Ulysses
Author: James Joyce
Publication Date: 1922
Genre: Classics
Synopsis:
In the past, Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and even unreadable. None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book.
William Blake saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.
Jenn's Thoughts:
I
really, really, really tried to like and finish this book, but I just
couldn't do it. I read 20% of it, and still wasn't getting the point of
the story. I feel like I was mostly reading incoherent thoughts that
randomly jumped around, constantly. Maybe one day I will try to finish
it, but I got 130/650 pages read and just can't look at it right now. I
find it super hard to pick up this book and it was causing me to not
read anything because I felt guilty for not reading it. I'll try to come
back to this book, but probably won't for years if I do.
Meghan's Thoughts: I never did finish this book so I can't really give a full review. This book was nearly impossible for me to finish. I got about 130 pages in, and getting that far was serious work. Reading this book was like reading every fourth thought in the head of someone whose thoughts go a mile a minute. It was hard to connect anything or follow anything. I would read a page and minutes after finishing I wouldn't be able to remember what it was I just read.
Maybe if I was more learned in English or Philosophy I could look into the meaning of every seemingly unrelated sentence and enjoy it. But, I doubt even that. I picked it up in the first place because it was on our top100 list, how exactly it got there remains a mystery to me. Even more surprising is that it is close to the top of the list. I guess there are people out there who really enjoyed it. I'd love to have them enlighten me.
Most of the time reading this I just felt like beating my head off the pages, and when I wasn't feeling like that I was falling asleep from reading a bunch of words I couldn't string together. I am sorry James Joyce for giving your book such a bad review :( I really don't like to talk about about books since they are high among my favorite things in life. But I really disliked this book and I wouldn't recommend that any one pick it up.
