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1.9k reviews for:
Ulysses: Annotated Edition
Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, James Joyce, James Joyce
3.64 AVERAGE
1.9k reviews for:
Ulysses: Annotated Edition
Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, James Joyce, James Joyce
3.64 AVERAGE
Oh, that, "apathy of the stars." I am wistful and amazed.
P.S. I have since read texts by Julian Rios and Enrique Vila-Matas who devoted novelistic approaches to Ulysses that ultimately steer the reader back to Bloom and Dedalus. I know of no other groundswell that continues to percolate and excite.
P.S. I have since read texts by Julian Rios and Enrique Vila-Matas who devoted novelistic approaches to Ulysses that ultimately steer the reader back to Bloom and Dedalus. I know of no other groundswell that continues to percolate and excite.
Perhaps the best book ever written. Ever. Hysterically funny, time-stopping engrossing, and unfathomably dense. This book is like a challenging lover: you have to work really hard and are rewarded with untold waves of pleasure which stay with you long after the moment of pinnacle has been attained.
I loved it, I hated it, I wouldn't have been able to get through it without section summaries ahead, and a great narration. Without getting into the weeds, this book was a 1000 page wild ride that took place over just over ONE DAY. Huh? This is such a unique style of writing, that after getting over the annoyance of the clever things Joyce kept doing (that surely mostly went over my head), that he expected (or perhaps intentionally didn't expect) the average reader to get, I started to really appreciate the uniqueness of what Ulysses and JJ had to offer.
Che dire, a volte quando si affrontano grandi "classici" osannati dalla critica, si ha fortuna e si capisce come possano essere diventati "classici", appunto, guadagnandosi una meritata gloria.
Altre volte invece i brutti presentimenti trovano conferma, e il classico si rivela il classico mattone contro cui ci si schianta.
In questo caso non starò a citare Paolo Villaggio e Ėjzenštejn, anche se ammetto che sia stato il mio pensiero, ma posso ammettere con stanca tranquillità che questa volta mi sono imbattuto nel secondo tipo di classico.
La lettura risultava difficile già nei primi capitoli, lenta e apparentemente senza destinazione, ma almeno aveva un senso e prometteva di dire anche qualcosa, una volta fatta chiarezza sui personaggi.
Poi è iniziato il caos, una girandola di stili parodizzati che si susseguono senza soluzione di continuità e culminanti nell'allucinatorio pezzo "teatrale".
Il finale non migliora le cose, dopo un primo momento in cui sembra voler tornare al registro degli inizi si passa prima a un assurdo... question time? rubrica di domande e risposte?, e infine a un lungo flusso di pensieri (chiaramente senza punteggiatura, pensieri scritti come li pensa e probabilmente li scriverebbe la protagonista del flusso stesso, la ben poco letterata Molly).
Una lettura che da subito veniva anticipata come difficile, che io ho trovato nei momenti migliori noiosa, in quelli peggiori incomprensibile e assurda.
Non ha certo aiutato il fatto che la mia versione del libro (versione kindle dell'edizione Newton, il Mammut insomma) fosse addirittura priva della divisione in capitoli mantenendo solamente quella nelle tre grandi macroparti (i tre capitoli iniziali, tutta l'epopea di Bloom, e il finale).
Quantomeno ci sono gli editoriali di supporto, grazie ai quali ho potuto capire quali sarebbero state le assonanze omeriche (e mi trovo d'accordo con le opinioni più recenti, almeno stando a quanto qui riportato, che non credono più tanto a questa visione del libro come "riscrittura moderna dell'Odissea", quanto piuttosto che la storia di Odisseo sia una sorta di sottile canovaccio sul quale modellare un poco i capitoli del libro, oltre che magari un bello scherzo per far dannare generazioni di studenti di lettere).
Sicuramente, visto che il libro è considerato un Classico e risulta amato da tanti, la colpa sarà mia, di una scarsa conoscenza dell'Odissea e di Shakespeare e dei molteplici stili scimmiottati da Joyce, oltre che di una bassa tolleranza per centinaia di pagine di nulla.
E soprattutto colpa della mia testardaggine di non volere abbandonare un libro dopo centinaia di pagine, quando è comunque evidente che non sia fatto per me.
