Week 46 - Ulysses by James Joyce

[Jenny]

Here it comes: Ulysses by James Joyce published in 1922 is this weeks pick.

From the article:

"1922 is one of those extraordinary years in the history of English literature – the moment when Modernism came of age, and after which nothing would ever be the same again. T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land appeared, first in magazine and then in volume form towards the end of the year. By then, James Joyce had already seen Ulysses, a text of approximately 265,000 words, privately published in Paris by Sylvia Beach, the philanthropic proprietor of the bookshop Shakespeare & Company, after a tortuous gestation in which his novel had been prosecuted for obscenity, and almost hounded into oblivion.

Ulysses began as a discarded chapter from Joyce's first collection, Dubliners (1914) and for all its length it retains the fierce intimacy of a great short story. The action of the novel, famously, occurs on a single day, 16 June 1904, coincidentally the date of Joyce's first outing with Nora Barnacle, later his beloved wife. On "Bloomsday", the reader follows Stephen Dedalus (the protagonist of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Leopold Bloom, a part-Jewish advertising canvasser, and his wife Molly.
The connection to The Odyssey is informal (Bloom is Odysseus, Stephen matches Telemachus and Molly is Penelope) and the chapters roughly correspond to episodes in Homer ("Calypso", "Nausicaa", "Oxen of the Sun", etc.).
(...)
Today, novelists writing a hundred years after the composition of Ulysses still write in the shadow of this extraordinary achievement. Occasionally, it is said that English-language fiction since 1922 has been a series of footnotes to Joyce's masterpiece."

I am curious how many of us have read it and what they thought of it, as it seems to be the most praised and at the same time least read masterpiece of 20th century literature (if reading means finishing it too).

Find the article here

[LauraT]

Can't say it's not a greatbook. But what a strife to get through it!

[Angela M]

Ulysses has been on my tr list forever and I keep saying I'm going to read it but yet I keep avoiding it . Petra even offered to read it again with me but no time has been set - probably because I'm still avoiding it . I have to bullet and just read it !

[Petra]

I agree with Laura. It's a very good book but...man, I've got to wonder what Joyce was thinking when he wrote it so difficult and turned so many readers away.
Angela, I'd love to read the book with you. Shall we plan for a September (or October, if that works better for you) start? It's not really a book to read while basking in the summer heat. LOL! It's not a beach read. :D

[Katie]

Like Angela I've been meaning to read this forever and keep putting it off. I think I actually did start reading it at some point a few years ago but had to stop because I was studying at the same time, and it was too much.

I've read most of Joyce's other books and loved them so I definitely want to read Ulysses ... eventually ;)

[Angela M]

@Petra , how about mid September ? Maybe we should pinpoint a date - say the 15th ? Thanks !

@ Katie, love to have you join us .

Maybe we can list it as a group read along and anyone who wants to join in can .

[Alannah]

I am really curious about this book. Everyone I know who took the Modernism course this past year really did not like this book.

[Petra]

Angela wrote: "Maybe we can list it as a group read along and anyone who wants to join in can . ..."

Done! I hope more people will join us, Angela.

[Petra]

Alannah wrote: "I am really curious about this book. Everyone I know who took the Modernism course this past year really did not like this book."

Alannah, it's surprising how often the book comes up in thought after one has read it. It doesn't leave you.
It would have been interesting to sit in on that Modernism course to hear what everyone said and how the instructor responded. It's a strange book, for sure.

[Greg]

I loved Dubliners and somewhat enjoyed A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (except that particularly long, weird sermon), but Ulysses was extremely tough going for me. I don't know why. I loved The Waves by Woolf and some other similarly experimental books; so it's strange I found Ulysses so difficult. I read it years ago and maybe should give it another try, but I suspect it will take me an extremely long time to read it. If you do the readalong, I'll see how energetic I feel in September and what other books I have going on .. maybe I'll join. Do you think it should be read in chunks over time like the other readalong is doing with the Cantos of Dante's Inferno? Just a thought. The book as a whole is a lot to digest in one big chunk.

[Petra]

Greg, I think we'll take it slow. It's not a book to plow through if one wants to get to the end. :D
Pop on over to the read along thread when you've got time. It would be great to have you read this with us.

[LauraT]

Greg wrote: "I loved Dubliners and somewhat enjoyed A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (except that particularly long, weird sermon), but Ulysses was extremely tough ..."

Definitly much more demanding than the other two you mentioned Greg!

[Leslie]

LauraT wrote: "Can't say it's not a great book. But what a strife to get through it!"

I agree and English is my mother tongue!

I read this as a readalong, and don't think that I would have finished if I hadn't had that support. I did like parts of it very much but it was difficult and for me, overall it wasn't worth the work.

[LauraT]

Leslie wrote: "I read this as a readalong, and don't think that I would have finished if I hadn't had that support. I did like parts of it very much but it was difficult and for me, overall it wasn't worth the work. "
Me too!

[Charbel]

Hoping to read this this month. I've heard a lot about this book, mainly that it is quite challenging, and it only made me want to read it more.

[Charbel]

Petra wrote: "Angela wrote: "Maybe we can list it as a group read along and anyone who wants to join in can . ..."

Done! I hope more people will join us, Angela."

I'm happy to join! Count me in, I can wait till September.

[Gill]

Charbel, did you see Petra has set up a readalong thread for this? I'm nervously looking forward to this!

[Petra]

Charbel, drop on over and join the group:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I think we're going to have a good time. It would be great if you'd join us.