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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the most unintelligible and obscene book i’ve ever read. if it was only the last 60 pages it would get 5 stars - i wasn’t so impressed by the 875 pages on lads walking around dublin and being incomprehensible, but like men just don’t impress me in general.
But how to summarise Ulysses? The easy answer is the “life” summation, it’s a novel about reality in its every aspect; or it’s a novel about being a novel, about being not a novel, about being intangible art and illiterate literature; maybe a self-portrait continued, the second, open-ended side of a fractal-bounded analysis of Joyce himself, or of writers, or of humans, or of cities of people and of words and of mundane viscera. The spiritual against the corporeal, the political antagonised by the artistic, stormy pages of pure imperfection. It’s a day and a journey, 18 ‘hours’ like facets of a single gem shone through with a paper white beam split into a rainbow of colours. It’s weighty and vast and complex and extratextual, and it refuses to be compressed to anything less
Read it, it’s Ulysses
[live thread of more detailed thoughts on the individual chapters: https://x.com/g0dyssey/status/1872701260786483699?s=46&t=nf3NG5j0iIWd2ygnjJOEXQ]
Read it, it’s Ulysses
[live thread of more detailed thoughts on the individual chapters: https://x.com/g0dyssey/status/1872701260786483699?s=46&t=nf3NG5j0iIWd2ygnjJOEXQ]
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I wrote a paper on the modernist aesthetic's conflict and contribution to the epic form, and it has left me desperately curious about Joyce. But I'm determined to read through the novel not just to satiate my curiosity, but also as a preliminary run-through, to prepare myself for my later readings. So I'm reading Ulysses naked, without The New Bloomsday Book or any kind of advice; my first reading will be nothing more than my confrontation of what one of my professors calls "the shock of the modern."
Being about a sixth of the way through, I realize I don't have to be entirely so humble about my ambitions. While 99% of the plot is lost on me, I decided to try to familiarize myself with the conventions, thematic clusters, and the major character elements that each chapter provides. I have no issues being an absolutely passive reader, and I'm letting this text happen to me; but nonetheless, I'm taking notes, so that next time I read it I'll have a small repertoire of my own experiences with which to confront it.
But I don't like talking about the novel as an enemy. Already I feel really fond of it. Just in my extremely limited exposure to Joyce's writing, it has opened up, aired out, my understanding of the English language. Each sentence both is an isolated atom of thought and, amazingly, paradoxically reveals itself to be merely an interruption. His writing is a sequence of non-sequiturs. I have no idea how he was able to do this. It's not surprising that Cixous wrote her dissertation on a writer who accomplishes this giant fuck you to logic.
But it's not just a fuck you to logic. It's a fuck you to convention, and to the mystification of storytelling. While I wish there was a way for Joyce to do this more humbly (like Woolf, but I'm partial), I appreciate being shocked, being confused, and feeling absolutely hopeless to understanding the novel. At least for this read-through, I'm happy to pick and choose what to take from the novel, and how to be changed by it.
This is a non-sequitur, but I guess that's appropriate. I love this sentence! I couldn't stop re-reading it!
"Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow" (91).
So cool!
Being about a sixth of the way through, I realize I don't have to be entirely so humble about my ambitions. While 99% of the plot is lost on me, I decided to try to familiarize myself with the conventions, thematic clusters, and the major character elements that each chapter provides. I have no issues being an absolutely passive reader, and I'm letting this text happen to me; but nonetheless, I'm taking notes, so that next time I read it I'll have a small repertoire of my own experiences with which to confront it.
But I don't like talking about the novel as an enemy. Already I feel really fond of it. Just in my extremely limited exposure to Joyce's writing, it has opened up, aired out, my understanding of the English language. Each sentence both is an isolated atom of thought and, amazingly, paradoxically reveals itself to be merely an interruption. His writing is a sequence of non-sequiturs. I have no idea how he was able to do this. It's not surprising that Cixous wrote her dissertation on a writer who accomplishes this giant fuck you to logic.
But it's not just a fuck you to logic. It's a fuck you to convention, and to the mystification of storytelling. While I wish there was a way for Joyce to do this more humbly (like Woolf, but I'm partial), I appreciate being shocked, being confused, and feeling absolutely hopeless to understanding the novel. At least for this read-through, I'm happy to pick and choose what to take from the novel, and how to be changed by it.
This is a non-sequitur, but I guess that's appropriate. I love this sentence! I couldn't stop re-reading it!
"Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow" (91).
So cool!
I struggled through this book. I did not enjoy it.
While I'm sure there is depth to this story and a rewarding life lesson... I could not get behind it.
While I'm sure there is depth to this story and a rewarding life lesson... I could not get behind it.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-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
As explained in the introduction, a heavily schematised modernist work. Much easier to read than the popular awe and myth indicate. Mainly just interesting, interwoven sentences crafted by a master.