James Joyce, Ulysses?

Question

I have tried 4 times to read Ulysses, but unfortunately the opening chapter does nothing for me. I know it is a literary marvel yet I'm at a loss.
Should I persevere? Is it worth the initial struggle?
I welcome your insight....

Answer 1

The easiest way to understand Ulysses is to imagine the characters...

You have got to get into a kind of character in your head... Watch jolly fat old Buck Mulligan prancing about and pious, quiet, brooding Stephen mulling over his mothers death...

The opening scene in the Martello Tower is a brilliant scene.

It is rather funny if you really read it more like a screenplay or a script (like Shakespeare) than a long drawn out novel.

Speak with the brogue in your head... Feel the Irish, smell the salt sea air...

Be there like you are a fly on the wall watching these three prance and interact with one another.

I just mentioned elsewhere that Joyce, in his heart of hearts was a playwright... Read it like dialog and it will change for you... depending on your imagination and what you are willing to put into it... It can be a rather humorous scene.

Friends arguing, discussing, hurting silently and privately and alone in anticipation of a night out of drinking and spending the paycheck before it has even come to him, probably to heal some haunt, some hurt that will not go away... (Especially with Mulligan there to remind him.) He will drink it all away in the company of Leopold Bloom in a few hours time as Irish men often do...

And... Buck Mulligan being the fat insensitive wad that he is borrowing money... Robbing peter to pay Paul so to speak. Over an egg breakfast charming the skirt off the landlady for an extension on the rent...

When all else fails... Read Joseph Campbell's take on Joyce. I struggled with it for many years before listening to Campbell's lectures... They are Brilliant!

You can usually find them in your college library.

Answer 2

Hi jg,

There's really no definitive answer to your dilemma. It's up to you and what you can handle. If you need a novel to have a definite story line -- if you need it to have an "arc," with a beginning, middle and end -- then by all means, run (do not walk) from this book. You will not find it, it is not there.

You have to look at Ulysses as almost being a dream-sequence novel -- a day in the life -- told in stream of consciousness. Please don't feel badly about not feeling comfortable with it -- I sometimes wonder how the book got published, myself.

Joyce has sometimes been described as a "Literary Pointilist" because he doesn't "paint" in broad brush strokes. He paints in tiny disconnected dots that up close don't seem to make any sense. It's only when you step back and look at the entire canvass that the picture emerges from the seeming chaos.

Ulysses is an acquired taste. Many years ago, it took me three attempts to finally get through it. But on the third time I stepped back and thought of the book as being a metaphor for the "mythic" embedded in the commonplace.

What was it Thoreau said? "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desparation?"

What was it William Blake wrote? "To see a heaven in a wildflower, and a world in a grain of sand..."

What you need to do is focus on the flow of the day. It's ordinariness, and the inner dimension of the characters moving though it. And yet, there is something mythical going on; something greater than the sum of the parts.

I don't want this answer to go on too long -- But I hope this gives you a useful insight. Good Luck, and cheers.

Answer 3

I've bought a copy some months ago and I'm going to read it during my long holidays. I read and knew it has been ranked as one of the 100 most meaningful books of all time in 2002 (see the web site attached for more information). I think you might consult a few literature professors (if possible) or read for more insight on the matter such as one of the university lectures (a paperback) by Vladimir Nabokov, the famed author who wrote 'Lolita'. His critical analysis, related literary background and literary contextual interpretations in the lecture should, I think, give you more light. I agree with an answer regarding reading some interesting parts first. I also admire your determination, therefore, please keep going and see what happens.
Moreover, you can visit the Amazon.com web site, search the book and read its reviews, especially the Editorial Reviews pages which are informative, understandable and worth knowing more on some key issues as the essential background for your reading.

Answer 4

I vaugely remember reading it. If you've never read Homer's The Odyssey then thats probably why you aren't "getting it." I recommend at least reading some sort of overveiw of that before trying to tackle a poem about another poem.

As for persevering... well all I can tell you is that it's hard to start reading something. Usually I find that if I can get my way past the first eigth of something then I can get into it enough to at least finish it. Who knows, if you finish the book you might use the information someday. I know I've had experiances where I've used something from a literary source that I thought I would never use again in my life.

Answer 5

Personally I loved it, but the fact that you don't warm to it is fine. You don't have to love every piece of great literature. In my opinion, with Ulysses, if you aren't hooked from the start, it isn't going to get any better for you.

There is so much wonderful art and writing in this world. Why not try something you find more appealing?

You can always come back to Ulysses. Sometimes different things appeal to us at different points in our lives.

Answer 6

I actually had to read Ulysses for my 9th grade English class. At least parts of it. I thought it was pretty boring too, but it does have a good meaning. It's up to you. I wouldn't consider it a waste of time.