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Ulysses

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 44,185 ratings · 2,806 reviews

In the past, Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and even unreadable. None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite...more

Paperback, Gabler, 657 pages

Published May 12th 1986 by Vintage (first published February 2nd 1922)

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Nov 19, 2009 Ceridwen added it · review of another edition

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Morwenna

Shelves: abandoned, not-for-me-maybe-for-you, capital-m-modern, celts

Update: I've been trolled twice now on this review, and I'm going to take down my stars because I think it's like a red-flag to a certain kind of intellectual asshole. I've always been bothered by the rating-system, and this is perfect example of how radically imprecise that metric is. I don't care what these jerks think of me or my opinion, but I'm sick of people triggering off over a rating. I do believe I will try to read this again some day. I can't say the stars will change, but maybe I can...more

302 likes · like · see review

Nov 18, 2012 Petra X rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, crap-authors-and-books-i-loathed

5 stars because its a work of genius, so everyone says.

4 stars because it has so many deep literary and classical references that to say one understood the book, is like saying one is very well educated.

3 stars because the words, strung together in a stream-of-consciousness mellifluous, onomatopoeic way, read just beautifully.

2 stars because it was boring as hell. I just couldn't care less about the characters, I just wanted them to get on with whatever they were doing and have Joyce interfere i...more

152 likes · like · see review

Jun 08, 2011 The Chaotic Reader rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, classics

My review of Ulysses is posted on The Chaotic Reader.

74 likes · like · see review

Mar 22, 2012 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: really-big-timeconsumers, joyce, novels

Each chapter is rated out of ten for difficulty, obscenity, general mindblowing brilliance and beauty of language.

Note : if you're after my short course bluffer's guide to ulysses, here it is :

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

But now... the real thing.

*******************

1. Telemachus. Difficulty : 0
Obscenity: 0
General mindblowing brilliance : 8
Beauty of language : 7
Stephen the morose ex-student isn't enjoying life. Lots of brittle dialogue, mainly from motormouth blasphemer Buck Mull...more

113 likes · like · see review

Feb 17, 2013 Stephen M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Alien Anthropologists Who Want to Learn About the English Language

Recommended to Stephen M by: EG

Shelves: save-me-from-what-i-want, everything-everything-everything, tears-of-beautiful-laughter, milk-for-the-pussens, 3-cheers-4-complex-characters, metafictive-madness, mind-expanding, obras-maestras, mentions-mitchell, the-megha-novel

On Not Reviewing this Book

*this review has a lot of swearing in it and for that I apologize. drinking requires apologies*

I have about thirty pages, front and back, of notes on this book, I swear. My intentions for the review were epic in proportion: multiple Ian-Graye style headings, a dissertation level of analysis, and a wealth of puns scattered throughout.

But of course, books leave their impact in complex and frustrating ways and initially, any semblance of a review was far too intimidating....more

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Nov 28, 2012 Manny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: There's a tricky question

Shelves: mentions-twilight, older-men-younger-women, parody-homage, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, transcendent-experiences, well-i-think-its-funny, why-not-call-it-poetry, life-is-joyce

(Geneva, late 2012. Plainpalais market, a riotous display of phallic vegetables, ill-smelling cheese and trash literature. THE REVIEWER and his GIRLFRIEND walk through the stalls hand in hand. Polyglot conversations around them.)

THE REVIEWER: Now here's a significant quote.
"My methods are new and are causing surprise
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes."

STANISLAW LEM: Mogę to rozwinąć.
MICHAEL KANDEL: I can give you more details on that.

(No one pays them any attention)

SWEDISH SHOPPER:...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: masochists

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: sadists

Shelves: beach-reads, read-in-2012, you-should-read-this, own, brits, gr-group-coreads, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

Are you ready for it? Are you sure? Okay, well here it is!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuULcV...

I finished Ulysses! It took Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay 7 weeks to climb to the top of Mt. Everest. It took me 5 weeks to conquer Mt. Ulysses. After I finished, I threw the book on the table, ran out the door, down Kelly Drive, through the art museum circle, ran up the stairs, started punching at the air and raised my fists in victory!! And the world reJoyced!

