Reviews - Ulysses | The StoryGraph

1.91k reviews for:

Ulysses

James Joyce

3.64 AVERAGE

stanro's review against another edition

3.5

challenging funny informative reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A long-delayed journey has commenced — Ulysses by James Joyce.

I’m reading an audio version, brilliantly narrated by Jim Norton, via the Audrey app. There are other audio versions of course but I cannot conceive of any better than this.

The Audrey app provides a guide to the reader that you can access after you’ve read the chapter. It’s comforting to know that there is reader support for this legendarily difficult book. I start my reading on 16 June, Bloomsday.

Usually I make notes as I read — impressions of the journey or thoughts on or spin-offs from. Sometimes they are extensive. With so much written about this work and the notes on Audrey itself, I limit myself.

I note approvingly how superficially well-informed on Jewish practices Joyce is. (And I wonder why he has chosen a Jewish central character.)

I note his immense vocabulary and his use of French and Latin and Italian at times (and remember how Patrick White’s occasional use of untranslated French dialog by a few English speaking characters at times annoyed me — it does not annoy me here).

I note some humour, some Shakespearean references, indeed a whole discussion of whether Shakespeare was Hamlet. I see the reference to Shakespeare bequeathing to Annemaree Hathaway his “second best bed” and recall recently learning when visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace that, far from being an insult, this was the actual marriage bed, the one they enjoyed together. The “best bed” was for public show.

I ponder the irony of naming a novel set entirely in one day and in one (small) city after a character who spent twenty years getting home.

Over all, my notes are few.

Until Section 14 — Oxen of the Sun. The opening is so strange that I pull up the Joyce Project website, which among many things, contains the entire text in searchable format. And as I relisten to the opening paragraphs, I read along:

—
Deshil Holles Eames. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa

—

It’s a very arresting start to a lengthy section that changes literary gear several times, from this exultant tripling of three phrases, through a considerable passage told in passive voice, to an exegesis on conception and birth.

Now that I have the e-text before me, I find myself looking up words. Not all of them are to be found.

After the chapter is concluded I read the Audrey notes about it. Though some things are clarified, I am made painfully aware of Joyce’s extraordinary erudition. He is, in that section, parodying the styles of several great writers. Given my immense ignorance of their works, knowing this makes little difference to my appreciation of what he has achieved.

Joyce loves to play with words, to string together words containing the same or a similar sound: “Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably conduce to success?” It’s an enjoyable playfulness.

Joyce also likes turning a thought inwards on itself to absurdity: “What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom's thoughts about Stephen?”

I write in a note before commencing the final chapter “Yet for all that, I find it far too often tedious.”

A recurring question that had nibbled at the margins of my Ulysses-reading consciousness was why so many pubs were named after Molly Bloom. The final chapter, Penelope, answers it.

This chapter, brilliantly read by Marcella Riordan, is in its entirety an interiority— an internal monologue of Marion (Molly) Bloom. And Molly is an extraordinarily well-drawn person I think — complex, vulnerable, bold, strong, contradictory.

On the printed page there are just a few very long sentences (some over 30 pages) in what is one of the longer chapters in a lengthy book. The audio reading is a great help.

Sometimes you just make the journey to know you’ve made it. I’ve made it. I’ve arrived. But the journey was so difficult and deep appreciation of it requires more background than I can bring to the task, that this literary masterpiece is ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 from me. #areadersjourney

aevictor's review against another edition

4.0

challenging funny slow-paced

gabrielzanetti's review against another edition

5.0

I'm not going to say anything new or useful about a book far above my pay grade. I worked through this book over the course of almost 5 months with my trusted reading group and feel better for it. By reading ulysses i feel that i have learned to speak, think and appeciate interior life in ways I didnt know ( or atleast) notice before.

askirosingh's review against another edition

5.0

"How was your day?"
I think we've all had to synthesize a few short key points out of the nearly infinite thoughts and observations we have every day. Ulysses for me has been a magnifying glass on the in between moments that we don't tell people about. It celebrates the mundane. If you enjoy seeing master craftsmen doing what they do best then you might find some enjoyment from Ulysses.

Honestly, each chapter is written so differently that they feel like different books. Some are incredibly dense and some are chuckle worthy fart jokes. I think the characters are impossible to completely hate or love and their transient nature just feels like everyday encounters. It is clearly paying homage to Ireland and with that comes a lot of specific references that can be scavenged up and some that feel like they are lost forever. There is so much I feel like I missed and thats okay. Unpacking this book could take a lifetime, but I think it's worth the effort to get through once.