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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
welcome to... JULYSSES.
this is part of a project in which i read intimidating classics over the course of a month in chunks i delude myself into finding approachable. this nightmare of a book apparently doesn't have "chapters," because that would make this seem at all doable, but it does have 3 books and 18 unlabeled basically unmarked episodes. so i'll be doing one of those a day.
in other words, i'm acting out of self hatred again.
EPISODE ONE
i hate that these are called episodes, because it's making me think about star wars and thinking about star wars is making me feel nostalgic and excited and the only things i should be feeling right now are, like, grit and determination.
i anticipated that the difficulty here would be that the language would be super dense, but it's actually that it all sounds very funny and it's easy to fall into reading without thinking about it at all. i'm just letting words glide through my brain. straight vibing.
EPISODE TWO
these first two have been pretty short, which can only mean suffering for future me. too bad for her! i'm having a great time.
EPISODE THREE
another short episode and we've finished the entire first book. the level of unearned confidence i'm getting from what a chill and fun time this has been so far...james joyce should be scared.
fun that the word "snot" was in the 1930s irish lexicon.
EPISODE FOUR
do you ever read a kind of gross description and think, welp, that's gonna stick in my brain for the rest of my life?
file the faint urine flavor of sheep's kidneys under that.
EPISODE FIVE
when i was 14 and read the odyssey in school, i was also a little brat and insisted time and again that it was sooo boring.
imagine past me's disgust at finding out i'm now voluntarily reading an odyssey retelling with no monsters, no witches, and no gods. just a bunch of drunk irish guys.
in other words, the odyssey motif is just now starting to be more apparent here.
EPISODE SIX
well, these are still nice and short, but it's getting to the point where i'm impressed with myself just for understanding at all what a paragraph means on first read. so. scratch the hubris from before i guess.
EPISODE SEVEN
oh boy, we're getting experimental. the sudden fun we're having with formatting is not upping my confidence.
i have to say, everything i'm hearing about this molly gal is making me yearn for more content. we've got a hottie adulteress singing genius who bosses her husband around in the picture? let's get back to that!
EPISODE EIGHT
i took a week off of this project, i flew a redeye last night, and i am currently chugging an energy drink in the hopes that scientists have had a breakthrough on sleep-replacement technology since i last attempted this. in other words i could not be worse prepared to take on james joyce right now.
thank god for other people's analyses.
EPISODE NINE
shoutout to james joyce. would love to understand anything he writes on the first read by myself with no help from summaries or outside insights someday.
this was actually more comprehensible than usual because it's made up mostly of self-serious and annoying wordplay-based literary discussion, which is my primary form of communication, but still.
EPISODE TEN
toss me in the midst of a varying-perspective crowd of random irish city-dwellers and suddenly i'm having a blast and a half.
i should've just read dubliners. if only i could make as good of a pun with that one.
EPISODE ELEVEN
in this section the book is mostly making mean comments about its characters via nonsense words and euphemisms, which makes it incredibly relatable to me. even more so because it also seems as haunted by the question of when the hell molly is going to show up as i am.
EPISODE TWELVE
it's honestly terrifying that i've read two-thirds of these sections and am not even halfway done in terms of page count. what horrors await me?
oh sure, why not, let's switch into first person and a variety of exaggerated styles all in one episode. i was. just thinking we weren't having enough fun with experimental structure.
EPISODE THIRTEEN
one thing about me is: if i'm reading a classic, i am going to find and become obsessed with the single solitary female character with interiority. even if its intention is to make fun of readers like me.
okay, well. jail for bloom in my opinion. and probably james joyce too while we're sentencing.
EPISODE FOURTEEN
i have to say, i've taken the prior 13 episodes for granted. i thought i was being pretty reasonable about how difficult of a read this has been, but i didn't take the time to be grateful that joyce was actually writing with modern english words.
you don't know what you've got till it's gone.
EPISODE FIFTEEN
god damn it. i knew this was coming. today's section is 181 pages long.
"(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gas ovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)" tag yourself. i'm drowning in authentic dublin guinness (it tastes different when entering your lungs in ireland).
