Ulysses wreck !!

Hello friends


I just put away Joyce's Ulysses yesterday due to my having found it utterly unenjoyable. Not being the sort of reader that enjoys researching a different symbolism every two lines just for the pleasure of it, the book didn't speak to me.

Some claim it to be a readable novel, even some friends that like myself didn't research every minor symbol in it. But what is the key?

Symbolic books are interesting to me when their symbolisms serve a purpose in the greater view of things. Ulysses is in my opinion saturated in this sense.

How can I re-approach the book and actually enjoy it?

read cliffnotes or wikipedia. ;)

lol.....yeah, what eap says....or...trying sipping some Irish whisky when you pick it up next time, soften the blow a little.......surely it can't hurt. Joyce's Ulysses is saturated with symbolism, so thick at times as to be an impedement to enjoying the work. Good luck with it, perhaps the second time around you'll be absolutely absorbed by it instead of frustrated......it could happen.

Thanks, I already tried using a summary to orient myself a bit. It did help quite a bit, so your advice is very much to the point. The book shall remain on the shelf for a while though.

The puzzling thing is that I really enjoyed Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. They were definitely not saturated with symbolism, rather readable and humorous.

Rod