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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Reading this book is like being an explorer in an incredibly dense rainforest: you can either slash your way through or you can stop and analyse all the flora and fauna that get in your way. Sometimes, you reach a clearing, where the going becomes a lot easier and you realise just how incredible expedition (this Odyssey?) really is. I had to do a lot of slashing. Joyce’s plentiful references (which I never got), his bizarre punctuation, irrelevant tangents and random application of abbreviations or foreign-language phrases make it almost a nightmare to read; then, all of a sudden and for only a few pages, you realise what’s going on and are totally immersed in the scene and you’re truly able to appreciate just what kind of a phenomenal writer James Joyce is. Unfortunately, the 10% of the time that I was able to experience this doesn’t entirely make up for the 90% of the time where I struggled, so take from this what you will. I probably wouldn’t read it again or recommend it to anyone else.
After more than a year since I started this book, I finished reading it. I read the first chapter about 10 times and then I found a few more companion books and lectures that helped me progress. I tried to finish reading it by Bloom's day 2022 and finally finished reading the book 8 days later.
This is a hard book to read, even with the 3 sources that I followed, I am sure I didn't understand even half of it, and there are a couple of chapters that I just heard, and I need to read them many more times to understand what the words were saying :) but I should say that I really enjoyed reading this book and following Bloom through his day and finishing the day/night in Molly's head. But I should say that Joyce is showing off in this book, a bit too much. Yes, he is a genius, we get it from chapter 1, but he keeps trying to show that he is even smarter. Still, it is a joy to read although painful at times!
It will take you a long time to read this book but, in my opinion, it is worth every minute you spend cracking Joyce's code!
This is a hard book to read, even with the 3 sources that I followed, I am sure I didn't understand even half of it, and there are a couple of chapters that I just heard, and I need to read them many more times to understand what the words were saying :) but I should say that I really enjoyed reading this book and following Bloom through his day and finishing the day/night in Molly's head. But I should say that Joyce is showing off in this book, a bit too much. Yes, he is a genius, we get it from chapter 1, but he keeps trying to show that he is even smarter. Still, it is a joy to read although painful at times!
It will take you a long time to read this book but, in my opinion, it is worth every minute you spend cracking Joyce's code!
Stephen Dedalus is a literate Irish aristocrat having an existential crisis, whose background and adventures parellell that of Hamlet. Leopold Bloom is a middle-class man from a Jewish family who has lapsed in his religious practice and is having a marriage crisis—his wife is having an affair—his adventures parallel those of Ulysses.
The two men walk about the city of Dublin, meeting a variety of characters, often corssing paths, and throughout the various episodes topics ranging from Irish Nationalism, literature, birth control, religion, anti-semitism, and prostitution are discussed.
Many chapters are adaptations of episodes from the Odyssey, while also demonstrating a wide variety of literary styles. One chapter is written as a play; another chapter changes styles many times approximating the growth of English from Old English to contemporary, mimicking and sometimes parodying specific authors.
It is a difficult read and took me a long time, putting it down for long periods in between episodes.
Much of it I found dull or needlessly obscure. I particularly liked the final episode, which gave us Leopold's wife Molly's internal monologue, and thus the last word, in several very long sentences with no punctuation.
The two men walk about the city of Dublin, meeting a variety of characters, often corssing paths, and throughout the various episodes topics ranging from Irish Nationalism, literature, birth control, religion, anti-semitism, and prostitution are discussed.
Many chapters are adaptations of episodes from the Odyssey, while also demonstrating a wide variety of literary styles. One chapter is written as a play; another chapter changes styles many times approximating the growth of English from Old English to contemporary, mimicking and sometimes parodying specific authors.
It is a difficult read and took me a long time, putting it down for long periods in between episodes.
Much of it I found dull or needlessly obscure. I particularly liked the final episode, which gave us Leopold's wife Molly's internal monologue, and thus the last word, in several very long sentences with no punctuation.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I will admit that so much of this was lost on me (specifically after episode 13). It became a slog. I powered through, accepting that I would need to reread some day. I couldn’t catch everything and probably never will. I doubt anyone can.
But, it is an obvious work of genius. It’s conceit is simple enough: a modern Irish allegory of The Odyssey, and Joyce is rather steadfast and committed to that structure throughout. But the layers of that structure and how they’re all fully realized is what’s truly overwhelming about the experience of this book. There is Bloom’s odyssey, of course. But then there is the odyssey of Ireland as subject to England (foreshadowed early by Haines’ conversation with Stephen), subject to Catholicism, and in some cheeky moments, subject to its vices. More minutely the experience of the "other" in Ireland is its own odyssey, personified in bloom.
On the grander scale, there is the odyssey of language and literature as a whole. Oxen of the Sun (the most impénétrable of all the episodes for me) explores this concept with the most focus, but it’s sprinkled with genius through the whole novel. Joyce weaves between simple literary devices of basic rhyming poetry and alliteration and deftly complex uses of allusion, entendres and varying structures of narrative, dialogue and prose. All of this encompasses at least an attempt at reflecting and understanding the ways in which the human experience (and all that goes with it, considered in this novel: identity (national and personal), sexuality, relationships, history) is both expressed and understood by the mind through art.
There’s nothing like it and never could be. My favorite episodes for what it’s worth:
Episode 12, Cyclops
Episode 18, Penelope
Episode 4, Calypso
Episode 6, Hades
Episode 15, Circe
But, it is an obvious work of genius. It’s conceit is simple enough: a modern Irish allegory of The Odyssey, and Joyce is rather steadfast and committed to that structure throughout. But the layers of that structure and how they’re all fully realized is what’s truly overwhelming about the experience of this book. There is Bloom’s odyssey, of course. But then there is the odyssey of Ireland as subject to England (foreshadowed early by Haines’ conversation with Stephen), subject to Catholicism, and in some cheeky moments, subject to its vices. More minutely the experience of the "other" in Ireland is its own odyssey, personified in bloom.
On the grander scale, there is the odyssey of language and literature as a whole. Oxen of the Sun (the most impénétrable of all the episodes for me) explores this concept with the most focus, but it’s sprinkled with genius through the whole novel. Joyce weaves between simple literary devices of basic rhyming poetry and alliteration and deftly complex uses of allusion, entendres and varying structures of narrative, dialogue and prose. All of this encompasses at least an attempt at reflecting and understanding the ways in which the human experience (and all that goes with it, considered in this novel: identity (national and personal), sexuality, relationships, history) is both expressed and understood by the mind through art.
There’s nothing like it and never could be. My favorite episodes for what it’s worth:
Episode 12, Cyclops
Episode 18, Penelope
Episode 4, Calypso
Episode 6, Hades
Episode 15, Circe
DNF it’s awful. I have a friend who’s Masters thesis is on the book and it’s still awful. James Joyce is a bitch
I've had a go at this TWICE, and both times lost it somewhere in the second to last chapter. It wasn't meant to be.