Okay, so I didn’t really do...more

53 likes · like · see review

Feb 07, 2010 Bram rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, favorites

I wanted to start out discussing the baggage that comes with reading this book and the challenge of attempting to reach a verdict on its quality in out-of-5-star form, let alone that of trying to write a coherent response. But unfortunately, I’ve already covered that intro ground with another review. But where I succeeded in not becoming a slobbering fanboy or prickish contrarian on that occasion, I have here, much to my own surprise, failed. During the early episodes of the book I felt like I...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Emilian Kasemi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: heavyweights, favorites, reviews, read-and-reread, non-plus-ultra

“You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
William Faulkner

Joyce considered writing a hard work and not just a means of expression. You can compare the complexity of his work to that sought by the architects, in the structures of cathedrals. But an author, some people may say, can not and should not write exclusively for the world of artists, but must base its work solidly in reality. And it's exactly what Joyce wanted to do,...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tam-lin, 2010, books-about-books, gods-myths-heroes, irish, reviewed, modern-love

I hate you. I hate you. I love you. I hate you. I love you. Damn you. Stop laughing. You are driving me totally crazy but you are also the only book I want to read. That’s it, the moment when every other book seems boring, uninteresting, not worth investing my time in, because there is Ulysses on the table, and no matter how annoyed I am at it, the author, modernism, dead Greeks, and myself for picking it up in the first place (again), it’s still all I want to read.

It’s a great book.

There's so...more

108 likes · like · see review

Apr 11, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Just read it!

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Ben Linus

Shelves: times-100-best, dear_dirty_dublin, favorites

Often considered one of the ‘greatest novel of the 20th century’, James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses, is a feat, and feast, of sheer literary brilliance. Reimagining Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey as the travels of an everyday man through the crowded streets and pubs of Dublin, Joyce weaves strikingly versatile prose styles and varying perspectives to encompass the whole of life within the hours of a single standard day, June 16th, 1904. This day, dubbed Bloomsday, is celebrated with increasing p...more

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Jun 16, 2009 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who have a lot of time on their hands and a masochistic streak

Shelves: fiction, owned, 20th-century-early-to-mid, great-and-terrible-men

I don't feel really worthy to review this book. It's Ulysses. It's one of the greatest modern novels in the English language. It's a love letter to it and a history of it and has a sick, twisted relationship with it's readers and has actually driven people to a lifetime of studying just a few chapters of it. I know I missed a thousand things in every ten pages I read, and if I went back again, I'd see things completely differently.

And nonetheless, I did read it, and I feel the need to mark that...more

45 likes · like · see review

Mar 02, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, read-2011, exert-yourself, reviews-5-stars, tales-of-brave-ulysses

100 Words in Search of a Precis (For Those of Us Who Prefer the Short Form of Stimulation)

“Ulysses” is a snapshot of one day’s life, with us watching from our couch as if we were watching the Simpsons.

Its meaning is a creative joint venture between author and reader and, equally likely, other readers.

Bloom sees sex as procreation and a continuation of himself, his journey, his culture, his legacy into the future.

