Happy Bloomsday, everyone!

So it’s June 16, does anyone else recognize what day this is?

It may not seem like an important date, in fact, nothing extraordinary happened on this day at all, but June 16, 1904 was the date chosen by James Joyce as the setting for his penultimate novel, Ulysses.

A novel infamous for its difficulty and obscenity while also being praised as the greatest novel of the 20th century, Ulysses has been one of the most controversial books since its publication in 1922.

In the simplest explanation, Ulysses is about a single day in the life of three characters in Dublin, Ireland and the story takes inspiration from Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.

Personally, it’s one of my favorite books. I think the characters of Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom, and Stephan Dedalus are three of the most human and interesting characters in all of literature. Joyce also writes some of the most beautiful prose I’ve had the pleasure of reading and I think Ulysses is one of the greatest celebrations of life to ever be written.

So what do you think? Love it? Hate it?! Been planning to read it after you've read just one more book to prepare yourself? Reread it 6 times and still can't get enough? Couldn't finish the first fifty pages? Well, all are welcome to discuss it in this thread!

(I think this is also my first post here, I hope nobody minds...)

Yeah I try to read more books before reading it :)
I hope I can read it this summer, I will start but I don't know If I can finish it

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Originally Posted by Atari

Been planning to read it after you've read just one more book to prepare yourself?

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I'm caught in that never ending loop! In the last few years I've read most of Shakespeare, Dante, "Portrait", Ellmann's biography, "Ulysses and Us", and more, but I haven't quite brought myself to try and read Ulysses again. Recently, I've started allowing myself to read an easier novel first, then another one, then another one, then...

Hmmm. Maybe I should start today. I'll try alternating my "get outs" with Ulysses... Happy Bloomsday!

Well, I plan to read it this year hopefully. I have read some of its extract in my school. But I think I should first read Joyce's 'The portrait of An Artist as A Young Man'. What do you think? Should I give Ulysses a try first or should I go with The Portrait?

aliengirl: suggest you try Portrait first, then Dubliners, then Ulysses.

Anybody struggling with Ulysses might find James Joyce's Ulysses - a Study by Stuart Gilbert a useful handbook. I think it is out of print but a library may have a copy. It's such a complex novel, I cannot imagine anyone absorbing all its references on a first or even a second reading without a little help with the background mythology etc., even coming to it with a solid Classical background. It's the sort of book you really nees a handbook alongside to appreciate its many layers.

Oh, yes, and Happy Bloomsday, everyone - one year I'm going to make it to Dublin for the celebrations I understand take place there.

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Originally Posted by kasie

aliengirl: suggest you try Portrait first, then Dubliners, then Ulysses.

Anybody struggling with Ulysses might find James Joyce's Ulysses - a Study by Stuart Gilbert a useful handbook.

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Dubliners is earlier and easier than Portrait, I would start with that. I read Portrait at the same time as Ellmann's biography, which was fascinating as Portrait is almost an autobiography.

Gilbert is in print, and a very reasonable price! I almost bought a copy, but the Oxford World Classics version has lost of notes so I'll see if I can get on with that first. (Avoid Penguin and Wordsworth! Neither has notes... although the Wordsworth "Portrait" does, I'd highly recommend that...)

mal4mac - if you enjoyed Portrait as a quasi-autobiography, you may enjoy what remains of Stephen Hero. It's an interesting read for comparative purposes, if only to see how Joyce's style developed as he tried to 'refine the author out of existence', as he put it.

Hey thanks for the reminder! Happy Bloomsday! :)


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happy bloomsday! Time to wrap up my third read of the book...I've been slacking!

Indeed. I always put aside my other readings to accommodate for an almost anual reading of Ulysses.

Happy Bloomsday!! Too bad I'm too busy reading Gravity's Rainbow to celebrate the great modernist novel Ulysses. Here's an Irish ale to you James Joyce! Thanks for writing a novel that became the greatest reading experience of my life!

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BLAHHH....

Although I'm a university english student, I've never seen the attraction of
Ulysses:The longest sentence in english literature.

I decided to spend the day with Ulysses! But I've ground to a halt. It's just too difficult! Take a paragraph on p.39 (Wordsworth edition) when Joyce is remembering his Paris days (I think!) It starts "Noon slumbers...." Here's my stream of consciousness while reading it:

"Who's Kevin Egan? What's a Green Fairy? (Absinthe? Must be! Aren't I clever knowing that.) What's a white fairy? (another kind of Absinthe? Ho hum I'll just guess it is. I'm sick of googling obscurities) Who's Patrice? Who are these people? Why doesn't Joyce tell us?

