The reading becomes easer after the first section. Or maybe I'm getting use to the style.
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The reading becomes easer after the first section. Or maybe I'm getting use to the style.
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.
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.
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.
I'm in - I need the motivation too. But how is this going to work?
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!
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...
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.
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Jonathas
Here's the download link for Ulysses Annotated...
It will help you a lot!
http://rapidshare.com/files/18083890..._Annotated.pdf (31 mb)
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