I've gotten the book (and it was expensive) and started the first chapter. And got confused from the first two pages. I know it's something like a spinoff for Odyssey or something and I heard it's really popular and all, but would someone explain to me what it's about? Are they in a war or something? That'd really help me understand this better. Thanks =]
2006-12-21 11:52:08 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
It is about one day in the life of one man in Dublin.And everything else in human experience...Hahahahahaha It takes a University level vocabulary to understand so get a dictionary and get to work.
2006-12-21 11:57:46 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Read the Odyssey first. Ulysses is about a day in the life, June 16, 1904, of Leopold Bloom, a citizen of Dublin set within the framework of the Odyssey. Thirty years ago I read it in college with the guidance of Professor Brian Swann. He said we were a class of "twits" & we were. The first semester was given to reading the Odyssey. The second was devoted to Ulysses. (I still have the copy somewhere). Were it not for Prof. Swann & his simple method of reading Ulysses I would never have understood it at all.
They're not in a war. The first few pages as I recall take place in a Martello Tower which is an architectural relic from the Napoleonic Wars.
Which is why reading a text of Ulysses that doesn't clarify the obscure minutiae found throughout can be a Sisyphean task at best.
Its not light reading & you're to be commended for approaching it.
Read any of the plot summaries & references that you find. Its not cheating, wont spoil the plot & will enhance the text. The answer submitted by The Beast sums it up pretty neatly.
Good luck.
2006-12-21 21:12:43 · answer #2 · answered by puritanzouave 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not an easy read, but a superb book if you can get through to the end. It is about a day, June 16, 1904, in the life of Leopold Bloom, a good-natured man whose wife is busy planning to have an affair. Yes, in a way it's a spinoff of the Odyssey, with 18 chapters of this book mirroring 18 chapters of the Odyssey, sometimes obviously and sometimes not. Since the style changes in each of the chapters, it's not an easy, flowing read. But many literary folk consider it one of the best books ever written.
2006-12-21 20:05:31 · answer #3 · answered by The Beast 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ulysses is not about much of anything in terms of plot. It follows two Dubliners around for a day. The relationship to The Odyssey is structural, and not necessarily obvious. Think of Stephan Dedalus as Telemachus and Leopold Bloom as Ulysses, and consider that the parallels are somewhat ironic - ten years of a warrior wandering the Mediterranean compressed into a day of an advertising salesman wandering around Dublin.
The novel is notable for its depiction of the characters' interior monologues (stream-of-consciousness), as well as for its use of multiple literary styles.
"James Joyce's Ulysses" by Stuart Gilbert is a good guide to some of what's going on there.
2006-12-21 22:10:38 · answer #4 · answered by injanier 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ah, you've been suckered by the conventional wisdom. I have read this book and Joyce's other work and frankly the man was brain damaged and/or taking a lot of drugs. Because his work was 'different' and 'new' and difficult to understand, he got the reputation of being a genius with deep hidden meanings in his work. See also Hunter S. Thompson, Jackson Pollack, etc. Hopefully you kept the receipt!
2006-12-22 11:51:13 · answer #5 · answered by Robin 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I've read it and I couldn't make heads nor tails of it.
James Joyce wrote "stream of consciousness" works. It's like he dumps his whole brain out on paper. Anything that goes thru his character's mind is put down, so it rambles in different directions as our mind does. He was actually quite brilliant.
I liked "Portrait of the Artist..." But even that piece is hard to follow.
Summary links below...
2006-12-21 20:05:17 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