Ultimately, "Ulysses" is Joyce's gift to his wife, Nora, the mother of his son (Ge...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Fionnuala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is my attempt to reclaim Ulysses from the academics. My edition was a simple paperback without notes or glossary but containing a preface which I intend to read after I've written my review. I'll probably look at other reviews too as, frankly, I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms from the world of this novel.
The word 'novel', as we use it today, seems inappropriate to describe Ulysses but at the same time, the word might have been invented specifically to describe it. Everything about...more This review is my attempt to reclaim Ulysses from the academics. My edition was a simple paperback without notes or glossary but containing a preface which I intend to read after I've written my review. I'll probably look at other reviews too as, frankly, I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms from the world of this novel.
The word 'novel', as we use it today, seems inappropriate to describe Ulysses but at the same time, the word might have been invented specifically to describe it. Everything about it is novel, from the structure to the use of language, from the characterisation to the treatment of history. But by ‘novel’, I don’t mean 'obscure' or 'inaccessible', as is its reputation. For instance, I found Flan O’Brian’s At Swim Two Birds quite difficult to follow in a way that Ulysses is definitely not and I’m finding Beckett’s Molloy, which I’m currently reading, much more difficult to get involved with; Ulysses was pure pleasure in comparison.
So how has this book developed such a fearsome reputation? Perhaps because we mistakenly think that to understand it, we need to have a thorough knowledge of the classics, including Shakespeare and Homer. I know very little about the Odyssey except that it recounts a long journey home made by Odysseus/Ulysses, but that lack of knowledge didn’t take from my enjoyment in the least. I’m not an expert on Hamlet either, but the little I know, and which most people probably know, was sufficient to allow me to follow the sections which allude to it. There were a few Old English phrases near the beginning that I googled but I soon decided to just let myself sink into the world of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus without further interruption. Being able to read this without disruption is probably part of the reason I enjoyed the experience so much. When I bought my copy some fifteen years ago, I read about a third of it with great pleasure but as I had young children at the time and limited free moments, I had to abandon it when the reading experience became more challenging. And yes, it does become challenging in some parts, but never for very long, as if Joyce knew exactly how far he could try our patience.
As to deciphering those challenging sections, I think that one reader’s guess is as good as another’s. A big part of the pleasure for me was that puzzle element because I had plenty of time to reflect on what I was reading, time to figure out a meaning that satisfied me and also made sense of the bigger picture. And that’s what my reading without notes proved to me: there is a perfectly logical trajectory behind it all, even behind the more phantasmagorical elements. During the course of one day, Joyce reveals more and more facets of his main character, Leopold Bloom, and of the world he lived in. The characterisation of Bloom is so well done that by the end, he represents everyman, and every woman too, as well as messiahs and prophets, kings and emperors, in short all of humanity, complete with all of its goodness, and yes, some of its failings. Of course, my interpretation may not be accurate and there may be acres of symbolism that I missed, but since I had such a satisfying read, how can that matter?
My satisfaction may have depended to some extent on the fact that I have an Irish background, but to what degree it helped me, I cannot tell. It is true that some of the material was familiar from history lessons and from general culture but at the same time, the Dublin of 1904 was a complete revelation to me. And the themes covered move quickly from the local to the universal so that a lack of knowledge of Irish life and culture shouldn’t be an impossible barrier, just a challenging one.
If you feel ready for an exciting, stimulating and extremely rewarding reading experience, Ulysses is for you.
(less)

34 likes · like · see review

Jun 23, 2012 Michael Kneeland rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone unafraid of 768 pages and hear-say

Shelves: comic-masterpieces

You can always tell a book will be timeless when it's got a story all of its own:

Joyce first tried shopping the colossal Ulysses manuscript around Paris in 1920, but was turned down by nearly everybody. Then 1922 came along and an adventurous young entrepreneur named Sylvia Beach--who owned a little bookshop called Shakespeare and Co., which attracted the likes of young Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald and even our anti-Semitic poet-at-large, Ezra Pound--managed to have it published by taki...more

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May 01, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, classics, challenging

My third attempt to read this book and this time, I succeeded. It stayed 2 years in my currently-reading shelf. I read it intermittently because there were other books that came along the way. First, I read this page by page until a quarter of it. I did not understand where the story was going and what Joyce was trying to say. So, for the third time, I stopped. My brother asked why. I told him how arduous, dragging and difficult this book was so after he commented "straining your eyes is not the...more My third attempt to read this book and this time, I succeeded. It stayed 2 years in my currently-reading shelf. I read it intermittently because there were other books that came along the way. First, I read this page by page until a quarter of it. I did not understand where the story was going and what Joyce was trying to say. So, for the third time, I stopped. My brother asked why. I told him how arduous, dragging and difficult this book was so after he commented "straining your eyes is not the same as reading," he gave me a copy of The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses by Harry Blamires and so the reading became enjoyable and made the book easier to understand. God bless my brother for rescuing me.

