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frogman_doug 's review for:
Ulysses
by James Joyce
I don't think a review of any length can do a book of this scope any justice. Suffice it to say, there is a reason that this Cyclopean novel has the prestige that it does: it is at once obscure and very clear; oppressive and quite pleasant; encyclopedic and quotidian. I very much appreciate this novel's merits and a semester of study devoted to it has increased this appreciation: nobody quite does what Joyce does in this book (and, I'm told Finnegan's Wake is no different in that regard).
Do I recommend it though? No, not really. If it weren't for the obligation to work through it for class, I would have quit after the second page. But I'm glad that obligation spurred me to continue on. Every literature student (or passionate reader) will eventually arrive at Ulysses: it is that monolith which wards the feint-hearted away yet attracts those with thick enough skin to bear its slings and arrows (I'm using a lot of oxymorons aren't I?).
A classic and a monument of the early 20th Century. Read it if you dare; avoid it at all costs if you have any sense; but if you fall into the maelstrom, I assure you'll find stable footing at some point; and what you'll find is so unlike anything you've ever read: so intimately familiar yet strange in its familiarity.
Do I recommend it though? No, not really. If it weren't for the obligation to work through it for class, I would have quit after the second page. But I'm glad that obligation spurred me to continue on. Every literature student (or passionate reader) will eventually arrive at Ulysses: it is that monolith which wards the feint-hearted away yet attracts those with thick enough skin to bear its slings and arrows (I'm using a lot of oxymorons aren't I?).
A classic and a monument of the early 20th Century. Read it if you dare; avoid it at all costs if you have any sense; but if you fall into the maelstrom, I assure you'll find stable footing at some point; and what you'll find is so unlike anything you've ever read: so intimately familiar yet strange in its familiarity.