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In most novels, the protagonist undergoes fundamental changes and every loose end is tied in the final act, all in the span of 300 pages. In real life and in Ulysses, progress is made a day at a time.
I don’t agree with the common complaint that the writing style renders the characters flat. I very much felt for Bloom, Stephen, and Molly.
My primary complaint is that the experimentation with different writing styles felt … gimmicky. Melville did it first and did it better. At least in Moby Dick it is the ostentatious Ishmael that is experimenting with different genres of writing, so the experimental showiness can be understood as a faulty and humorous aspect of the flawed narrator. With Ulysses, there is not (usually) a narrator between the reader and Joyce. So the experimental showiness comes across as an unexplained gimmicky choice made by the author himself, leading me to assume the real Joyce has the same character flaws as the fictional Ishmael.
I don’t agree with the common complaint that the writing style renders the characters flat. I very much felt for Bloom, Stephen, and Molly.
My primary complaint is that the experimentation with different writing styles felt … gimmicky. Melville did it first and did it better. At least in Moby Dick it is the ostentatious Ishmael that is experimenting with different genres of writing, so the experimental showiness can be understood as a faulty and humorous aspect of the flawed narrator. With Ulysses, there is not (usually) a narrator between the reader and Joyce. So the experimental showiness comes across as an unexplained gimmicky choice made by the author himself, leading me to assume the real Joyce has the same character flaws as the fictional Ishmael.