You see, check all the best ever novel list and chances are, you will find this book. It is in the 1001, 501, Modern Library, Metalist, etc. It is even said to be the greatest novel in English language. For its inventiveness, depth and complexity, I agree. Inventiveness, because it has all the modernist or post-modernist flavors. It has all the metaphors and references to other equally brilliant yet challenging-to-read works (Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Joyce used his characters to reveal his soul and brain. It is about a day (June 16, 1904 aka "Bloomsday" in England) in the life of Leopold Bloom a 38-y/o writer whose wife Molly Bloom is having extra-marital affairs not to mention many admirers or suitors. As the day progresses, as he wanders in the street of Dublin, he passes by a newspaper office, a funeral, a library, several pubs, several churches, a hospital and a brothel. He also meets the recurring character of Joyce's earlier work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 22-y/o Stephen Dedalus who has become the replacement of his dead son Rudy who has died after only a few months of being alive. After Rudy's birth, Leopold and Molly stop having sex.

That is the gist of the story and yet the breath, width and depth of the narration are nothing but astonishing. The Homeric parallelism is astounding. Joyce is said to believe that human behavior, unconsciously drawn from history or myth, endlessly repeats themselves. So, Leopold Bloom follows the life of Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is Ulysses' son, Telemachus and Molly Bloom is the philandering Penelope. The story also heavily tackles the father-son relationship and makes references to the deathless story of Hamlet. The brothel episode quotes heavily on the Wife of Bath episode in Chaucer's Canterbury. "The Cyclops" chapter deals on religion in England during that time and is said to have been written by Joyce while looking at the map of Dublin. It is also where most of his characters appear and has the least Homeric parallelism. "The Circe" chapter is said to be the one that it took months for Joyce to write because of the many revisions he made and it came to be the most interesting part not only because it has the most Homeric parallelism but also has the most quotable quotes, i.e., where I have the most dog-eared pages. The last chapter "Penelope" is not punctuated and the free-flowing verse reminded me of Jose Saramago's Blindness. So, I take back my earlier admiration for Saramago's trademark. I thought it was an innovative idea until I came to that penultimate chapter of beautiful soliloquy of Molly Bloom.

I know this review does not do any justice to a staggering book like Ulysses. Suffice it to say, that this book is a test of reading endurance. When I finished this, I felt the same way like when I finished Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace when I was in college, a quarter of century ago. When I finished that book, I said to myself that I could read anything until my first two attempts to read Ulysses. Now that I'm done with this, my next challenge is to read and finish Proust's Remembrance of the Things Past. If this took me three attempts and 2 years to finish, I am giving myself 5 years for that work. On the second thought, I should get me a guide book for that, too.

Good luck to me!(less)

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Jan 31, 2008 Matt rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

as a bloke with an english degree, i guess i'm supposed to extol all thing joycian and gladly turn myself self over to the church of joye. after all, that's what english grads do, right? we revel in our snobbery and gloat about having read 'gravity's rainbow' and 'ulysses' start to finish.

well, i may be in the minority when i say i didn't care for this book at all. i get that it's a complex book with innumerable references to greek mythology, heavy allegories, dense poetry wacky structures, and...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gritty-reads, humorous, quirky-fiction, classic-literature, favourites, classic-challenge-2, countries-challenge, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die

"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move."
Ulysses - by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Tennyson's words may not have been the inspiration behind James Joyce's work, however, as all powerful poems do, they highlight an important theme of Joyce's novel. This theme being the idea that an individual is the sum of all his experiences - and yet those experiences are the way in which the individual c...more

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view all 13 comments

s.penkevich Absolutely stunning review, Jonathan! I am ever so glad that you enjoyed this and really like your analysis of the metalanguage. Joyce is so good with...more
Mar 21, 2013 07:05pm

Jonathan He said that although in the modern day we see W.S. as some scholarly pursuit and high literary merit, but when his plays were put on they were aimed...more
Mar 21, 2013 10:13pm

Mar 22, 2007 Jared Busch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: not everyone

Shelves: alltimefavorites, joyce

Maybe my favorite book and definitely a strange obsession of mine. I knew next to nothing about Irish history before reading this but had a masochistic streak of reading insanely difficult books, so that was enough to get me going. If you read "The Bloomsday Guide" along with it, it's actually not so hard, but Joyce is definitely an acquired taste, and I would recommend NOT starting here with him. The logical order in which to read him would be chronological: Dubliners, Portrait, then Ulysses, a...more Maybe my favorite book and definitely a strange obsession of mine. I knew next to nothing about Irish history before reading this but had a masochistic streak of reading insanely difficult books, so that was enough to get me going. If you read "The Bloomsday Guide" along with it, it's actually not so hard, but Joyce is definitely an acquired taste, and I would recommend NOT starting here with him. The logical order in which to read him would be chronological: Dubliners, Portrait, then Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake... well... nevermind.