[Side thought - It's part of the 'oh so clever' modernist approach. But John Carey says the modernists did this kind of thing so 'the mass' couldn't read their works, and then they could act all superior to the mass. Do I want to take part in such an elitist game?]

But Joyce writes some beautiful epiphanies. There was one ten pages back. Even Carey admits he could write some beautiful prose. But all this obfuscating detail is boring and infuriating.

What's 'un demi seitier'? Why can't he stick to English? Slainte? Who's Arthur Griffith? Millevoye? Faure? Obscure Irish & French history not explained? Who's Drummoint? Maud Gonne? (I vaguely remember her - Ellmann mentioned her. Rats I took Ellmann back to the library.)

And that's just one paragraph. There's one like it on almost every page. You can see why the detailed commentaries are much longer than the book. They are also necessary - the notes provided by Oxford, penguin and Wordsworth just don't hack it. You need the weighty doorstops to get anywhere. But they are as interesting as reading the phone book.

I think I'll give up permanently. I could be reading Twain or Dickens rather than scholastic doorstops and Joycean obfuscation. That seems like much more fun to me. For hard intellectual work I can read Nussbaum - her "Therapy of Desire" was a breeze compared to Ulysses, and every page of that work had an impact on my 'philosophy of life', something I definitely can't say about Ulysses.

Ulysses now sits on my self next to the Bible as an "unreadable classic". Having finished the major works of Montaigne, Cervantes, Homer, Tolstoy, I don't usually give up on heavyweight classics. I'm plodding happily, if slowly, through Dante & Shakespeare. In fact, I will be returning to Dante tonight as light relief from Joyce.

Ulysses now joins the Bible as one of only two classics I will definitely not be taking to that desert island. (I think Proust might join them, I was planning another attempt, but I might not bother... Joyce has cured me of "classic completism".)

Bloomsday is over. Failed yet again, failed better.

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And that's just one paragraph. There's one like it on almost every page. You can see why the detailed commentaries are much longer than the book. They are also necessary - the notes provided by Oxford, penguin and Wordsworth just don't hack it. You need the weighty doorstops to get anywhere. But they are as interesting as reading the phone book.

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Haha, I loved the parody, very well done! While Leopold’s point of view does dominate most of the novel, I find his parts to be rather easy going in comparison to the later third person narration where Joyce gets absurdly wacky. I think the trick is to not let yourself get stuck on the details; you won’t get everything, not a chance, so just let the things you’re missing slip by and maybe the next paragraph will have some clever joke or insight. I honestly know almost nothing about Irish folklore, but still could enjoy the chapter where Joyce parodies it with mock epic accounts of mundane things. I thought notes would be necessary too, but a fourth of the way through I dropped them. I wasn’t getting any additional enjoyment from them. I still used them for the foreign phrases though.

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I think I'll give up permanently. I could be reading Twain or Dickens rather than scholastic doorstops and Joycean obfuscation. That seems like much more fun to me. For hard intellectual work I can read Nussbaum - her "Therapy of Desire" was a breeze compared to Ulysses, and every page of that work had an impact on my 'philosophy of life', something I definitely can't say about Ulysses.

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Well, perhaps we’re just diametrically polar, as I can’t stand Dickens and for the life of me can’t get past fifty pages of Great Expectations or David Copperfield. Talk about doorstops, I always felt Dickens just filled pages with useless details to get a high page count. And while I don’t think Ulysses is a book that strives to make a huge impact on your daily life, I do think there is something to take away from it in the end.

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Ulysses now sits on my self next to the Bible as an "unreadable classic". Having finished the major works of Montaigne, Cervantes, Homer, Tolstoy, I don't usually give up on heavyweight classics. I'm plodding happily, if slowly, through Dante & Shakespeare. In fact, I will be returning to Dante tonight as light relief from Joyce.

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Well, you seem much more well read than I am, as Homer, Shakespeare and Dante are the only one I truly delved into and enjoyed from those authors. In some ways, I think my inexperience with the Big, Important Classics was an aid to me in enjoying Ulysses. Maybe because I read it when I was young, I could just be taken along with the flow and not be bogged down by the “significance” of it or the fact he’s breaking all the “rules” of conventional writing.