Altre volte invece i brutti presentimenti trovano conferma, e il classico si rivela il classico mattone contro cui ci si schianta.
In questo caso non starò a citare Paolo Villaggio e Ėjzenštejn, anche se ammetto che sia stato il mio pensiero, ma posso ammettere con stanca tranquillità che questa volta mi sono imbattuto nel secondo tipo di classico.
La lettura risultava difficile già nei primi capitoli, lenta e apparentemente senza destinazione, ma almeno aveva un senso e prometteva di dire anche qualcosa, una volta fatta chiarezza sui personaggi.
Poi è iniziato il caos, una girandola di stili parodizzati che si susseguono senza soluzione di continuità e culminanti nell'allucinatorio pezzo "teatrale".
Il finale non migliora le cose, dopo un primo momento in cui sembra voler tornare al registro degli inizi si passa prima a un assurdo... question time? rubrica di domande e risposte?, e infine a un lungo flusso di pensieri (chiaramente senza punteggiatura, pensieri scritti come li pensa e probabilmente li scriverebbe la protagonista del flusso stesso, la ben poco letterata Molly).
Una lettura che da subito veniva anticipata come difficile, che io ho trovato nei momenti migliori noiosa, in quelli peggiori incomprensibile e assurda.
Non ha certo aiutato il fatto che la mia versione del libro (versione kindle dell'edizione Newton, il Mammut insomma) fosse addirittura priva della divisione in capitoli mantenendo solamente quella nelle tre grandi macroparti (i tre capitoli iniziali, tutta l'epopea di Bloom, e il finale).
Quantomeno ci sono gli editoriali di supporto, grazie ai quali ho potuto capire quali sarebbero state le assonanze omeriche (e mi trovo d'accordo con le opinioni più recenti, almeno stando a quanto qui riportato, che non credono più tanto a questa visione del libro come "riscrittura moderna dell'Odissea", quanto piuttosto che la storia di Odisseo sia una sorta di sottile canovaccio sul quale modellare un poco i capitoli del libro, oltre che magari un bello scherzo per far dannare generazioni di studenti di lettere).
Sicuramente, visto che il libro è considerato un Classico e risulta amato da tanti, la colpa sarà mia, di una scarsa conoscenza dell'Odissea e di Shakespeare e dei molteplici stili scimmiottati da Joyce, oltre che di una bassa tolleranza per centinaia di pagine di nulla.
E soprattutto colpa della mia testardaggine di non volere abbandonare un libro dopo centinaia di pagine, quando è comunque evidente che non sia fatto per me.
I started reading this in 1994. Joyce is a challenging read. I hope to finish it before I die.
Ubi me deo sa Hamletom toliko da sam batalio knjigu na neko vreme. Ostatak je i više nego dobar - ali samo za nekog ko je živeo u '20-tim u Dablinu i posebno. Za nas ostale - demonstracija sile.
473 od 700 i kusur stranica
473 od 700 i kusur stranica
I am incredibly conflicted about this book. Actually, I am incredibly conflicted about James Joyce in general. On the one hand, I find this novel particularly pretentious, catering only to the literati and not to anyone who would stoop so far as to just want a good story to read. And then on the other hand... Joyce dosen't shy away from shit and piss and come and blood, or any of that. To him, it was the snot-green sea, the… scrotum-tightening sea. He wrote these dirty, racy letters to Nora all about how he wanted to fuck her and smell how she smelled after he did. Or about the stains in her underwear – which is something I have never seen anyone else talk about – or the noises her body made, how she felt, how he felt when he thought about her. In fact, Nora herself said of him, and I quote: “I guess the man’s a genius, but what a dirty mind he has, hasn’t he?”
So I guess I admire him, really.
But that doesn't give you a good idea of what the novel is like. So, to sum it up: Reading Ulysses is like watching someone figure out how to be his most brilliant self. It's very interesting and very trying and a lot of it doesn't work. But I guess I'd say it's worth it.
So I guess I admire him, really.
But that doesn't give you a good idea of what the novel is like. So, to sum it up: Reading Ulysses is like watching someone figure out how to be his most brilliant self. It's very interesting and very trying and a lot of it doesn't work. But I guess I'd say it's worth it.
