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![Ulysses [Annotated] by James Joyce](https://cdn.thestorygraph.com/cyr5gtr5k35uxv5tc8g9ceuy381l)
3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
This was just super painful to read. I think I got about two thirds of the way through, out of sheer stubbornness. I've met people who love this book and I just. don't. get. it.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While an avid reader, I don’t consider myself a particularly literary person. Ulysses was definitely the “hardest” novel I’ve read insofar as that it has a tough barrier to entry and its style is so vastly different from how we normally would read a story. Despite all of that, I felt the experience as well as the story itself was very rewarding. While there is a plot I felt the more rewarding part of reading the novel was the experience. People read for all sorts of different reasons and this might not be your thing or something you enjoy but to me it’s undeniable that this piece of art made me feel something that very few other books have which is a testament in of itself.
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
No sharpness in plot
Overrated and boring
Overrated and boring
YEESH. At times obsessed, at times disgusted, at times waiting for them to get on with this eternal day, the list goes on. I feel like I just got lost in a maze for 10 years and somehow came out the same way I went in. That was beautiful and I never ever want to read it again.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
29. Holy Bloomsday. I’m done. YES I WILL YES.
Ulysses. The man, the myth, the mountain. The voyage of a daytime and a nighttime of a lifetime.
I’m not sure how to describe or unpack this beast. Many of my Instagram friends know this maze in and out. If you don’t, Ulysses is the story of Leopold Bloom‘s day/night of June 16, 1904 but that’s like saying the Bible is the story of a dude being born.
I loved a lot of it. I didn’t understand some of it. I didn’t catch the references in most of it. A really great thing I read in one of the THREE guides I referenced while reading it is “James Joyce expects readers of Ulysses to have already read Ulysses” and LOL that is so accurate.
This lovable asshole (yes I used this phrase intentionally) begs to be reread. And I want to. But at nearly 800 pages, I’ll do it, uh, later. Maybe next year. And in all seriousness, I will reread The Odyssey, and then reread A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and THEN reread Ulysses. Then I might get more references and catch more of the foreshadowing that eternal puzzle-builder Joyce wove throughout this Shroud of Stephen. #2025books
Ulysses. The man, the myth, the mountain. The voyage of a daytime and a nighttime of a lifetime.
I’m not sure how to describe or unpack this beast. Many of my Instagram friends know this maze in and out. If you don’t, Ulysses is the story of Leopold Bloom‘s day/night of June 16, 1904 but that’s like saying the Bible is the story of a dude being born.
I loved a lot of it. I didn’t understand some of it. I didn’t catch the references in most of it. A really great thing I read in one of the THREE guides I referenced while reading it is “James Joyce expects readers of Ulysses to have already read Ulysses” and LOL that is so accurate.
This lovable asshole (yes I used this phrase intentionally) begs to be reread. And I want to. But at nearly 800 pages, I’ll do it, uh, later. Maybe next year. And in all seriousness, I will reread The Odyssey, and then reread A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and THEN reread Ulysses. Then I might get more references and catch more of the foreshadowing that eternal puzzle-builder Joyce wove throughout this Shroud of Stephen. #2025books
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Is James Joyce a literary genius who deserves to be considered classic? Absolutely.
Is Ulysses a timeless classic everyone should read? Very likely.
Can you understand his writing? I've had more trouble following him than Shakespeare if that is any indication for you all.
Is it an easy read? Absolutely not. A friend of mine had an entire seminar at university solely dedicated to this book, that's how much there is to Ulysses. Enough material to fill an entire semester doing nothing but reading/analyzing/discussing Ulysses.
Is it an enjoyable read? Not for me. I found it boring, incomprehensible at times and just so freaking long!! How can nothing happen on so many pages? The way it is written is just so dry and BLAH.
Conclusion: I read Ulysses because it's a classic and I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that a classic is a book everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read. That's exactly what Ulysses is. If you take your literature seriously and you want to go through the classics, you can't get past this one. But it's a long, at times painful road, which does not really offer any kind of glorious achievement besides the fact that now you're read Ulysses....
Is Ulysses a timeless classic everyone should read? Very likely.
Can you understand his writing? I've had more trouble following him than Shakespeare if that is any indication for you all.
Is it an easy read? Absolutely not. A friend of mine had an entire seminar at university solely dedicated to this book, that's how much there is to Ulysses. Enough material to fill an entire semester doing nothing but reading/analyzing/discussing Ulysses.
Is it an enjoyable read? Not for me. I found it boring, incomprehensible at times and just so freaking long!! How can nothing happen on so many pages? The way it is written is just so dry and BLAH.
Conclusion: I read Ulysses because it's a classic and I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that a classic is a book everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read. That's exactly what Ulysses is. If you take your literature seriously and you want to go through the classics, you can't get past this one. But it's a long, at times painful road, which does not really offer any kind of glorious achievement besides the fact that now you're read Ulysses....