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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Plantar un árbol, viajar en globo, escribir un libro, leer Ulises...Bueno, una cosa menos.
slow-paced
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I dunno wth any of that was about, but while I was reading it people kept saying I'm funnier that usual plus I might've gotten laid because of the book so 5 stars I guess. It's a real shame James Joyce was born Irish. Think how much better a writer he would be if he had been born French or Romanian.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“Longest way round is the shortest way home”, and so I must read it again for a third time
Ulysses Review Summer 2025
For the past 79 days, I have been a member of a group hosted on Facebook called Ulysses in 80. I asked people in the group what is your elevator pitch to your friends and family about why you keep reading. Here are a few of the responses I liked:
- For me, the pitch is something like this: Ulysses can be frustrating at times, but I keep reading because it’s like nothing else. It’s funny, weird, satiric, beautiful, sad, revelatory, and deeply, deeply human. Joyce captures a single day in Dublin with such richness that everyday things, like walking, talking, eating, and thinking, become epic. The more I read, the more I notice: echoes, jokes, connections, emotions. Mostly, and hardest to explain, is that it starts to feel personal, like the book is alive and evolving as I read. — Mary Morris
- I’m only managing because of this Facebook page. It’s really hard. I’m not being pretentious! But I’m glad I’m doing it. I’m learning lots about reading a difficult novel and why it’s worth it. I’m trying not to over think it but get what I can on my first read. I’m enjoying the support of others. It’s a great experience! — Sharon Montgomery
- I'm Irish and so aware of how contradictory everything in Ireland seems to be - the people, the culture, the history, the language (s!), the literature, attitude to life - Ulysses somehow helps explain how/why we are the way we are. And the more you read it the easier it is to come to an acceptance… and of course the real genius of Ulysses is you could replace the words 'Irish' and 'in Ireland' in the above with 'human' and 'on earth'. — Cliona O'Farrelly
As for my opinion, here are three lines that stood out to me:
- Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods (p. 340).
- His advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland (p. 523).
- He thought that he thought that he was a Jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew he was not (p. 558).
Vintage Gabler trade paperback and Audible audiobook. 643 pgs. 18 August.
I am not going to do the stars thing here, though I think it would be funny to rate it two and say, "It was OK."
I am going to wonder aloud here, though, what it must have been like to read this at the time of its publication. Surely it was a singular experience. Because today, despite its torrent of language and its bottomless ocean of references, it feels to me no less a relic than the Bible itself.
I listened to an unabridged, full-cast recording from 1982. The performances were excellent. In fact, the actor reading Bloom was so effective that I grew to dread his sections. This is the original nincompoop, the father of every fictional fuckup all the way through Nick Hornby's canon. Smart, bookish, immersed in words and thought. Also, a horny idiot.
So, yeah, I envy anyone who read this almost 100 years ago and was rocked to see the male psyche laid so bare, to accept as a new-century Everyman an absent-minded, snack-fingered cuckold. But after everything literature and pop culture have offered up since, including countless arch-Blooms and distillations and thefts of Joyce and his themes, I could read/hear only an oafish dolt.
The last quarter, though, especially its Q&A and the Molly Bloom monologue, still contain a great deal. Or, anyway, they include, in summary or in miniature, every verbal aspect I liked about the book. And I may try again someday. When the audio finished, I jumped back to the first Leopold Bloom chapter and found symmetries with Molly's section that I'd lost track of.
It's a thing to respect, this book, respect and admire. But, despite as much following along with my volume of annotations as time and patience allowed, I failed to understand long stretches of the novel, other than the schematic itself and, thanks to the cast, who was who among the characters. I don't mean I couldn't follow a plot, since there isn't one, or that the discrete sentences were impenetrable. The words washed over me fine, some of them beautifully and prismatically. I mean instead the deep specificity of time, place and creed(s), all of which are, by design, anti-universal and therefore beyond my grasp.
That's part of what makes Ulysses rich. I must settle, though, for recognizing its richness without having been much enriched by finally having read it.
I am going to wonder aloud here, though, what it must have been like to read this at the time of its publication. Surely it was a singular experience. Because today, despite its torrent of language and its bottomless ocean of references, it feels to me no less a relic than the Bible itself.
I listened to an unabridged, full-cast recording from 1982. The performances were excellent. In fact, the actor reading Bloom was so effective that I grew to dread his sections. This is the original nincompoop, the father of every fictional fuckup all the way through Nick Hornby's canon. Smart, bookish, immersed in words and thought. Also, a horny idiot.
So, yeah, I envy anyone who read this almost 100 years ago and was rocked to see the male psyche laid so bare, to accept as a new-century Everyman an absent-minded, snack-fingered cuckold. But after everything literature and pop culture have offered up since, including countless arch-Blooms and distillations and thefts of Joyce and his themes, I could read/hear only an oafish dolt.
The last quarter, though, especially its Q&A and the Molly Bloom monologue, still contain a great deal. Or, anyway, they include, in summary or in miniature, every verbal aspect I liked about the book. And I may try again someday. When the audio finished, I jumped back to the first Leopold Bloom chapter and found symmetries with Molly's section that I'd lost track of.
It's a thing to respect, this book, respect and admire. But, despite as much following along with my volume of annotations as time and patience allowed, I failed to understand long stretches of the novel, other than the schematic itself and, thanks to the cast, who was who among the characters. I don't mean I couldn't follow a plot, since there isn't one, or that the discrete sentences were impenetrable. The words washed over me fine, some of them beautifully and prismatically. I mean instead the deep specificity of time, place and creed(s), all of which are, by design, anti-universal and therefore beyond my grasp.
That's part of what makes Ulysses rich. I must settle, though, for recognizing its richness without having been much enriched by finally having read it.