What a thrill, what a joy, to be swept by currents, tides of polymath's outmost incantations. Every chapter an invention, bearing fruits, branches multiplying without cessation. Without Joyce, nought would be, would have been, will ever be, mere convolutions of an amnesiac void.
I’m glad I listened to this as an audiobook; I’m not sure I would have made it through the trial of physically reading it, what with all the unfamiliar words (since I’m obsessive at looking them up in the dictionary). The Irish narrator was enjoyable to listen to and I think this imparted some authentic flavour to the experience. I loved how he pronounced words like “girl” and “world”. Endlessly amusing to me. “My girl is a Yorkshire girl”, hahahaha.
I’ll firstly tackle the main routine of the book: stream of consciousness. I really don’t understand how this resembles any experience of consciousness at all, except perhaps if one were describing an episode of being under the influence of amphetamines, where one’s thoughts would race as they do in the novel. Human thought is typically more repetitive, corporeal and less interesting than that described by Joyce. The sheer volume of material covered by Leopold Bloom, and later by Molly, beggars belief. I didn’t think it was a genuine representation of an advertiser’s canvasser’s thoughts. Far too sophisticated and expansive for the circumscribed experience of a typical person.
Secondly, the mundanity of the thing was oppressive to endure. There was no redemption of the protagonist, certainly no romance and most of all no sympathy to the human condition of suffering. It was just some (pretty despicable) guy living a humdrum existence. It felt cerebral and cold, and I had no connection whatsoever to the characters.
Joyce’s scholarship in his composition of the work was the impressive thing. The lexicon, multiplicity of foreign language and his brute volume of words is the sublime achievement of the book. It captures an historical time. Unless one appreciates this in and of itself, it would mean nothing to a reader. Fuck he loved a list though. They were brutal. So much content, indigestible. Repetitively.
Finally, I want to mention the final chapter. I found it vulgar, inauthentic and upsetting. I hadn’t minded the intellectuality of all the preceding work until I encountered the thoughts of Leopold’s repulsive, odious and self-centred wife. She was sickening in her duplicity and conceit. I hated her and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I have wanted to read this for 25 years. I was disappointed and underwhelmed, even though I now acknowledge Joyce as a genius. His vision pales in comparison to a noble sympathy like that of Tolstoy. I don’t regret these 30 hours spent listening, however, and maybe I’ll give it another chance again one day.
I’ll firstly tackle the main routine of the book: stream of consciousness. I really don’t understand how this resembles any experience of consciousness at all, except perhaps if one were describing an episode of being under the influence of amphetamines, where one’s thoughts would race as they do in the novel. Human thought is typically more repetitive, corporeal and less interesting than that described by Joyce. The sheer volume of material covered by Leopold Bloom, and later by Molly, beggars belief. I didn’t think it was a genuine representation of an advertiser’s canvasser’s thoughts. Far too sophisticated and expansive for the circumscribed experience of a typical person.
Secondly, the mundanity of the thing was oppressive to endure. There was no redemption of the protagonist, certainly no romance and most of all no sympathy to the human condition of suffering. It was just some (pretty despicable) guy living a humdrum existence. It felt cerebral and cold, and I had no connection whatsoever to the characters.
Joyce’s scholarship in his composition of the work was the impressive thing. The lexicon, multiplicity of foreign language and his brute volume of words is the sublime achievement of the book. It captures an historical time. Unless one appreciates this in and of itself, it would mean nothing to a reader. Fuck he loved a list though. They were brutal. So much content, indigestible. Repetitively.
Finally, I want to mention the final chapter. I found it vulgar, inauthentic and upsetting. I hadn’t minded the intellectuality of all the preceding work until I encountered the thoughts of Leopold’s repulsive, odious and self-centred wife. She was sickening in her duplicity and conceit. I hated her and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I have wanted to read this for 25 years. I was disappointed and underwhelmed, even though I now acknowledge Joyce as a genius. His vision pales in comparison to a noble sympathy like that of Tolstoy. I don’t regret these 30 hours spent listening, however, and maybe I’ll give it another chance again one day.