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A review by pelks
Ulysses by James Joyce
5.0
Ulysses isn't a book. It's a literary marathon.
I'll admit, I decided to take on the challenge of this renowned modernist epic owing in large part to my own hubris. I thought I could handle it. I'd trained since I was 4 years old. I'd attended an incredibly expensive and pretentious university which prides itself on esoteric and antiquated reading lists. I normally pride myself on my above-average command of the English language.
And yet...
To keep with the earlier metaphor, my muscles almost locked up before I got to the finish line. There were words in this book I didn't recognize (and not just the ones in languages other than English or Irish-specific idioms, I'm talking rare, archaic English words), and I really can't remember the last time I've read a book that caused me to consult an English dictionary multiple times. At some points I think I even stopped acknowledging words themselves, my eyes just glossing over the little groups of symbols while my brain simply stopped caring.
But then there were all the other parts...
This book is an absurd and wonderful thing. I'm glad I'm part of the strange and perhaps masochistic bunch that have read its entirety. Finishing this book was, for me, its own reward. It has its moments of brilliant clarity that are embedded in the opaque ridiculousness of Joyce's intellect, it has great puns, it has improbably long lists, it has some low-hanging meanings or allegories or styles I recognized that goaded me on, winking, suggesting "Doesn't it feel nice to be in on the joke sometimes?"
800-odd pages later, I can only say that sometimes yes, yes it does, yes.
I'll admit, I decided to take on the challenge of this renowned modernist epic owing in large part to my own hubris. I thought I could handle it. I'd trained since I was 4 years old. I'd attended an incredibly expensive and pretentious university which prides itself on esoteric and antiquated reading lists. I normally pride myself on my above-average command of the English language.
And yet...
To keep with the earlier metaphor, my muscles almost locked up before I got to the finish line. There were words in this book I didn't recognize (and not just the ones in languages other than English or Irish-specific idioms, I'm talking rare, archaic English words), and I really can't remember the last time I've read a book that caused me to consult an English dictionary multiple times. At some points I think I even stopped acknowledging words themselves, my eyes just glossing over the little groups of symbols while my brain simply stopped caring.
But then there were all the other parts...
This book is an absurd and wonderful thing. I'm glad I'm part of the strange and perhaps masochistic bunch that have read its entirety. Finishing this book was, for me, its own reward. It has its moments of brilliant clarity that are embedded in the opaque ridiculousness of Joyce's intellect, it has great puns, it has improbably long lists, it has some low-hanging meanings or allegories or styles I recognized that goaded me on, winking, suggesting "Doesn't it feel nice to be in on the joke sometimes?"
800-odd pages later, I can only say that sometimes yes, yes it does, yes.