Scan barcode
maxicroissant's review against another edition
5.0
Idk if you can scrutinize each word, follow various lecture series, publish research papers, discuss it for years in a book club - and the book actually gets better for it, it deserves to be praised.
This is not a pretentious book. If anything, I'm pretentious for liking it.
This is not a pretentious book. If anything, I'm pretentious for liking it.
aaronsequel's review against another edition
5.0
Leopold Bloom -- our Ulysses, our anal stage Adonis -- takes the day while Joyce's deep-rooted perversions add the literary equivalent of "a strange dampness" to the famously trying novel. Allusions ranging from Aeolus (who?) to Shakespeare (ah!) sometimes styled in in Socratic mimicry (huh?) add just enough confusion to detract us from Joyce's strange refrain: messy underpants. Nasty fella. The book has something for everyone, but can probably only be appreciated, or tolerated, by a select few -- the patient, gloating ("Yes, I've read Ulysses") sort.
katiescho741's review against another edition
1.0
I just cannot read this book!
I know this is supposed to be the most beautiful and imaginative novel ever written, and I know there's a story in there somewhere, but it makes no sense to me.
Reading a novel should not be this hard.
I know this is supposed to be the most beautiful and imaginative novel ever written, and I know there's a story in there somewhere, but it makes no sense to me.
Reading a novel should not be this hard.
laticsexile's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
My second reading. Better than the first. Read as part of a book group “experiment/experience”. Oscillates between some of the cleverest, funniest prose ever committed to paper and the most pretentious wank; sometimes in the same sentence.
I might well read it again at some point. Just not now. I think I might have a lie down for a bit.
I might well read it again at some point. Just not now. I think I might have a lie down for a bit.
yasujirozu's review against another edition
4.0
“Grant me, Lord, the courage and the joy / I need to scale the summit of this day”, wrote Jorge Luis Borges of Ulysses.[1] Both are needed, courage and joy, since the most challenging works of literature should be enjoyable in their difficulty. When it comes to Joyce’s great work, a colossus among the colossi, it’s quite impossible to write about the reading experience succinctly, to the point, and well. I’m trying, though.
In the words of Jeri Johnson in her excellent Introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ulysses, “Joyce’s Book has so colonized twentieth-century Anglophone culture that we can never now enter it for the first time,” [2] also that “Jennifer Levine suggests imagining that this book is called Hamlet to ‘regain a sense of it as a text brought into deliberate collision with a powerful predecessor’.” [3]
Indeed, it’s rather impossible to just rush into the work headlong without the foreboding sensation that one is about to embark on a journey that’s difficult and full of so many intertextual riddles that there are several volumes that simply trace all the references. But this is not how I’ve enjoyed reading Joyce. I think the need to find out specific meanings and references will come later, but for me the best way to exprience the work has been to discard all theories, annotations and commentaries. Their turn will come later, if at all. At some points I wholly forgot the Greek Ulysses aspect of it altogether, not a bad thing at the slightest. Because, truth be told, this is a massively entertaining book. Funny and witty. Yes, at times quite challenging, but isn’t all of literature? It’s our investment that makes things the way they are, most of the time.
So, without delving too deeply into the abyss of literary criticism, I can only say that reading Joyce without any commentary than one’s own is extremely gratifying. I have the beautiful Orchises edition – it’s a facsimile edition of the first edition, and it’s among the most beautiful books I own. It’s nice to read, and unobtrusive.
Is it a difficult novel, then? I think we will all be better off when we realize that such questions, ultimately, serve no great purpose. If the answer is “yes”, does it really dilute one’s yearning to read it? Does it strengthen it? And should it? If the answer is “no”, what difference does it make? For me, parts of it are more demanding than others, yet when I eventually revisit it, they might not be. “See for yourself” is my friendly advice, and, above all, decide for yourself. But if there is anything I’m more certain of saying in terms of Joyce’s work, it is to echo the wonderful and oft-quoted sentiment by Jorge Luis Borges that it is “rereading, not reading” what counts. Let’s forget for a moment the hype and the fixation on difficulty, and instead try to read books like they were great friends: not only worthy of attention but so close to us that they know us better than we might think.
I like reading Ulysses, but equally I love listening to it. There is something about Joyce’s language and his way of expressing things that lends beautifully to oral performance. His words float, soar and swerve, and I think we are incredibly lucky to have an audiobook of the work that is without equal. The version I refer to is the one released by Naxos in 2008. Narrated by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan, it is an unabridged recording (27 hours and 21 minutes) that has not only been expertly read, it’s actually recorded and mixed wonderfully, and it’s amongst the best audiobooks I’ve ever encountered.