EPISODE SIXTEEN
in the moments when i can actually understand what's going on here (before reading summaries and analyses which i always do like a good student), this book is a blast. it's so goddamn funny to be nervous to have your friend over for a sleepover because when you brought home a random dog off the street with a lame paw your wife was mad, and this is basically the same since the guy hurt his hand earlier.
EPISODE SEVENTEEN
happy penultimate day of julysses to all who celebrate.
if the entire thing were written in this q&a format i would be a lot more confident in my basic comprehension.
EPISODE EIGHTEEN
we're doing this. we're finishing this out. all that stands between me and the end is our biggest challenge yet: james joyce writing about what he thinks women think about sex. all those times i asked for more molly content...i knew not what i brought on myself.
that and the fact that all 50 pages of this is like 8 sentences.
OVERALL
for sure this is a masterpiece and also reading it is an unrelenting nightmare at every second and on every page. the idea that any book should require multiple months or semesters or years of study to understand is contrary to my belief system. (i don't know what my belief system is but it's definitely against that.)
i don't know if i'm glad i read it, and i do know i could read this three more times and still not fully understand it, but you've got to hand it to joyce: it's incredibly funny to write a deeply respected, unbelievably layered and complex literary masterpiece that is 99% about some guy being h*rny. this is truly the throughline of great literature.
rating: 3.5
this is part of a project in which i read intimidating classics over the course of a month in chunks i delude myself into finding approachable. this nightmare of a book apparently doesn't have "chapters," because that would make this seem at all doable, but it does have 3 books and 18 unlabeled basically unmarked episodes. so i'll be doing one of those a day.
in other words, i'm acting out of self hatred again.
EPISODE ONE
i hate that these are called episodes, because it's making me think about star wars and thinking about star wars is making me feel nostalgic and excited and the only things i should be feeling right now are, like, grit and determination.
i anticipated that the difficulty here would be that the language would be super dense, but it's actually that it all sounds very funny and it's easy to fall into reading without thinking about it at all. i'm just letting words glide through my brain. straight vibing.
EPISODE TWO
these first two have been pretty short, which can only mean suffering for future me. too bad for her! i'm having a great time.
EPISODE THREE
another short episode and we've finished the entire first book. the level of unearned confidence i'm getting from what a chill and fun time this has been so far...james joyce should be scared.
fun that the word "snot" was in the 1930s irish lexicon.
EPISODE FOUR
do you ever read a kind of gross description and think, welp, that's gonna stick in my brain for the rest of my life?
file the faint urine flavor of sheep's kidneys under that.
EPISODE FIVE
when i was 14 and read the odyssey in school, i was also a little brat and insisted time and again that it was sooo boring.
imagine past me's disgust at finding out i'm now voluntarily reading an odyssey retelling with no monsters, no witches, and no gods. just a bunch of drunk irish guys.
in other words, the odyssey motif is just now starting to be more apparent here.
EPISODE SIX
well, these are still nice and short, but it's getting to the point where i'm impressed with myself just for understanding at all what a paragraph means on first read. so. scratch the hubris from before i guess.
EPISODE SEVEN
oh boy, we're getting experimental. the sudden fun we're having with formatting is not upping my confidence.
i have to say, everything i'm hearing about this molly gal is making me yearn for more content. we've got a hottie adulteress singing genius who bosses her husband around in the picture? let's get back to that!
EPISODE EIGHT
i took a week off of this project, i flew a redeye last night, and i am currently chugging an energy drink in the hopes that scientists have had a breakthrough on sleep-replacement technology since i last attempted this. in other words i could not be worse prepared to take on james joyce right now.
thank god for other people's analyses.
EPISODE NINE
shoutout to james joyce. would love to understand anything he writes on the first read by myself with no help from summaries or outside insights someday.
this was actually more comprehensible than usual because it's made up mostly of self-serious and annoying wordplay-based literary discussion, which is my primary form of communication, but still.
EPISODE TEN
toss me in the midst of a varying-perspective crowd of random irish city-dwellers and suddenly i'm having a blast and a half.
i should've just read dubliners. if only i could make as good of a pun with that one.
EPISODE ELEVEN
in this section the book is mostly making mean comments about its characters via nonsense words and euphemisms, which makes it incredibly relatable to me. even more so because it also seems as haunted by the question of when the hell molly is going to show up as i am.
