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i was speaking with a gentleman on the trian who was reading ulysses and said he was strugling, was near the end but hadn't a clue what was going on. i tried to read it a couple of years ago but felt like it wasn't going anywhere and decided i had better books to read. he said he was just going to finish it for bragging rights, haha. anyone actualy read it?
Yes I do think Joyce is a genius. Do I think Ulysses is the greatest novel ever? No. I can't stand when some people make that claim. But it is damn good.
It may not be the greatest novel ever, but it is unique and pioneeringly important on so many levels that it well-deserves the title.
The gentleman on the train might have a better understanding if he were to consult one of the many expositions of Ulysses. I found Stuart Gilbert of great help:
Gilbert, Stuart. James Joyce's Ulysses. New York: Vintage Books, 1955.
I have enjoyed some of Joyce's writing, but I don't think that he was especially great. What made him different and worth paying attentionto was the way that he related things in both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
The supplementals don't help. I give this book a shot every couple of years, bending over backwards in some sort of masochistic effort to be fair and open minded. Every time I read an essay on Ulysses or the Cliff Notes, or a book of criticism to try and get a better handle on it, I think I understand what should be going on, but then I go back to the book and it's complete gibberish. The book everyone's describing sure sounds nice, but it's not the one I've been reading.
I can see why somebody would like a James Patterson novel or a harlequin romance. That's just bad taste. But it's comprehensible and human. You can see where they fall short and with a few changes bad literature can become good literature. As for Ulysses, I don't think that's even English. I don't think people are really even capable of enjoying that book no matter what they do. Homo sapiens just aren't hardwired for that kind of garbage.
If somebody tells me they liked it, I have to assume a)they're lying. Either they are pretentious navel gazers who want to sound intelligent, or they are so bitter after reading this book that they want others to share their pain in a sort of vindictive conspiracy. Or maybe b)they're all brainwashed, like in one of those sick Charley Manson style cults. They aren't right in the head. They enjoy pain. And possibly c)they haven't really read the book. They're just saying what they've heard other people say about it.
Everyone who claims to like this book say that they like it for its originality. Yes, that is fair. That is an excellent assessment. Other books which came before it were good, and this is completely different from all of those. No author who's ever written a worthwhile book has written anything even remotely like it.
I cannot express in English how much I dislike this book. Perhaps, if I were writing in whatever nonsense language Joyce wrote his novels in they'd have a word for it. In conclusion, I think this book was sent by the devil himself to destroy mankind. It's a black hole from which light and joy cannot escape, a blight on the land, a splinter in your mind, a place where dreams turn to ash and sorrow loses all meaning. It's a golem. It's a frankenstein. It's the boogieman. It'll come in the night, rip your children from their beds, and eat them! Lord have mercy. Protect us from this unholy thing.
Yes that was a damn good book. not alot of people could get into the concept of what was going on, but if you take the time to slow down and actually read it the book is very very simple.
I struggled but I loved almost every part of it. Best book ever? I don't any book deserves the title but Ulysses is as worthy as any other.
hi everybody...
I am actually reading right now " A portrait of the artist as a young man" and I think , although it's really damn innovative....it's too philosophical for my taste.....Maybe I am just too narrow minded to grasp the novel's full significance....but I am at the end and already pretty annoyed by Stephen Dedalus...the protagonist of the story...
Has anybody just read that book? and could possibly give me some tips? :)
bye :)
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Originally Posted by jgweed
I am just as the gentlemen on the train hahahhaha :p no ... hopefully not....but I need some further reading as well to understand fully ( if that's possible) Joyce's thoughts....:sick: :D :) :p
do you have any more expert opinions? perhaps (maybe?) you could, er, elaborate on why joyce isn't "especially great" and how he "related things" (what does that mean?!) in ulysses and fw?Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
What JJ did & what his literary deeds changed easily (EASILY!) surpasses the achievements of most 20th century writers -- both ulysses & finnegans wake, like 'em or not, are p'haps the most influential novels written in the century (perhaps, even, since cervantes or shak-es-peare).
no writer, living or dead, has given as much insight into the mind or man's consciousness as jj did in ulysses (again, like it or not).
I think the first time he used the stream of consciousness was in the novel I am struggling with......and yes....you gain an access to the person's innermost feelings and consciousness in a way no other narrator would have managed to provide us....
I suppose that I could find expert opinions on either side of the question, but is that's what you want, then why don't you look for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by a lost weekend
That's a rather extreme opinion. I don't agree with you, but I wonder why you might think that. He may have shown off his sort of consciousness, but I don't think that it is as universal as you make Ulysses out to be. For fiction that is more universal about human thinkng, then I think that Umberto Eco's novels [Foucault's Pendulum[/i] and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana would better fit the bill.Quote:
no writer, living or dead, has given as much insight into the mind or man's consciousness as jj did in ulysses (again, like it or not).
What does that have to do with literature? He's a writer not a psychologist. It's these irrational statements about Joyce that make me puke. He was definitely innovative but frankly to me his works are so analytical they many times lack the flesh and blood of humanity. And one cannot say that about Cervantes or Shakespeare.Quote:
Originally Posted by a lost weekend
What does that have to do with literature? He's a writer not a psychologist. It's these irrational statements about Joyce that make me puke. He was definitely innovative but frankly to me his works are so analytical they many times lack the flesh and blood of humanity. And one cannot say that about Cervantes or Shakespeare.
I must agree with Virgil. I do think that Joyce was probably a great writer. His works are surely among the most influential of the 20th century... and yes I did like Ulysses... it wasn't my favorite... but I did very much like it... and actually loved certain sections. But again I agree with Virgil... I have the feeling that Joyce suffered from a great deal of the same failings that a good portion of high modernist art in general suffered from: so much effort put in toward innovation... intellectual mind games... that it does lack something of the flesh and blood of humanity. I sense this often in Pound... but not in Yeats. I get it in Schoenberg and even a good deal of Stravinsky... and certainly in Malevich or Mondrian. Personally... I far prefer Proust to Joyce... and if I want the sort of literature that challenges the very nature of what literature is... I''' more likely look to Borges or Lawrence Sterne.
He was a genius in terms of form. His style in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake is brilliant. I can't say it is reading for everyone, but it is simply fun just to read Finnegans Wake out loud to oneself and feast on the language (the words actually form accents of different nationalities while still being pseudo-English).
Of course, he is not easy, and not very accessible, but even if you only read portions of Ulysses, or his earlier works, you can feel the enormous scope of his style. Even if you only read Penelope from Ulysses, you can still feel an overwhelming sense of depth, style, and brilliance.
Without being able intelligently to talk about the book, what's to brag about?Quote:
Originally Posted by jikan myshkin
For one reason or another, when I encounter the word 'genius,' the image that comes to mind is that of an individual. So, on the basis of Finnegans Wake - a book the production of which I'm given to believe involved a great deal of hired help - I wouldn't call him that. However, based on what I've read of Ulysses (roughly half, all told), perhaps...
Very true.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI