The challenge that is Ulysses

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The challenge that is Ulysses

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1Cecrow
sep 23, 2011, 7:39 am

Let's speculate for a moment that I'm going to attempt reading Ulysses; what concensus is there on reading pre-requisites in order to be best prepared?

2CliffBurns
sep 23, 2011, 10:06 am

Read a couple of Joyce bios--at least the Ellmann. I also really like Peter Costello's JAMES JOYCE: THE YEARS OF GROWTH (1882-1915).

Commit to reading ULYSSES in big chunks, immersing yourself in the language and landscape. Plunge into it and give yourself over to the book completely. You're in for a wild ride...

3iansales
sep 23, 2011, 10:16 am

There's always Burgess' Re: Joyce.

4wrmjr66
sep 23, 2011, 11:24 am

There are always companions to help you along--such as The Bloomsday Book. Prerequisite reading, though, should start with The Odyssey.

5mejix
sep 23, 2011, 11:46 am

James Joyce's Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert was very useful to me back in the day.

6CliffBurns
sep 23, 2011, 12:30 pm

I found the Gilbert book confusing and unhelpful. I know Joyce cooperated with its preparation but that one didn't work for me...

7CliffBurns
sep 23, 2011, 12:32 pm

"James Joyce"
Jorge Luis Borges

In a man’s single day are all the days
of time from that unimaginable
first day, when a terrible God marked out
the days and agonies, to that other,
when the ubiquitous flow of earthly
time goes back to its source, Eternity,
and flickers out in the present, the past,
and the future—what now belongs to me.
Between dawn and dark lies the history
of the world. From the vault of night I see
at my feet the wanderings of the Jew,
Carthage put to the sword, Heaven and Hell.
Grant me, O Lord, the courage and the joy
to ascend to the summit of this day.

*************************************

In case you missed it--from the poetry thread. Courtesy our colleague "mejix".

8beardo
Bewerkt: sep 23, 2011, 2:56 pm

Last year I read it for the first time, and I'd recommend you just dive in. You will miss many of the references and jokes that Joyce placed throughout the novel, but you won't have the experience of finding your own way marred by the continual chattering of those who've spent decades studying it. There will be pages where you're stumbling around lost, but as you progress you'll find yourself more comfortable in the book, and gradually accept that you're not 'appreciating' every detail.

Like the first time hiking a particular location, you don't need to be able to identify every plant and bird you encounter to be awed and emotionally moved. Save the obsession over details for the second time. Then, you'll have already had the experience of encountering the newness and wonderful strangeness of the journey and can focus on the detours and subtleties that abound.

9mejix
Bewerkt: sep 23, 2011, 2:54 pm

Borges alleged he never finished the Ulysses. He read half of it got the point and left it at that. Hehehe.

10bookstopshere
sep 23, 2011, 2:59 pm

get good & drunk & read it aloud to a deaf wife or girlfriend

11Osbaldistone
sep 23, 2011, 4:01 pm

Not a bad compromise between just ripping through it and preparing in advance with some academic reading might be to have Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated handy for those allusions that you just can't pass by.

Os.

12robertajl
sep 23, 2011, 4:31 pm

I've begun reading it with some friends. We read a set number of pages and then get together once a month (in a bar) for a discussion. It's fun reading it with other people, and the beer doesn't hurt. I also like Ulysses Annotated. If you can get hold of it, Naxos has recorded the text as read by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan, who does the last chapter. Joyce's prose really is musical and I like hearing it. The writer Frank Delaney has a series of 5-minute podcasts where he discusses the book. I think they're entertaining. His site is at http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/.

Roberta

13kswolff
sep 23, 2011, 4:33 pm

Temptation of St Antony by Flaubert -- It was a direct influence to the Nighttown chapter.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais -- Lists, verbal excess, fart jokes, and satirical nonsense directed at the clergy, university types, and a mockery of the classical epic.
Some sort of volume on Irish history and politics. It's important to know who Parnell was and the Black and Tans (not the drink).

I read the annotated Oxford Press edition during a summer in college.

After you read Ulysses, read How it is by Beckett to see the novel stripped almost entirely bare. Then the see the aspiring authors' heads explode from exasperation. "How the heck am I supposed to top those two novels?"

14FlorenceArt
sep 25, 2011, 2:01 am

I'm with Beardo. Just do it. The hardest thing for me was to start reading, just because of the reputation the book has, but it's really a fun and enjoyable read. The first and last chapters are just wonderful, the rest is sometimes a bit harder to go through, and there is a frankly boring part in the middle, but do hang on, the end is worth it all.

15guido47
Bewerkt: sep 25, 2011, 4:37 am

Timorous mouse here,

Do you think it is best read out aloud? (even to oneself?)

I have thought about planning to determine if, I will one
day decide if I will eventually read it, perhaps.

Umm.

Guido.

16kswolff
sep 25, 2011, 10:28 am

I would suggest an annotated edition of it. My strategy was:

1. Read an entire chapter straight through.
2. Read all the footnotes of the chapter straight through.

It worked for me with both Crying of Lot 49 -- there's a nice guidebook to that by the Pynchonesque-named J. Kerry Grant -- and Pound's Cantos, although I'm sure Ulysses is more read than the Cantos. Ulysses is funny and capacious a la Rabelais whereas The Cantos are serious-minded and labyrinthine when not intentionally obscurantist.

Want a challenge? Read past Chapter 1 in Angels and Demons without your eye-balls bleeding. I read Ulysses, it took me a while, it was a challenge, and sometimes my brain hurt from exertion, but reading Chapter 1 of Angels and Demons felt like literary waterboarding.

In addition to an annotated version, it's handy to have Joyce A to Z for all your referential needs. I also "worked up" to Ulysses, reading Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist first. But Ulysses is big and dirty, do what you like. It's a timeless classic that can handle a good beating.

17nymith
sep 25, 2011, 3:22 pm

When I read Ulysses, I'm going to go at it straight. A well-written book (and Joyce is supposedly a master of language) should be a pleasure to read without any bells and whistles. My plan of attack: Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist, The Odyssey (after The Iliad, of course). Then I'll open up the book and take it as it comes, damn the critics....

18Cecrow
okt 3, 2011, 9:29 am

Opinions on this statement? (from Geeks Who Love the Classics group) "You really must read Portrait of the Artist beforehand, Cecrow, else you won't get half the references (little actions in the first book have huge repercussions in the later work). Ulysses is a difficult enough book with that background. Without, I can't imagine...."

19kswolff
okt 3, 2011, 12:40 pm

But before you start your literary journey, British bureaucrats have determined the precise formulations for making the proper cup of tea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_6008

This will be even funnier when you read the second last chapter of Ulysses, with those Q & As that use needlessly long words.

20anna_in_pdx
okt 3, 2011, 3:39 pm

18: Since Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is easier to read than Ulysses and does have info in it that is referred to in Ulysses, why not read it first. I read both it and Dubliners before reading Ulysses and it certainly was not a waste of time.

I don't know that it is an absolute prerequisite though, but it certainly won't hurt and will probably help.

I am among those who didn't find the Gilbert reference book particularly useful. Although Ulysses does use the original Odyssey as a sort of schema for the chapter titles and so forth, it isn't really very apropos to what's occurring in the story, at least I don't think so.

One thing I had, that I actually appreciated, was a book of old photographs of Dublin of the period showing places mentioned in the text. That was interesting and helpful. The book was meant to accompany all three of Joyce's novels including Finnegans Wake. I found it in Powell's. Can't exactly remember the title.

The main thing I appreciated was reading it in a group of people some of whom were really college professor level readers of it, and they really helped me get through it. It was very hard for me and some chapters were practically unreadable. But I made it!

21JohnCrawford
okt 30, 2011, 8:55 pm

I too would recommend starting with Dubliners and Portrait before reading Ulysses. There will be character, event, place, story, history, and person references that are helpful to be associated with when Joyce uses them in Ulysses. Also, Portrait will give you a sense of who Stephen Dedalus is as a character. This helps understand the struggle that exists between the existences of Bloom and Stephen. Essentially, Ulysses is a study of two halves of a whole, circling Dublin over the course of a day. Furthermore, there are very dense inner monologue sections that are best explained by an understanding of Joyce's themes, the locations in which they occur, and the character that conducts them. As confusing as it can be navigating through Dublin in the novel, it is far more overwhelming to navigate the thoughts of Dedalus and Bloom.

As a matter of fact, if anyone else is interested in re-reading or simply talking through the novel, I would be delighted to help start a thread devoted to Ulysses. It's definitely the kind of book that demands discussion and varying viewpoints.

22robertajl
okt 31, 2011, 1:28 pm

I'd be interested. I'm currently reading it.

23JohnCrawford
okt 31, 2011, 4:34 pm

If everyone who would like to participate would post accordingly, I will make a separate thread for the reading. I'll try to start by recapping some themes and characters from Dubliners and Portrait that will prove important and beneficial. That will insure that we all begin on relatively even ground...

24ajsomerset
okt 31, 2011, 5:32 pm

I think I'll dig out my copy and join in.

25littlegeek
nov 1, 2011, 12:29 am

It's been about 20 years since I read it the second time. And I just dove in - you can't expect to get all the jokes, but it's still worth it.

26maddesthatter
nov 1, 2011, 7:36 am

I'd say you're best just not getting too hung up on the classical allusions and structure too much and just going at it the best you can. Take what you can decipher from the first read and if you feel inclined, go back a few years later and try it again. I felt my university courses and lectures sometimes deadened the whole thing for me, made me feel inadequate and not up for the job. And remember, as Declan Kiebard said in his recent book on Ulysses, a good editor would have cut 200 pages from it, especially the interminable scenes in the bordello.

27kswolff
nov 1, 2011, 9:57 am

26: The Bordello scene was one of the stand-outs. Guess Ole Declan hates excess and four-letter words. One has to read The Temptation of St Antony by Flaubert -- essentially a book-length dramatic piece -- to fully appreciate what Joyce is doing. And have a Rabelaisian love for linguistic smut.

28CliffBurns
nov 1, 2011, 9:58 am

A "good" editor would've taken one look at ULYSSES, screeched "Genius!" and published it as is, every comma in its proper place. As Joyce intended it. Just because it's a tough, demanding read doesn't mean it needs editing. Paring down. Jesus. I get nauseous at the notion.

I'm reminded of those idiots affiliated with the Booker Prize, watering down the criteria so that a book is judged for its "readability". May they burn in a Hell kept heated with pot-boilers and Nora Roberts novels.

From my experience, the term "good editor" is an oxymoron; there have always been damn few about and even fewer as we lurch and shamble toward a post-literate world...

29kswolff
nov 1, 2011, 10:23 am

"Readability" = "electable" ergo: why participatory democracy is such a consistently terrible joke. I understand Nietzsche's hatred for it now. No wonder "electable" politicians turn out to be such unmitigated disasters. No wonder so few people vote and no wonder the few that vote are such awful human beings.

"Who ever accomplished anything in a crowd but the carnival barker? The fan? The conventioneer? The crowd is nothing but a fascist dramaturgy. It is not only the blasphemy of the mass response, the wilting mind, the rabid anti-intellectualism, the mad unreason, the capitulating loss of principles, the noise, the flannel-mouthed cant, the adulterated principles, the will to staged publicity, the deference of prevailing thought, the crazed Dionysian inherent in the ecstatic feeling of union -- joining itself depressed him!

"Democracy exacts the fealty of conformity. A mind forsaken!

"Who ever expects anyone to believe that democracy, which in its predominating sense is rule by the majority, is ever anything more than a cheap and bogus version or variation of rat-faced populism?"

All quotes from Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux.

30CliffBurns
nov 1, 2011, 10:28 am

"rat-faced populism"--that's GOOD.

31maddesthatter
nov 1, 2011, 11:56 am

Good gracious, surely no need to get so animated. I think Joyce's genius is incontestable. The book stands on it's own on the 20th century.
This does not mean however that every comma and clause is essential or in some way sacred. Nor does it necessitate any sort of genuflecting reverence.
For a first time reader I was only suggesting that you understand it all. Some of the most exceptional works of fiction have involved in depth editing with thoughtful and talented editors. Which does not mean of course that they're all like that, just that the practice can be really worthwhile and rewarding when done properly by the right person.

32CliffBurns
Bewerkt: nov 1, 2011, 12:05 pm

The quantity of good editors out there is infinitesimal. Historically there have always been damn few, but since the corporate takeover of publishing (starting in the Eighties), we've seen an already poor crop depleted even further...

33maddesthatter
nov 1, 2011, 1:04 pm

I totally agree. My reading rarely strays into contemporary fiction where the absence of any sort of an editor goes a long way to explain how poor it usually is.

34CliffBurns
nov 1, 2011, 2:10 pm

I empathize with you.

35DanMat
Bewerkt: nov 2, 2011, 4:01 pm

Coming off Oxen of the Sun, Circe is a relief if only for the more concrete albeit hallucinatory images and offset dialogue. For a chapter like Oxen in the Sun, it would be absolute torture to study each of the styles he mimics instead of casually catching a few, missing some, and desciphering the parody for yourself. Oxen of the Sun might be more rewarding on the second, third, even forth reading however. Whereas Circe might prate.

Also the prose styles were cribbed, so to speak, mainly from these two reference sources: "A History of English Prose Rhythm" and "English Prose From Mandeville to Ruskin".

36JohnCrawford
nov 1, 2011, 9:13 pm

A traditional editor would have chewed up Joyce's intentions and spit them out as routine, formulaic fiction. He wrote what he wrote for a reason. Anyone that argues that the "mistakes" and oddities of Joyce's language are unintentional is ignoring the fact that he had complete control over what he was doing. Very little was a mistake for a Joyce. In the Charybdis section, he actually touches on the problem, stating, "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."

37kswolff
nov 1, 2011, 11:40 pm

A traditional editor would have chewed up Joyce's intentions and spit them out as routine, formulaic fiction.

That's probably because a traditional editor would be nothing more than a patsy for the British Crown, since they, like their colonial counterparts, turned unique indigenous cultures into "routine, formulaic" Englishmen (see India and Canada).

It is heartening to know that the greatest stylist of English prose was a Irish Fenian who couldn't stand to live in the gray soggy bleariness of the Merry Olde England. I would love to see Joyce get into a fistfight with a tedious pedant and Anglo-Catholic loyalist like JRR Tolkien

"I confess that I do not see what good it is to fulminate against the English tyranny while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul."

38JohnCrawford
nov 26, 2011, 10:28 pm

For the record, I have not forgotten about this endeavor. I still plan on helping to organize a discussion of the book, but I have been so bogged down with other readings that I will be some time in getting around to this. Keep an eye out, or feel free to begin the process without me. :)