzle university staff level readers, but what this also means is that he does not actually intend for readers to understand everything. we have to keep in mind, that he was an extremely intelligent person, and like any very serious literary author he was writing to posterity, and he understood that all of his contemporary references would become less important with time. what you have to think is, what are the basic things that are going on in this, who are the major players and what are they more or less doing or discussing, what does it mean that the narration is in the style of middle english or the imagined fluid voice of a woman, and so on - and if you can do those sorts of things, which are the basic elements of reading any book at all, you will learn some of the most important things that Joyce really wanted to convey. if like Desolation says we really want to understand the details then we can go back 3 or 4 times.

it seems like a good annotated edition is necessary because sometimes it is just very hard to tell what is going on. but do not get the penguin annotated students edition i had, you will regret it, because it is rubbish. shop around and look at reviews, there must be better annotated editions out there. did norton ever do one, because normally i found their editions pretty robust.

i have got to say something that is important to me, a little theory of mine. that the reason i think that Ulysses is really so difficult to read is not because of all the references to little early 20th century cultural details, or because parts of it are in other languages, but because the language in which it is mostly written is just very uncompromising and pure literary english, with no concessions to readability or prescriptive style. reading this is a great opportunity for picking up a few things about our language. that is just a kind of a slightly silly little idea of mine though.

[ennison]

Is there a reason why being "difficult to read" equates in some people's heads with being a "great book"? Hmm. the jury is still out on Joyce as a great writer, very clever yes, dashed odd - definitely. "Finnegan's Wake" is one of those books that life is too short for. That's why it'll always be a text more often spoken of than actually read.

[mal4mac]

it seems like a good annotated edition is necessary because sometimes it is just very hard to tell what is going on. but do not get the penguin annotated students edition i had, you will regret it, because it is rubbish. shop around and look at reviews, there must be better annotated editions out there. did norton ever do one, because normally i found their editions pretty robust.


I agree that Penguin isn't up to much, I don't like the Oxford World Classics Edition either. Those are the only annotated editions I know of. I found they didn't explain some of the most bemusing things, and over-explained in other places. And that's just in the first fifty pages after which I gave up... There are whole books of annotation longer than Ulysses itself, I looked at these using "Google books" and "Amazon look Inside". They suffered from the same problems as the annotated versions. I think Manuscript is right when he says Ulysses was meant to be a puzzle to academics, one they obviously haven't cracked, at least not in a way to help the common reader looking for "full understanding".

[manuscript]

I agree that Penguin isn't up to much, I don't like the Oxford World Classics Edition either. Those are the only annotated editions I know of. I found they didn't explain some of the most bemusing things, and over-explained in other places. And that's just in the first fifty pages after which I gave up... There are whole books of annotation longer than Ulysses itself, I looked at these using "Google books" and "Amazon look Inside". They suffered from the same problems as the annotated versions. I think Manuscript is right when he says Ulysses was meant to be a puzzle to academics, one they obviously haven't cracked, at least not in a way to help the common reader looking for "full understanding".

i agree very much with what you wrote about explanations being excessive or omitted. i began with a great deal of faith in the annotations and became increasingly frustrated and annoyed, it was only in the last few chapters that i gave up on them. it was as though the editor had been driven mad by the text to the point of becoming completely detached from the reality of its relationship to a genuine audience. i am sorry to hear it about oxford world classics as i have been going through a love relationship with those editions, but i guess it was only a matter of time. you know what you are talking about and i will be the first to buy a copy of your edition! :-)

[Anton Hermes]

The novel can, and should, be read cold. Don't approach it like an academic or a scientist, it will ruin all the fun.
Read whatever you like however you like, but part of the fun of reading such an erudite work is being able to engage with it on an intellectual level. It's like reading the score of a musical composition: it's not necessary, but it's certainly a valid approach to appreciation. I didn't have to have a degree or a library of reference works to read Ulysses (I only used Blamires' Bloomsday Book), but knowing the background and getting the context of the allusions really helped me enjoy the work. The same goes for Finnegans Wake, which I greatly enjoyed reading.


the jury is still out on Joyce as a great writer

No it ain't.

