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I appreciate the layers upon every word in this book: Joyce’s intellect is on a different plane. I also can’t help but think this book is a giant ‘suck it’ to anyone reading it.
It’s easy to see the massive influence this had on many of today’s modernist authors. Wallace is a pale imitation of Joyce. Pynchon fell too in love with his side bars, tangents, and pop cultural references. Ulysses, while I did not enjoy reading the book, does transcend its time and place.
It’s also too cute by half and the humor, to me, doesn’t hold up. Yes, I most likely missed 2/3rds of the jokes and I’m not the biggest fan of mean humor. Still, I do see how ‘gravity’s rainbow’ and ‘infinite jest’ truly are love letters toJoyce.
I did not enjoy reading this book from section three onward. There were a few good chapters, like Hades, but then there was Circe and Oxen. While I appreciate Oxen, and I’m amazed by the skill, it was overly crafted and just not worth my time.
I hear repeated readings make one love this book more. I’ll leave that exercise to others. This book is ground break, I see that. It’s also, like Seinfeld, a book about nothing that tries way to hard.
It’s easy to see the massive influence this had on many of today’s modernist authors. Wallace is a pale imitation of Joyce. Pynchon fell too in love with his side bars, tangents, and pop cultural references. Ulysses, while I did not enjoy reading the book, does transcend its time and place.
It’s also too cute by half and the humor, to me, doesn’t hold up. Yes, I most likely missed 2/3rds of the jokes and I’m not the biggest fan of mean humor. Still, I do see how ‘gravity’s rainbow’ and ‘infinite jest’ truly are love letters toJoyce.
I did not enjoy reading this book from section three onward. There were a few good chapters, like Hades, but then there was Circe and Oxen. While I appreciate Oxen, and I’m amazed by the skill, it was overly crafted and just not worth my time.
I hear repeated readings make one love this book more. I’ll leave that exercise to others. This book is ground break, I see that. It’s also, like Seinfeld, a book about nothing that tries way to hard.