Scan barcode
ilegnealle's review against another edition
challenging
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Boy oh boy. Never in my life have I read such a long book and have had so little thoughts. I will say that I found it to be surprisingly funny. But I get why it got banned...
dlhryan's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I feel like I need the SparkNotes summaries to grasp what's going on in the story fully. The writing style and subtle jumps from real life to hallucinations or subtle jumps from internal thoughts to spoken dialogue also made it difficult to get through the story. It's an interesting undertaking for readers, and I'm glad I can finally seem impressive by saying I've read it.
e_oneita's review against another edition
5.0
An incredible, mind bending, weirdly heart warming read that I now need to do hours more research on. Five stars!
ehsan1358's review against another edition
1.0
Couldn't finish it, gave up after 2 days. Melancholic hallucination, no more.
classiccarissa's review against another edition
3.0
To be clear, I read excerpts in school and have not yet taken up the weighty task of competing this absolute unit of a book. I don't know if I ever will, but the stories were definitely interesting.
clancydavis's review against another edition
4.0
One of the most difficult books I've ever read. The reward is that I feel like the characters in this book are real-life acquaintances.
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
5.0
The real truth behind why Ulysses was written
All the reviewers here seem to think that this is just a piece of fiction – may be great but not much more than that. It is much more than that – let me tell you the inside story. JJ wrote it for a mission when he was told of the great calamity that is sure to destroy the humanity in future by Doctor Who and after which only JJ’s novel could save the planet. This is what Doctor Who told him:
In the year 2039, some sort of Virus will destroy the entire humanity while leaving other things intact; then after like a couple of centuries aliens will come on Earth and decide to reengineer humans from DNA and stuff. While they are doing so, they will also find our fiction – and start reading the novels so as to know what sort of creature human beings were. The authors they will find include greats like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Homer.
Now imagine their surprise when after having read about greatness of human souls from such geniuses; what they end up creating is a creature who keeps crying, is almost always confused, has weird fantasies and dreams, has a mind that wonders about all sort of things, is not of sort that is always ready to pick fight when it is question of honor, doesn’t say any beautiful quotable lines - even when he is sad, is pervert, picks his nose, farts, lies stupidly in trying to impress, keeps asking for food every few hours, needs to use toilets and so on – Our friendly aliens will think they have made a giant mistake and shall try again from start and upon getting the same result again and again, they will be about to give up; when one of them will suddenly discover ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce and our very own L. Bloom shall save the humanity.
All the reviewers here seem to think that this is just a piece of fiction – may be great but not much more than that. It is much more than that – let me tell you the inside story. JJ wrote it for a mission when he was told of the great calamity that is sure to destroy the humanity in future by Doctor Who and after which only JJ’s novel could save the planet. This is what Doctor Who told him:
In the year 2039, some sort of Virus will destroy the entire humanity while leaving other things intact; then after like a couple of centuries aliens will come on Earth and decide to reengineer humans from DNA and stuff. While they are doing so, they will also find our fiction – and start reading the novels so as to know what sort of creature human beings were. The authors they will find include greats like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Homer.
Now imagine their surprise when after having read about greatness of human souls from such geniuses; what they end up creating is a creature who keeps crying, is almost always confused, has weird fantasies and dreams, has a mind that wonders about all sort of things, is not of sort that is always ready to pick fight when it is question of honor, doesn’t say any beautiful quotable lines - even when he is sad, is pervert, picks his nose, farts, lies stupidly in trying to impress, keeps asking for food every few hours, needs to use toilets and so on – Our friendly aliens will think they have made a giant mistake and shall try again from start and upon getting the same result again and again, they will be about to give up; when one of them will suddenly discover ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce and our very own L. Bloom shall save the humanity.
bhnmt61's review against another edition
4.0
This is blatant self-promotion, I know, but instead of writing a review, here is a link to the blogpost I wrote about Ulysses: http://bnstc.blogspot.com/2015/03/reading-ulysses.html
couuboy's review against another edition
5.0
There’s a hole in me that can only be satiated (and even then, only temporarily) by doorstoppers (which is to say ~700+ page novels known to be a slog to get through). I make sure to read at least one of these books every year, usually in January, coinciding with a few weeks without commitments between finishing the recurring job I have each summer as a swim teacher and the start of Uni. This year I decided to force myself to get through Ulysses, a book that I tried to read first when I was 16 and wanted to be one of those kids set apart from the majority (without having to wear a beret) but I only made it 15 or so pages into before realising I wasn’t quite the genius I thought I was.
The reason I picked this book to finally read this year is pretty dumb, basically I had a meeting with an editor because a short story I wrote was accepted for a journal, the editor was Irish and when he asked me what I’d recently been reading I said I’d just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – now this wasn’t the most recent book I’d finished however I hoped this might kick-start a positive rapport between us (it did). We talked about Joyce for a bit and I said I was planning on reading Ulysses this summer (I wasn’t) because this again seemed like a potentially favourable remark (it was), and so to sum, here I am, having read arguably the greatest modernist novels trying to get someone to like me. Figures. Although that’s not entirely true, I’ll also say that a sense of cultural obligation/residual cultural king of the hill-ism is also to blame (I also love love loved both Portrait and Dubliners but that’s not as distinctive a reasoning…).