EPISODE TWELVE
it's honestly terrifying that i've read two-thirds of these sections and am not even halfway done in terms of page count. what horrors await me?
oh sure, why not, let's switch into first person and a variety of exaggerated styles all in one episode. i was. just thinking we weren't having enough fun with experimental structure.
EPISODE THIRTEEN
one thing about me is: if i'm reading a classic, i am going to find and become obsessed with the single solitary female character with interiority. even if its intention is to make fun of readers like me.
okay, well. jail for bloom in my opinion. and probably james joyce too while we're sentencing.
EPISODE FOURTEEN
i have to say, i've taken the prior 13 episodes for granted. i thought i was being pretty reasonable about how difficult of a read this has been, but i didn't take the time to be grateful that joyce was actually writing with modern english words.
you don't know what you've got till it's gone.
EPISODE FIFTEEN
god damn it. i knew this was coming. today's section is 181 pages long.
"(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gas ovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)" tag yourself. i'm drowning in authentic dublin guinness (it tastes different when entering your lungs in ireland).
EPISODE SIXTEEN
in the moments when i can actually understand what's going on here (before reading summaries and analyses which i always do like a good student), this book is a blast. it's so goddamn funny to be nervous to have your friend over for a sleepover because when you brought home a random dog off the street with a lame paw your wife was mad, and this is basically the same since the guy hurt his hand earlier.
EPISODE SEVENTEEN
happy penultimate day of julysses to all who celebrate.
if the entire thing were written in this q&a format i would be a lot more confident in my basic comprehension.
EPISODE EIGHTEEN
we're doing this. we're finishing this out. all that stands between me and the end is our biggest challenge yet: james joyce writing about what he thinks women think about sex. all those times i asked for more molly content...i knew not what i brought on myself.
that and the fact that all 50 pages of this is like 8 sentences.
OVERALL
for sure this is a masterpiece and also reading it is an unrelenting nightmare at every second and on every page. the idea that any book should require multiple months or semesters or years of study to understand is contrary to my belief system. (i don't know what my belief system is but it's definitely against that.)
i don't know if i'm glad i read it, and i do know i could read this three more times and still not fully understand it, but you've got to hand it to joyce: it's incredibly funny to write a deeply respected, unbelievably layered and complex literary masterpiece that is 99% about some guy being h*rny. this is truly the throughline of great literature.
rating: 3.5
Just couldn’t finish it. Didn’t make sense to me at all…
challenging
emotional
funny
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
Two of the books I read last year that I enjoyed the most were Gilead and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. I loved Gilead because it was about the beauty to be found in the simple observations of mundane, everyday life by an unexceptional person. I loved Billy Lynn because it was about the practical wisdom to be found in the interior monologue of a cultural outsider. Ulysses does both of these things very well.
I don't think that I'm equipped to talk about the more scholarly elements of the book (the discussion of Shakespeare and Aristotle in Scylla & Charybdis, the evolution of language in the Oxen of the Sun, etc.) bc I'm not that cultured, but there are a number of things that struck me as brilliant, beautiful, or otherwise affecting as a non-scholar/layman:
1. It seemed like a very potent observation about living with grief to show how often Rudy came up in Leopold and Molly's thoughts in what was a typical day 10 years after his death
2. Choosing to dramatize the elements of the subconscious mind in a stage play format in the Circe chapter was incredibly creative and effective. It gave voice and context to every fleeting emotion in Bloom's (and occasionally Stephen's) mind in a way that tied back to the other chapters of the day.
3. It made me more conscious of my own interior monologue and made me realize that Joyce knows more about the mechanics of my thought process than I do
4. Of course the prose is pretty
5. Even the hardest chapter for me to get through (Eumaeus) was interesting because it was Joyce doing an impression of Bloom putting on his best impression of a scholarly voice to impress Stephen
That's pretty much all I have off the top of my head immediately after finishing it. Basically I think that it has earned it's reputation as a difficult read but not as a boring or pretentious read -- read it! It's worth it!