Also, the [b:Complete Poems and Selected Letters|75493|Complete Poems and Selected Letters|Hart Crane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309200646l/75493._SY75_.jpg|24498213] of Hart Crane's complete poetry and selected letters has, in his correspondence with a friend, a fascinating contemporary perspective on the Ulysses ban in the United States, and how the book was ultimately successfully smuggled from Paris.
Endnotes:
[1] Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce in In Praise of Darkness (1969), collected in The Sonnets (Penguin Books, 2010), p. 125.
[2] Jeri Johnson, Introduction, in James Joyce: Ulysses (Oxford University Press, 1993), p. x.
[3] ibid., xi. Johnson quotes from Levine’s essay Ulysses, in Derek Attridge, ed., The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce (Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 131–32.
23 February,
2o14
In the words of Jeri Johnson in her excellent Introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ulysses, “Joyce’s Book has so colonized twentieth-century Anglophone culture that we can never now enter it for the first time,” [2] also that “Jennifer Levine suggests imagining that this book is called Hamlet to ‘regain a sense of it as a text brought into deliberate collision with a powerful predecessor’.” [3]
Indeed, it’s rather impossible to just rush into the work headlong without the foreboding sensation that one is about to embark on a journey that’s difficult and full of so many intertextual riddles that there are several volumes that simply trace all the references. But this is not how I’ve enjoyed reading Joyce. I think the need to find out specific meanings and references will come later, but for me the best way to exprience the work has been to discard all theories, annotations and commentaries. Their turn will come later, if at all. At some points I wholly forgot the Greek Ulysses aspect of it altogether, not a bad thing at the slightest. Because, truth be told, this is a massively entertaining book. Funny and witty. Yes, at times quite challenging, but isn’t all of literature? It’s our investment that makes things the way they are, most of the time.
So, without delving too deeply into the abyss of literary criticism, I can only say that reading Joyce without any commentary than one’s own is extremely gratifying. I have the beautiful Orchises edition – it’s a facsimile edition of the first edition, and it’s among the most beautiful books I own. It’s nice to read, and unobtrusive.
Is it a difficult novel, then? I think we will all be better off when we realize that such questions, ultimately, serve no great purpose. If the answer is “yes”, does it really dilute one’s yearning to read it? Does it strengthen it? And should it? If the answer is “no”, what difference does it make? For me, parts of it are more demanding than others, yet when I eventually revisit it, they might not be. “See for yourself” is my friendly advice, and, above all, decide for yourself. But if there is anything I’m more certain of saying in terms of Joyce’s work, it is to echo the wonderful and oft-quoted sentiment by Jorge Luis Borges that it is “rereading, not reading” what counts. Let’s forget for a moment the hype and the fixation on difficulty, and instead try to read books like they were great friends: not only worthy of attention but so close to us that they know us better than we might think.
I like reading Ulysses, but equally I love listening to it. There is something about Joyce’s language and his way of expressing things that lends beautifully to oral performance. His words float, soar and swerve, and I think we are incredibly lucky to have an audiobook of the work that is without equal. The version I refer to is the one released by Naxos in 2008. Narrated by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan, it is an unabridged recording (27 hours and 21 minutes) that has not only been expertly read, it’s actually recorded and mixed wonderfully, and it’s amongst the best audiobooks I’ve ever encountered.
Also, the [b:Complete Poems and Selected Letters|75493|Complete Poems and Selected Letters|Hart Crane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309200646l/75493._SY75_.jpg|24498213] of Hart Crane's complete poetry and selected letters has, in his correspondence with a friend, a fascinating contemporary perspective on the Ulysses ban in the United States, and how the book was ultimately successfully smuggled from Paris.
Endnotes:
[1] Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce in In Praise of Darkness (1969), collected in The Sonnets (Penguin Books, 2010), p. 125.
[2] Jeri Johnson, Introduction, in James Joyce: Ulysses (Oxford University Press, 1993), p. x.
[3] ibid., xi. Johnson quotes from Levine’s essay Ulysses, in Derek Attridge, ed., The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce (Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 131–32.
23 February,
2o14
maree_k's review against another edition
Yes it’s a classic, exploded the idea of what a novel can be etc but honestly I just don’t care. I had to read it decades ago (twice) for uni & thought it would be interesting to revisit. But no…
jasondecker42's review against another edition
3.0
I made it. At times a chore, at others a joy. Will definitely reread parts in the future. Don't think I need to tackle the whole thing again. I think I got as much out of the book as a whole as I'm likely to get. Well worth it but boy was it a long haul.
paradaisboi's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
crankylibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
Some classics really are as good as everyone says they are. I found myself getting misty-eyed as I turned the final pages of "Ithaca" and then "Penelope". I've spent a year in the company of Bloom, Stephen and Molly, and I miss them already!