I’ve just finished the biography of Nora Barnacle, and I’m about to tackle Ulysses** for the first time.
I’ve heard it’s considered the best novel written in the English language (sort of) and I’m fascinated with Joyce’s life.
Any words of wisdom for me?
I didn’t make it through Ulysses the first three times I tried it, but eventually succeeded. It’s an exhilirating book if you understand it, but few people get much out of it because the editions available give little help. The best edition is the student edition published by Penguin and available only in the UK and Canada. It’s got several hundred pages of endnotes, so if you don’t understand anything you can read those. Even with those, however, it still took two months for me to get through it.
UnuMondo
Yes, it is not a light read. I started it, closed it softly, lay it down gently, and backed slowly out the room. I do intend on going back one day.
Maybe read “Dubliners” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” first if you have not already. I think of those as starter Joyce.
UnuMondo
I’m going to do it. I’ll track down that edition you recommended. The one I have is a 2nd (or 3rd or 7th) generation one I picked up at the “Shakespeare and Company” shop in Paris. How cool is that? That the book was there, stamped with the S&Co. stamp and FREE.
But it’s in terrible shape, so I’ll need a new one. The biography* I just finished will help to put the book into some context for me. It describes the real life personalities he used as character models. I am amazed at what went on his life while this book was being written!!
*Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce
(Or: “Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom”)
Brenda Maddox
Houghton & Mifflin, 1988, ISBN 0-395-36510-4; Out of Print.
Yikes, I just realized there is a movie about Nora’s life released this year. Glad I missed it.
I have started it and grasped the basic approach and underlying structure, use of symbolism, dissying wordplay, etc., but found myself not wanting to make the effort, given that I have a job, two kids, etc…
The best way for me to read the book was to get 1 - 3 interpretive texts - e.g., the Cliff’s notes and most definitely Harry Blamires’ Bloomsday Book, which, on a chapter-by-chapter basis, breaks down the essential elements of what is going on both plot-wise and with Joyce’s use of symbols, references, etc. What I did was read the interpretive texts, read the section (a paragraph or to) then re-read the interpretive texts to lock it in. It worked great, but was extremely tedious, as you can imagine - but, then again, Joyce seemed to enjoy demanding a high degree of investment from his readers…
uh, that’s “dizzying” wordplay :rolleyes: eeesh.
Oh, and I second the thought of reading Dubliners and Portrait first, if you haven’t already…
sugarbee, I’ve already read “Dubliners” and “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” as well as “Finnegan’s Wake.”
I hope I’m able to at least get through some of it. I’m looking forward to visiting Nora Barnacles stomping grounds next month when we move to Galway.
A visit at the James Joyce Museum in Dublin will be fascinating.
I don’t recommend the first two books, at least not as necessary to understanding Ulysses. You can get sidelined into making this into a major lifelong project, and never get around to reading Ulysses, that way. There are some good companion books, by Stuart Gilbert, Hugh Kenner, I think Anthony Burgess wrote some readable critical stuff, David Lodge probably, WIlliam York Tindall for sure, that might clear up murky passages for you, and outline the major schemas, etc. Watching the movie version might help too, but not a whole lot IMO.
Also prepare to do some skimming, the first time around. You gotta, or it becomes a tedious task. Better to catch up the second or third time around than to put pressure on yourself to get everything or else give up. Don’t give up. It’s confusing in many places.
On a slightly broader subject, I’m not sure if I’ve EVER read a book, really and truly, without skimming some. Skimming is vastly underrated as a reading technique in my view. Skimming is good, at least as long as you’re aware you doing it.
prr
Good advice, thanks. The main thing, for me, is not to read it at night in bed, where I’ll surely fall asleep after a few lines. Getting old gracefully- that’s my motto.
When I was graduating with an MA in English, minor concentration in Modern Lit, my advisor asked me something about Ulysses. When I told her that I hadn’t read it, she considered not letting me graduate. She finally relented, after I promised that I would read it, and soon.
That was 12 years ago. I did start it once, and found myself daydreaming about other things after the first page. I’ll get to it one of these days. After all, I promised.
I did read Finnegan’s Wake, but I was high at the time. Maybe that’s the key.
(Appears from the lurking shadows)
It certainly did the trick for me with JJ. Years ago, in college, during a lonesome X-mas break, none of my friends were in town. I ordered pizzas, smoked weed, listened to jazz and read Ulysses. I was such a poor bohemian!
I don’t really remember much of the story though…
I have the same problem with Gravity’s Rainbow…
EEEEEEKS!
(Runs back into the lurking shadows)
When I read it, it was a work being covered in some Lit class I was taking at the time. As I recall it was a graduate class on Joyce & maybe one or two others. It was an interesting work, but not something I have gone back to since. I was however, very impressed by it.
I think the key for me was that we were covering in lecture/class discussion a chapter every couple days. It made it a much better experience. I had read the entire work in a couple of days, and then went back over it as we went through it.
I’d vote for having some folks to discuss it with as you go through it along with any companion pieces, its very dense. At least I remember it that way.
Yes, Thomas Pynchon. I was also high when I read his stuff. He was, uh . . . I mean, I thought that, uh . . . . Well, it’s clear that he was commenting on the . . . something [sub]postmodern or post-structuralist, I can’t remember which . . . [/sub]wait, he was Irish, right? or was that Salinger?
I probably shouldn’t be posting here at all, because I didn’t make it through Ulysses either (and I was taking a class on Joyce at the time! Fortunately, it was a general Irish literature class in all but name, so I wrote the final paper on Lady Gregory and somehow managed to BS my way through the two required exam essays on Ulysses.)
However – I second the idea of having a discussion group of some sort; having attended class was the only thing that enabled me to pass the exam.
Good suggestions. Somehow, though, asking a bunch of SAHMs if they want to do a book club and starting with Ulysses seems slightly overambitious to me. 
I read it at the age of 17, when I was a college freshman.
I look forward to reading it again someday, now that I’m old enough to maybe understand it.
Finally finished it on the third try a decade ago (damn straight I’m posting that fact to this thread since I’m not likely to get a chance to get credit for it anywhere else anytime soon).
Here’s my experience:
It’s not a novel. I don’t know what it is, but when I thought it was a novel I couldn’t read it because it wasn’t at all like my idea of a novel. In fact, each chapter is written in a different style, and one of the points of the book may be to burst perceived boundaries about how essays, novels, poetry are supposed to be written.
The best parts of it are shocking–really new ways of expressing things that no one since has really successfully copied. These are also the bits I remember, as it happens.
Overall thumbs up, but it’s a mental rather than an emotional pleasure, despite the fact that some of it wants to depict pure emotional responses, kinda like impressionism.
Yep. I’d rather carry a ring to Mount Doom in Mordor than repeat the experience.
I read Ulysses along with Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist under similar circumstances, in a grad-school seminar on Joyce. I agree that having people to discuss the novels with as you’re going along helps. A professor who’s enthralled by the author can also be wonderful for increasing your own appreciation and interest in the work–at least, it worked that way for me with Joyce as well as Milton and Melville.
I read Ulysess annually, usually. (Sometimes I skip a year.)
I suppose I’ll give it up when it stops feeling like a revelation.