I think the reason I like Ulysses so much is that I love reading/watching/hearing things that just BLOW my mind. Ulysses is so incredibly inventive, meticulous, passionate, and above all, HUMAN. It's easy to label writing like this as pretentious, but if anything, the so-called pretentious sections were intended by Joyce as either an affront to the stuffy literary ideals of the time, or just to be FUNNY. And that's what most people don't realize, that Joyce intended this to be a "comic novel." Essentially it is just the story of two outcasts who wander the city-- one, the young Stephen Dedalus, pushed out of his own home by two "friends" who are mooching off him-- the other, the middle-aged Leopold Bloom, pushed from his own home because his wife is busy "practicing" her musical performance with her male singing partner--or, actually, busy having sex with him. So we stay in the thoughts of the two men throughout their entire day until they meet each other at night. Along the way they eat, drink, masturbate, cry, get into fights, hallucinate, sing, talk and think. In other words, they do the shit all of us do everyday. Nothing about the plot or action of Ulysses is remarkable, and that's the point. The whole purpose of the grandiose design of the book is that ALL people's lives are grandiose. The novel ends inside the head of Bloom's wife, a monologue presented in one 40+ page sentence which is probably the most famous passage in the book and arguably the best. Trouble is, I fear, most readers don't even get that far. I for one will never regret the time I put into it... and still put into it. By the time I kick, I'll have probably read it cover to cover more than ten times.(less)

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May 10, 2012 Steve marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: may-try-again-later

(Now with an addendum)

If you’re one of those technologically hobbled types who doesn’t yet have a time machine, I highly recommend one. I also suggest spending the extra to get the “place” setting. Then you could do like I did and put yourself in a pub in Dublin in 1904. Last night, after transporting myself in space and time, I sidled up to a loquacious young fellow who seemed, at times, either drunk or crazy, but even as he rambled he was preternaturally well-spoken. He was at his coherent bes...more (Now with an addendum)

If you’re one of those technologically hobbled types who doesn’t yet have a time machine, I highly recommend one. I also suggest spending the extra to get the “place” setting. Then you could do like I did and put yourself in a pub in Dublin in 1904. Last night, after transporting myself in space and time, I sidled up to a loquacious young fellow who seemed, at times, either drunk or crazy, but even as he rambled he was preternaturally well-spoken. He was at his coherent best engaged in dialog, but he was easily sidetracked and would essentially start thinking out loud. I often couldn’t make sense of it, but there was a poetry in the way he spoke, and flashes of color and brilliance to purloin my attention. My plan is to go back tonight. I don’t know if I’ll tire of his verbiage or not; I’m told he can go on at length. Maybe if I invite a friend who knows the culture and language of the times to help interpret, together we’ll figure this blathering new bar mate. I may have found a candidate who can provide that kind of context. Anyone else care to join me in this time trip to Dublin? My machine’s a four-seater. And as we all know, ‘tis the season for Guinness and green.

-------------------

I don’t know if it was my mood, or what, but when I went back to the pub, I was less intrigued by the rambling young man there holding court. It seemed like he’d been going non-stop. And he was even more digressive and random than before. I also noticed that he never looked my way when he was speaking. Others that he engaged apparently connected well with him. In fact, some were calling him a genius. I sure wanted to appreciate what they were seeing, but that’s not the sort of thing you can force. My finger wavered over the “Abort” button for a good long while before I finally decided to push.

The great thing about the TAP (Time and Place) machine is that I can always go back. Maybe I’ll like it better once I

- learn Latin,
- take the on-line Joyce course, and
- put myself in a more Zen-like mindset where art simply flows, not just in streams of consciousness, but in friggin' torrents.