Also, I think the Bible needs to be in a separate category of classic than almost all poetry and fiction. I don’t think anyone can sit down and read the Bible for genuine entertainment like a novel. This person begot this person begot this person and whatnot.

But I digress… Reading Joyce is a much different experience than reading any of the authors mentioned, have you tried any other stream of conscious modernist work like Faulkner or Woolf to see if it’s stream of consciousness as a whole you can’t stand or just Joyce’s brand of it in particular?

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Ulysses now joins the Bible as one of only two classics I will definitely not be taking to that desert island. (I think Proust might join them, I was planning another attempt, but I might not bother... Joyce has cured me of "classic completism".)

Bloomsday is over. Failed yet again, failed better.

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Ah yes, Proust… I planned to read 50 pages of Proust every day and finish it all this summer but complications arose and he’s been delayed to next summer. I’m happy this cured you of “classic completism”, as that really only does more harm than good; it only serves to build an ego and strips away enjoyment faster than anything. How can someone reading a truly challenging text, for example Paradise Lost, out of a sense of duty, not volition, benefit from finishing a book they found miserable? So I, for one, support your choice to abandon Ulysses.

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Originally Posted by Atari

I think the trick is to not let yourself get stuck on the details; you won’t get everything, not a chance, so just let the things you’re missing slip by and maybe the next paragraph will have some clever joke or insight.

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I tried that approach but the clever joke's and new insights are few and far between. For me, not worth ploughing through the obscurities. I stopped using the notes as well, which did get rid of one dimension of boredom. But there are 9 (or is it 10?) left!

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Originally Posted by Atari

... Homer, Shakespeare and Dante are the only one I truly delved into and enjoyed from those authors. In some ways, I think my inexperience with the Big, Important Classics was an aid to me in enjoying Ulysses. Maybe because I read it when I was young, I could just be taken along with the flow and not be bogged down by the “significance” of it or the fact he’s breaking all the “rules” of conventional writing.

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You seem to be drawn to difficulty!

Montaigne, Cervantes, and Tolstoy are much easier to read than Homer, Shakespeare and Dante. Although I completed Homer's works, I'm not planning to re-read them. I'm borderline about re-reading Dante - the Italian history and endless lists of obscure Florentines is a bit wearing (but nowhere near as as bad as Joyce's Irish history and even longer & more obscure lists of Dubliners.)

I also tried to read Ulysses when young & inexperienced, my response was to give up after 100 pages. Age and experience and preparation now has me giving up after 44 pages.

I also gave up on "Complete Shakespeare" and Cervantes in my youth, but read them with great joy recently. Maybe I'll give Joyce another thirty years before trying again...

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Originally Posted by Atari

Also, I think the Bible needs to be in a separate category of classic than almost all poetry and fiction. I don’t think anyone can sit down and read the Bible for genuine entertainment like a novel. This person begot this person begot this person and whatnot.

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How's that different from Joyce just dropping characters into the story without any introduction or motivation? Given that Joyce was insanely clever & ambitious my guess would be that he was trying to compete with the Bible and Homer, in form as well as breadth of vision. ("If the Bible and the Iliad gets a cast of thousands, then I will to! OK the reader will be lost, but who cares!")

It’s not stream of consciousness that's my problem. I read Faulkner's "As She Lay Dying" recently and enjoyed it. I also read "Portrait" and enjoyed it. That was a difficult jog, but just at my pace limit. Ulysses, in comparison, felt like going for a training session with the Kenyan distance runners. I very soon ground to a halt!

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Originally Posted by Atari

I, for one, support your choice to abandon Ulysses.

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Here's a critical review from some poor chap who forced himself to read it all:

http://www.dougshaw.com/Reviews/review1.html

Ulysses is one of my all-time favourite two or three books. I agree entirely that Bloom and Dedalus are two of the most fascinating characters in fiction - I often find myself thinking about them and about the book in general. I don't think I've read anything else that has stuck in my mind to the same extent. I only wish Joyce had been a bit more prolific - apart from Ulysses, two short (but excellent) books and one unreadable one, plus a so-so play leaves me wanting more!

Ellman's biography of Joyce has already been mentioned, but it really is fantastic and I'd recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone remotely interested in Joyce.

I read this thread around the 18th of June and it inspired me to get the book out from the library. It has been on my list for a few years, but i guess Id kind of been putting it off....
I managed to battle my way through the introduction, and am up to page 156 of the actual story. It definately has its ups and downs, and some chapter I have enjoyed much more than others, but Im not ready to give up on it yet...