Back to the doorstoppers, this book succeeded at exactly what I hoped it would. I found a great pleasure throughout this book but especially so for majority the second half (that second last episode itself was probably my favourite section of literature I’ve ever read…) which took me only a few days to get through whereas the first half took a couple weeks, I think this is where one can identify the locus of my pleasure. During these particular readings sessions, I find myself completely engaged with the style, structure, and scenes of the novel to the point that I perceive to feel an imaginative access to thoughts and experiences of firstly the characters but also more abstractly with the author. These are the rewards I’m looking for in most novels, rewards which are locked away unless one is willing to work to truly penetrate into the text.
Which brings me to my next point; I know this book is full of thousands of references and quotes and puzzles that I didn’t get and some that I did. A lot of the enjoyment I felt came not just from understanding Joyce’s references, but the present references to Joyce which I had previously processed but never internalised. An analogy I kept coming back to was that it felt akin to when I watch an older movie and realise that one of my favourite Simpsons episodes had done a skit about it, a moment of “so that’s what that was about!” which puts both art objects in a new light, it triggers a deeper sense of understanding and offers a deeper, more fulfilling awareness of meaning. That which came before Joyce, which he utilised so fluently, and that which comes after substantialise the nature of art, which is the spirit of continuity.
But this is not to say that sheer quantity of references make an object art (look at shows like Family Guy), to me, the rewards of Joyce (and [earlier seasons of] The Simpsons if I may go so far as to compare them…) lay in his ability to present his narrative without the overt lookatme-ism attention calling to the references. One does not feel pandered to if they understand the reference because one does not feel they would be excluded had they not gotten it, Ulysses is ostensibly self-contained, however for those who choose to put in the effort to solve the jigsaw will reap greater satisfaction in the clicks of pieces linking together, of reality's picture becoming clearer. The first example of this in the text which really make me realise it’s richness was Buck Mulligan’s quoting of Whitman (“Do I contradict myself?” etc. etc.) this wasn’t a very subtle reference I’ll admit however, it lead to me realising just what game Joyce was playing at. I know that there was a plethora of meaningful references to this book that I missed given it was my first reading (and also my worldly inexperience…), but I also know that in a couples years or so when I decide to revisit and re-revisit this book I will have provided myself with a better foundation to observe more critically what this book has to offer. Ulysses is the kind of book which is as difficult as it is rare, and which makes me to want to look more deeply into the world, so as to reveal the beauty that has been there all along.
The reason I picked this book to finally read this year is pretty dumb, basically I had a meeting with an editor because a short story I wrote was accepted for a journal, the editor was Irish and when he asked me what I’d recently been reading I said I’d just finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – now this wasn’t the most recent book I’d finished however I hoped this might kick-start a positive rapport between us (it did). We talked about Joyce for a bit and I said I was planning on reading Ulysses this summer (I wasn’t) because this again seemed like a potentially favourable remark (it was), and so to sum, here I am, having read arguably the greatest modernist novels trying to get someone to like me. Figures. Although that’s not entirely true, I’ll also say that a sense of cultural obligation/residual cultural king of the hill-ism is also to blame (I also love love loved both Portrait and Dubliners but that’s not as distinctive a reasoning…).
Back to the doorstoppers, this book succeeded at exactly what I hoped it would. I found a great pleasure throughout this book but especially so for majority the second half (that second last episode itself was probably my favourite section of literature I’ve ever read…) which took me only a few days to get through whereas the first half took a couple weeks, I think this is where one can identify the locus of my pleasure. During these particular readings sessions, I find myself completely engaged with the style, structure, and scenes of the novel to the point that I perceive to feel an imaginative access to thoughts and experiences of firstly the characters but also more abstractly with the author. These are the rewards I’m looking for in most novels, rewards which are locked away unless one is willing to work to truly penetrate into the text.
Which brings me to my next point; I know this book is full of thousands of references and quotes and puzzles that I didn’t get and some that I did. A lot of the enjoyment I felt came not just from understanding Joyce’s references, but the present references to Joyce which I had previously processed but never internalised. An analogy I kept coming back to was that it felt akin to when I watch an older movie and realise that one of my favourite Simpsons episodes had done a skit about it, a moment of “so that’s what that was about!” which puts both art objects in a new light, it triggers a deeper sense of understanding and offers a deeper, more fulfilling awareness of meaning. That which came before Joyce, which he utilised so fluently, and that which comes after substantialise the nature of art, which is the spirit of continuity.
But this is not to say that sheer quantity of references make an object art (look at shows like Family Guy), to me, the rewards of Joyce (and [earlier seasons of] The Simpsons if I may go so far as to compare them…) lay in his ability to present his narrative without the overt lookatme-ism attention calling to the references. One does not feel pandered to if they understand the reference because one does not feel they would be excluded had they not gotten it, Ulysses is ostensibly self-contained, however for those who choose to put in the effort to solve the jigsaw will reap greater satisfaction in the clicks of pieces linking together, of reality's picture becoming clearer. The first example of this in the text which really make me realise it’s richness was Buck Mulligan’s quoting of Whitman (“Do I contradict myself?” etc. etc.) this wasn’t a very subtle reference I’ll admit however, it lead to me realising just what game Joyce was playing at. I know that there was a plethora of meaningful references to this book that I missed given it was my first reading (and also my worldly inexperience…), but I also know that in a couples years or so when I decide to revisit and re-revisit this book I will have provided myself with a better foundation to observe more critically what this book has to offer. Ulysses is the kind of book which is as difficult as it is rare, and which makes me to want to look more deeply into the world, so as to reveal the beauty that has been there all along.