(less)

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Apr 12, 2008 Jimmy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I Can't do it, It fell in my toilet and didn't dry well, and I'm accepting it as an act of god. I decided against burning it, and just threw it out.
Yes, I am a horrible person.

97 likes · like · see review

Jan 28, 2010 Charity rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001books, suckass, big-uns, ireland, ml100, radcliffe

"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

O...more

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Mar 05, 2008 Patty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Things that surprised me about Ulysses:

1. It wasn't just a bunch of victorian prissy hyperbole, it really is pornographic.
2. It's about an ad man.
3. It was only hard to read for the first 100 pages.
4. It is NOT about a man just walking across Dublin. Why does everyone always tell me that? What a bad description!

24 likes · like · see review

Jul 18, 2008 Ike rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Life is too short to read Ulysses.

58 likes · like · see review

Apr 21, 2013 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-lit, favorites

Well as you probably know this book is divided into a bunch of chapters written in a wide range of different styles. I loved some of the styles, hated some of them, and came out with a surprising level of attachment to the characters given that I often felt like I was viewing them through smokescreens specially designed to be maximally annoying. The experience was often a frustrating one, but its high points were high enough -- and its totality sui generis enough -- that I feel like I will remem...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Aubrey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-06-12, 3-star, reviewed, 1000-guardian, bring-it-on, ever-on, megalodon

3.5/5

Phweeeeeeeee. Success. This has been the only book to date that I have viewed with trepidation. Blood and guts I can deal with. Dryness I will tolerate and breeze on through if need be. This though. This was intimidating. It was sophomore year? Yes, sophomore year of high school, when I heard tales of this vicious beast of a mind twisting hazard to health. All in literary form. Amazing.
But the book. Perhaps in ten or twenty years or so I'll settle down and drag out the definitions and foot...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, shouldreread, ficciones

Whenever I dip into Ulysses I always wonder why I'm not reading it all the time. Shakespeare is the only other writer who can make me feel that way. My first reading was probably the headiest literary experience of my life. The crotchety professor of a freshman year Russian Lit survey followed his comparison of the narrator of Babel's Red Cavalry to Leopold Bloom with a taunt that went something like: "but who of you know who Leopold Bloom is?" So challenged, I started out on a reading that woul...more

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Sep 01, 2012 David Cerruti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Revised 9-1-2012, to note the final release of Paul’s review, and a few other details.

**** SPOILER ALERT ****
Plot synopsis:
Man walks around Dublin.
Nothing important happens.

You probably knew that.
In this large community of good readers, excellent readers, and writers of outstanding reviews, I’m standing out as barely mediocre. So the idea of my reviewing Ulysses is absurd. But I did finish it, after 3 starts. In lieu of a review, I’ll just give some tips to help those who gave up, or never s...more

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Sep 12, 2008 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read

I remember how once many years ago I decided to throw a punch at a much larger friend of mine. The response didn't hurt: his fist expanded to fill the frame of my vision and then there was a white flash and momentary disconnect from the senses. Unable to directly apprehend the damage and so gauge the cost of our conflict I decided the most prudent course of action was quick surrender. Meeting Ulysses on its own terms leaves the reader (or at least this one) at a similar disadvantage. To compenst...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Giorgi added it · review of another edition

i have to decide what the hell it is
1. it is a boring book, nothing important only obscure dialogs.(i wish it would be truth)
2. i read it unconsciously that's why i don't know nothing about it. (that really is)
3. i haven't read it i must reread it again but an another time.(doubt if ever read it again )
4. what did Joyce want, i will never know it,(if he knows)
5. it is a great book and i am an idiot (happy end)

5 likes · like · see review

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Literary Antecedents?	18	77	Apr 25, 2013 01:09pm
Around the World ...: Discussion for Ulysses	8	58	Apr 20, 2013 01:15pm
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About James Joyce

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist, noted for his experimental use of language in such works as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Joyce's technical innovations in the art of the novel include an extensive use of interior monologue; he used a complex network of s...more

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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man & Dubliners

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“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” — 1,372 people liked it

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” — 310 people liked it

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