[ennison]

Ah you are correct ere they come now, trooping on with the verdict. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! That's him condemned then to be endlessly analysed in academia. Along the lines of What does he mean? And Ain't he clever? With old JJ more meant less. Once as a youngster (Ever sooo long ago when I was even younger than I am now) I was reading Ulysses when over my shoulder came the voice of Mr Fleck my History teacher "What are you doing reading that pornographic tome boy!" I was surprised to discover that the incomprehensible prolixity before me was pornography. Needless to say I was determined to find, that very evening, the dirty bits and I did. But they were merely grubby. Which is what Joyce himself was - grubby. Clever talented but very grubby. If he had just written "Dubliners" , "Stephen Hero" and "Portrait of The Artist..." I'd probably agree with that jury but someone told the sod he could write and he went and believed it!

[FenwickS]

Ah you are correct ere they come now, trooping on with the verdict. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! That's him condemned then to be endlessly analysed in academia. Along the lines of What does he mean? And Ain't he clever? With old JJ more meant less. Once as a youngster (Ever sooo long ago when I was even younger than I am now) I was reading Ulysses when over my shoulder came the voice of Mr Fleck my History teacher "What are you doing reading that pornographic tome boy!" I was surprised to discover that the incomprehensible prolixity before me was pornography. Needless to say I was determined to find, that very evening, the dirty bits and I did. But they were merely grubby. Which is what Joyce himself was - grubby. Clever talented but very grubby. If he had just written "Dubliners" , "Stephen Hero" and "Portrait of The Artist..." I'd probably agree with that jury but someone told the sod he could write and he went and believed it!

Extremely well put.

As luck has it my first Joyce attempt has drained all my mental capacities, and I do not think that I'll return to Joyce's other works for a long, long time. A shame for I understand his others might be more enjoyable (and legible) to me.

For me, like high school you, it took a while to understand how naughty (or in your words which I shall borrow, grubby) this book is, but being it such a challenge, I quite enjoy that aspect of it.

You must err in order to grow! Different strokes for different folks! and so on and so forth!

[mal4mac]

i agree very much with what you wrote about explanations being excessive or omitted. i began with a great deal of faith in the annotations and became increasingly frustrated and annoyed, it was only in the last few chapters that i gave up on them.

Why did you use the annotations in the first place? I used them because I was annoyed and frustrated by the book itself... mainly because of not understanding much of anything. But, like you, I was annoyed and frustrated by the annotations that left me annoyed and frustrated whatever I did. So why read it? Maybe it requires faith, faith in the "God of Modernism". But I don't have that, and I don't see how to get it, and have no desire to get it...



it was as though the editor had been driven mad by the text to the point of becoming completely detached from the reality of its relationship to a genuine audience. i am sorry to hear it about oxford world classics as i have been going through a love relationship with those editions, but i guess it was only a matter of time.


Yes! And the Oxford felt exactly the same, and the print size was awful, plus I was very doubtful about the edition they used... (a whole other barrel of worms...) I'm not that impressed by Oxford World Classics, like Penguin they are over-priced given the inferior paper quality... British publishers don't use acid free paper... I'd always go for an American publisher, Everyman hardback, or Wordsworth before considering Oxford or Penguin. I did get the Oxford Dr Johnson because it seemed comprehensive, but they'd left out a lot of the good stuff and filled the first couple of hundred pages with tedious juvenalia. So I'm incredibly careful about buying Oxford...

[manuscript]

Why did you use the annotations in the first place? I used them because I was annoyed and frustrated by the book itself... mainly because of not understanding much of anything. But, like you, I was annoyed and frustrated by the annotations that left me annoyed and frustrated whatever I did. So why read it? Maybe it requires faith, faith in the "God of Modernism". But I don't have that, and I don't see how to get it, and have no desire to get it...

yes, i too used them because i found it very difficult to understand what was happening in the book on a basic level, but also i think because i knew i would not know what to look for in terms of more abstract themes otherwise, i needed signposts. i find the way you describe the cycle of frustration quite accurate. sometimes the annotations were useful and so i tried to focus on those that were. but yeah, when i did not find them useful i regularly found myself flinging the book across the room in all helpless rage. even unable to take it up again for sometimes up to a week.

i read it because i had to know what it would mean to read it or what reading it could give me. i have sometimes done the most stupid and unnecessary extreme things in my life just because i had to know what those experiences would mean. whether insecurity or curiosity drives my addiction to getting knowledge or something else i am not sure. (i am sure that much of the knowledge i have gotten is ridiculous or useless.) but at least in the case of Ulysses i think it was worth it for me.


