I meant to write a review at the time, but I was soon swamped with a rolling series of assessment tests, grading of said tests, state tests, and a few other sundry items that have kept me from posting much anywhere (including my blog) over the past few months.
What I likely would have said is that I value re-reading Ulysses for the experiences I have that run parallel to it – the idle thoughts that are tangent to the text, other thoughts that seem entangled with it, daydreamings, etc. – rather than extolling it as a perfect form of anything. I'm curious to see if I have a similar reaction when I read Proust in the near future, as I have heard many associate the two.
Ulysses is a very dense text (Finnegan's Wake is even denser, and I did not enjoy my initial read of that one when I was 22 or 23, but I will essay another re-read in the future) and not one that is read for narrative=plot or even for characterization. I think it is best read as narrative as music and as such, it will not be to the liking of the majority of its readers. I found myself delighted at times with the word plays and rhythms inherent in the text and I could never imagine it translating well into any other language than Hibernian English
This might be the closest you get to someone here admitting to liking their experience reading Ulysses
What I likely would have said is that I value re-reading Ulysses for the experiences I have that run parallel to it – the idle thoughts that are tangent to the text, other thoughts that seem entangled with it, daydreamings, etc. – rather than extolling it as a perfect form of anything. I'm curious to see if I have a similar reaction when I read Proust in the near future, as I have heard many associate the two.
Ulysses is a very dense text (Finnegan's Wake is even denser, and I did not enjoy my initial read of that one when I was 22 or 23, but I will essay another re-read in the future) and not one that is read for narrative=plot or even for characterization. I think it is best read as narrative as music and as such, it will not be to the liking of the majority of its readers. I found myself delighted at times with the word plays and rhythms inherent in the text and I could never imagine it translating well into any other language than Hibernian English
This might be the closest you get to someone here admitting to liking their experience reading Ulysses
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Carl Jung's thoughts on Ulysses by James Joyce
- 13/09/2011 04:28:21 PM
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As far as I can tell, the main reason to read it is so you can say
- 13/09/2011 05:38:17 PM
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The length has nothing to do with it
- 13/09/2011 05:57:27 PM
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Re: The length has nothing to do with it
- 13/09/2011 08:22:36 PM
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I re-read it for the third time this spring
- 14/09/2011 12:01:02 AM
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I tried the beginning of it once
- 14/09/2011 02:31:16 AM
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If you don't like it at about 75-100 pages in, you just won't like it. *NM*
- 15/09/2011 04:30:27 AM
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was enough to stop me reading more Joyce.
- 15/09/2011 07:59:22 AM
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It was precisely because I liked A Portrait of the Artist that I tried Ulysses.
- 15/09/2011 03:46:31 PM
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Actually this is one of the few things I've disagreed with Jung on.
- 21/09/2011 12:23:34 AM
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