I don't think that I'm equipped to talk about the more scholarly elements of the book (the discussion of Shakespeare and Aristotle in Scylla & Charybdis, the evolution of language in the Oxen of the Sun, etc.) bc I'm not that cultured, but there are a number of things that struck me as brilliant, beautiful, or otherwise affecting as a non-scholar/layman:
1. It seemed like a very potent observation about living with grief to show how often Rudy came up in Leopold and Molly's thoughts in what was a typical day 10 years after his death
2. Choosing to dramatize the elements of the subconscious mind in a stage play format in the Circe chapter was incredibly creative and effective. It gave voice and context to every fleeting emotion in Bloom's (and occasionally Stephen's) mind in a way that tied back to the other chapters of the day.
3. It made me more conscious of my own interior monologue and made me realize that Joyce knows more about the mechanics of my thought process than I do
4. Of course the prose is pretty
5. Even the hardest chapter for me to get through (Eumaeus) was interesting because it was Joyce doing an impression of Bloom putting on his best impression of a scholarly voice to impress Stephen
That's pretty much all I have off the top of my head immediately after finishing it. Basically I think that it has earned it's reputation as a difficult read but not as a boring or pretentious read -- read it! It's worth it!
Took about five months, but I am ✨ done ✨. Can't wait to reread all of it with the reading group :)
I know that this book can be daunting, due to its length and reputation of difficulty, but it is truly amazing. Joyce's mastery of language and use of the stream of consciousness is awe-inspiring!
“Yes I said yes I will yes.”
After two years of attempts, I have finally surmounted this dastardly book. From the first attempt (where I threw my book across the room in frustration) to my other attempts to read it. Heck, I had Mitchell Keith try and read with me, but that failed.
I told myself this year would be the year. I’ve finally done it.
Why is this impressive or challenging?
It’s because James Joyce is what happens when you make a linguist a novelist. Although Ulysses is 3 Parts (18 chapters), each chapter is written in a different style. One chapter is written like newspaper headlines, another has musical numbers, the next one has the evolution of the English language, and one has eight paragraphs of no punctuation!
Not to mention, this book takes place over the course of a day. A single day.
This is by no means Joyce’s most difficult work. Finnegans Wake takes that title. (The Book club I’m in will be reading that next year, so we’ll see how I fare there).
What did I think of this book?
It’s a masterpiece plan and simple. It plays with language in a way I rarely see. Is it my favorite book? No. It would rank in my top 15. This book has companion guides that point out all the references and details Joyce left for the reader.
I may tackle a reread someday, but for now I will revel in my victory.
I finally finished my Odyssey of reading Ulysses.
After two years of attempts, I have finally surmounted this dastardly book. From the first attempt (where I threw my book across the room in frustration) to my other attempts to read it. Heck, I had Mitchell Keith try and read with me, but that failed.
I told myself this year would be the year. I’ve finally done it.
Why is this impressive or challenging?
It’s because James Joyce is what happens when you make a linguist a novelist. Although Ulysses is 3 Parts (18 chapters), each chapter is written in a different style. One chapter is written like newspaper headlines, another has musical numbers, the next one has the evolution of the English language, and one has eight paragraphs of no punctuation!
Not to mention, this book takes place over the course of a day. A single day.
This is by no means Joyce’s most difficult work. Finnegans Wake takes that title. (The Book club I’m in will be reading that next year, so we’ll see how I fare there).
What did I think of this book?
It’s a masterpiece plan and simple. It plays with language in a way I rarely see. Is it my favorite book? No. It would rank in my top 15. This book has companion guides that point out all the references and details Joyce left for the reader.
I may tackle a reread someday, but for now I will revel in my victory.
I finally finished my Odyssey of reading Ulysses.
I feel like I need to read this again. During the first reading I was so anxious about picking up meaning and finding all of the references (a truly sisyphean task) that I failed to relax and enjoy the writing. It's brilliantly constructed and definitely worth investing a bit more time in.
I know this is considered one of the best and most influential books of all time, which just makes me feel all the more ignorant because I don’t get it. I am glad I took the time to read it, but also glad I read it quickly and didn’t let myself get bogged down in everything I didn’t understand, which was substantial.
This was book 1 of my 40 books I always wanted to read challenge, and I’m thrilled to have it out of the way because it was one of the most daunting.
This was book 1 of my 40 books I always wanted to read challenge, and I’m thrilled to have it out of the way because it was one of the most daunting.