Yes! And the Oxford felt exactly the same, and the print size was awful, plus I was very doubtful about the edition they used... (a whole other barrel of worms...) I'm not that impressed by Oxford World Classics, like Penguin they are over-priced given the inferior paper quality... British publishers don't use acid free paper... I'd always go for an American publisher, Everyman hardback, or Wordsworth before considering Oxford or Penguin. I did get the Oxford Dr Johnson because it seemed comprehensive, but they'd left out a lot of the good stuff and filled the first couple of hundred pages with tedious juvenalia. So I'm incredibly careful about buying Oxford...

hahaha. what you write makes me realise how much my preferences have been based on irrational prejudices deriving from product branding.

sorry i did not respond earlier but i had not seen your message. i actually came back to this thread just now (glad i did) to write something further specific i had been thinking about the penguin edition. that it described Molly's chapter as existing in order to complete all of the perspectives on Bloom. even at the time that sounded silly to me because i found the final chapter so especially brilliant and interesting, almost magical after the rest of the book in the way it dealt with reality. then i read something today somewhere else about the concern Ulysses as a novel has with transposition or flow of knowledge across people and i realised why it seemed so silly to me. the editor seems obsessed with the idea of Bloom as a center of knowledge, to the point of subsuming other characters entirely to this quest for knowledge about Bloom, rather than reading them as something more interesting, such as figures in a narrative progression concerned with thought itself. why not see Molly's final word as being the final word on the ideas developed through the book, rather than just the final word on Bloom, when ideas rather than personality seem so obviously to be the book's concern? (i hope this doesnt sound too crazed, i just felt the need to write about it.)

[maxphisher]

Manuscript, I'll try to offer a short explanation as to why, for one reading of the novel, it is important to consider Molly as an extension of Bloom. Much of Ulysses is about personal consciousness, and Joyce realized, much as Carl Jung did, that part of understanding one's conscience is understanding the part of it that is buried or sub-conscious. One of Joyce's main goals was to create a "whole character"; he felt, to a certain degree, that the only whole character in literature was Hamlet. The result, of course, is that Bloom cannot be fully understood without both Stephen and Molly; likewise, he cannot fully understand himself without considering his relationships with every other character with whom he interacts. This is one of the motifs that creates the transition to Finnegans Wake. HCE (Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker or "Here Comes Everyone") is, in many ways, the next step in Joyce's analysis of the individual and his/her place in the totality of human existence. Another way to look at the subject is to consider "metempsychosis," the concept that Bloom and Molly discuss repeatedly in Ulysses. On the surface level, it is synonymous with reincarnation, but Joyce takes it further and explores different levels of the "transmigration of the soul." Understanding of different individuals allows his characters to "absorb" parts of them or "transfer" parts of themselves (ideas, feelings, consciousnesses, concepts, facts, histories, ambitions, understandings, etc) into others. This is essentially what happens as we experience new people, places, and beliefs; we learn. But, what Joyce is questioning is how we consciously utilize those interactions. How a character like Bloom changes and grows with each interaction is one of the major themes of the book. Likewise, there are many aspects of Joyce in both Stephen and Bloom. In short, Bloom could theoretically not exist unless Stephen had existed because he is, in many ways, a later version of Bloom, just as Stephen is an earlier version... that Stephen/Bloom combination still, however, room to progress, grow, and evolve. HCE (Finnegan's Wake) could technically not exist without the previous Stephen > Bloom > Molly process...

[maxphisher]

Just reread my post, and I hope the "I'll try to offer a short explanation" part didn't sound snooty and condescending. I really did just mean that I hoped I would be able to provide a short, coherent explanation. Ha ha ha.

[vaarl69]

What do you mean by "cultural difference"? where are you from? A book like this has to be studied not read like we would normally read a book. I began reading it as if I were studying it for a degree course, making notes etc research.

[Jackson Richardson]

What do you mean by "cultural difference"? where are you from? A book like this has to be studied not read like we would normally read a book. I began reading it as if I were studying it for a degree course, making notes etc research.

You make it sound just like a sacred scripture. Maybe Joyce intended it that way, but he sure as hell didn't write it to only studied academically.

[ashulman]

Ulysses is one of my favorite books, but not because I understand it. I just delight in the writing, the festival of words. There are plenty of resources to guide you through following his model (The Odyssey).