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Ulysses

by James Joyce

bookshelves: re-read-lit, lit, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

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Hamish said: " First thing, I want to say that this is not nearly as difficult a book as its reputation suggests. If you're interested in the novel but daunted by what you've heard about it, here's my advice: Read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man First thing, I want to say that this is not nearly as difficult a book as its reputation suggests. If you're interested in the novel but daunted by what you've heard about it, here's my advice: Read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man first. They're great books, they introduce a lot of the characters you'll meet in Ulysses, and they'll ease you into Joyce's style. Next, there's a book of Nabokov's lectures that he gave on classic novels ("Lectures On Literature") that has a really great Ulysses section. It breaks down what happens in each chapter, and gives you important things to keep an eye on that would normally take multiple readings to pick up on. Read the summary of each chapter right before you read that chapter, and once you know what to look for, you'll be able to follow pretty easily. There's also a book of annotations ("Ulysses Annotated") that's a good supplement, though don't make it your primary source or you'll get too caught up in little minutia and miss the big picture (save that for later). Understand that in your first run through, you're mostly going to be caught up in Joyce's style. The mechanisms and underpinnings and little details come later. You'll also be confused sometimes. That's fine. Embrace being confused. Sometimes it's fun just to be adrift in the work of a genius.

This was my sixth time reading Ulysses. It's my favorite novel. Here's why:

I'm a stickler for two things in literature: Quality prose and a feeling of life in the novel's world. In pure prose writing, Joyce is one of the greatest there ever was. In Ulysses, large chunks of the book are written in various character's voice/inner monologues (mostly Bloom and Stephen), so you don't get that great Joyce voice as much (read Portrait for the real prose fireworks), but the lyrical passages are fantastic and the stream of consciousness sections are very well done. But more significantly, the novel is alive in a way that I don't think any other work in all of literature is. Even minor characters have complex relationships with each other, small events that occur early in the novel will have random effects later on, a flyer that Bloom throws in the river will have its progress towards the sea slowly marked in future chapters, the contents of his pockets are carefully categorized and you can see them shift throughout his day, a parade of men wearing sandwich board advertisements will slowly make their way across the city (and you can map it!), popular ads reappear (Plumtrees potted meat!), characters from Dubliners appear or are mentioned (Bob Doran isn't doing so well), and hundreds more! These things aren't there just to push the plot forward, but rather to give the work a sense of life. And even when events occur that do push things forward, they do so in a wonderfully subtle and lifelike way (ex. Bloom's encounter with an old flame reminds him that a friend is in labor, and a few chapters later he visits her at the hospital). It's this quality of a novel's world--one that doesn't just exist as a threadbare backdrop for the plot, but one that is so rich and complex and rewarding that it overtakes the plot--that is the mark of True Art.

Other things I love about it: I've always found Bloom's thoughts to be very endearing and charming. Stephen's sometimes seem too contrived and unlikely, even for someone of his genius, but I love looking through Bloom's inquisitive, well-meaning, optimistic eyes. I love the novel's exactingness (like with the aforementioned contents of Bloom's pockets, or the list of the contents of his bookshelf). It's a book very concerned with cataloging. Despite its reputation as being unclear, it's actually a very exacting and precise work. I love how, unlike in Portrait, not everyone is falling all over themselves trying to impress Stephen, and that Mulligan spends half the book calling him out on being a pompous jackass. I love how, the more you read it, the more you become entranced by these little details of this one day. It's a book that celebrates the everyday aspects of life, and small things like the Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery or the contents of a letter about foot and mouth disease or the exact contents of each of Bloom's meals become strangely entrancing. The more you read it, the more you piece together and the more you want to know. I went into this reading wondering what Bloom's level of education was, and I was so excited to learn that little fact in chapter 17 (he finished high school). I love Joyce's dialogue, which has got to be the most natural, life-like and flowing of any novelist I can think of. It leaps off the page. I love Ithica especially; there's something strangely melancholy about that climactic chapter, and the catechism method of narration is a brilliant and effective one.

It's not a perfect book. Circe and Cyclops go on too long, and I've never liked Oxen of the Sun. It can be willfully obscure. The puns can be a little much. But even the messy parts feel like they serve a whole, and it rewards the reader for the effort they put in. Some novels (ahem, Gravity's Rainbow) ask a lot and give you little in return. But Ulysses is an almost inexhaustible well of fun and delight, and if you're willing to put in the work, then I can't recommend it enough.

Random thoughts:
Up until Cyclops, the narration basically alternates between third person narration/free indirect speech and inner monologue, with the ratio varying from chapter to chapter. Starting with Cyclops (chapter 12) and even more so in the first half of Nausicaa (13), Joyce begins employing different narrative methods, like the romance novel parody, the play format, the catechism, etc. I've always wondered if he planned this from the beginning, or if halfway through the novel he decided he wanted to start mixing things up. The fact that all of the chapters in the second half use some kind of alternative form of narrative leads me to believe it's probably the latter, though given how meticulously planned everything else, this also seems kind of hard to believe.

Despite the fact that Bloom is supposed to be an (above average) everyman, he's actually kind of a deviant in several ways. Here in NY, we're always getting news of creepy men openly jerking off on the subways, and everyone (rightly) condemns them and talks about what pervs they are. Well in chapter 13 Bloom publicly masturbates to a young woman on the beach. Granted she's totally into it, but still. This is our protagonist, our otherwise lovable hero, and look at what he's doing! But even more offensive, he LITTERS. TWICE. Leopold Bloom: Public Menace. ...more "

Nov 29, 2015 07:39AM · see review