The Republic of Heaven

hi what are your reactions to the book of the century - ulyseus by james joyce..

i have not yet met anyone who have read it yet....

at least in the bbc survey the big read lotr won ...hdm was 3rd i think. ulyseus was somewhere in the 100s...

It's Ulysses by the way.

hi what are your reactions to the book of the century - ulyseus by james joyce..

i have not yet met anyone who have read it yet....

You have now.

It took me four months and it was a bit of a chore. One thing's for certain though - it sticks with you. You remember Ulysses.

I really don't want to get dragged into another cultural argument but the truth is that the Big Read was about 'popular' fiction. When many of the Big Read top 100 are out of print in 100 years, Ulysses will still have readers, and droves of people will wander round Dublin on 16 June every year following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom.

It's not about plot. There isn't one. It's no all-action adventure, nor is it a three-hanky romance (though it may be Romance in its original sense). The characters are frankly unlikeable - especially Stephen Dedalus who is a pedantic prig. It is about the ingenious use of words though - words that are almost orgasmic in their intensity (a couple of times orgasms are described in a way that makes your hair stand on end).

I've only read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which was wonderfully readable, I thought), so I can at least comment on Stephen Dedalus. Isn't he meant to be unlikeable, pretentious and God knows what else? I don't think it's bad writing on the part of Joyce that he is as such.

As for Ulysses itself, I'm planning on leaving that for a while.

(Has anyone here read Finnegans Wake? I've never met anyone who's read that)

I really don't want to get dragged into another cultural argument but the truth is that the Big Read was about 'popular' fiction.

Which would be why it was a quest for the country's favourite book...

I've only read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which was wonderfully readable, I thought), so I can at least comment on Stephen Dedalus. Isn't he meant to be unlikeable, pretentious and God knows what else? I don't think it's bad writing on the part of Joyce that he is as such.

Oh no, Dedalus was meant to be an insufferable prig and he's constructed very well. He's a self-deprecating portrait of Joyce himself, of course. Nobody in Ulysses is particularly likeable. It's possible to empathise with Bloom but his habits aren't all good.

As for Ulysses itself, I'm planning on leaving that for a while.

You need to be ready for it. You can be free to take your time, though, dip in and out of it while you read other books. Skip bits if they drag too much for you - because there's no plot it doesn't matter. Each section is a parody of a different writing style, including newspaper journalism and the catechism of the Catholic Church, and of course there's the infamous Molly Bloom soliloquy, which you really do need to take in one long breath as it were (sixty pages without a full stop!)

(Has anyone here read Finnegans Wake? I've never met anyone who's read that)

Very few professors of Eng Lit have read it all the way through. FW is as challenging as writing gets - but where it's wonderful is if you pick it up now and then, open it at random and read a short section aloud. Reading it aloud makes it come alive in a rather wonderful way. It's the perfect loo book!

Thanks for the advice. I'm vaguely familiar with the structure (each chapter being an episode based on an episode in the odyssey and in a different writing style, etc.), but nothing more detailed than that. Still, I'm waiting til after A level exams are thoroughly over and done with to start it. Not because I'm doing much A level work at the moment, but because it seems like the psychologically right time to start reading it.

Oh, and on my current knowledge, I would say that The Trial is book of the century. But whatever.

Thanks for the advice. I'm vaguely familiar with the structure (each chapter being an episode based on an episode in the odyssey and in a different writing style, etc.), but nothing more detailed than that. Still, I'm waiting til after A level exams are thoroughly over and done with to start it. Not because I'm doing much A level work at the moment, but because it seems like the psychologically right time to start reading it.

Have you read Dubliners? The short stories are more mainstream and accesible.

No, I haven't (one of the parallel sets to mine got to do it for coursework at AS, the bastards, I was lumped with Pinter).

I do like other modernism as well, like Eliot and Woolf. Do you have a degree in English or anything like that? People who know their way around Joyce generally tend to do...

Do you have a degree in English or anything like that? People who know their way around Joyce generally tend to do...

One degree in physics, another in literature and philosophy

and droves of people will wander round Dublin on 16 June every year following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom.

Hah, Wherever you go in Dublin, you find those blasted signs..

*Does a jig because he lives in Dublin*

That book is one of our proudest products.

Enitharmon

Have you read Dubliners?

I must admit I didn't like it very much.

I thought it was slow, dull and depressing, but I think that's how Joyce wanted to portray Dublin life.

Smudge

Dubliners - the set text for my A2 coursework. Which automatically makes it less enjoyable than if I were reading it for pleasure. I've read a couple of the stories and they are kind of depressing, but not dull so far at least. The problem is when they make us analyse it, looking at every little word and phrase. It leeches all the enjoyment away until you'll left with bare, ugly sentences...

Each section is a parody of a different writing style, including newspaper journalism and the catechism of the Catholic Church, ...

I read the first 'section' this summer, before being distracted by other things; which writing style was that a parody of?

I found Dubliners a bit depressing, but I think that was intentional

I haven't read it yet, we studied a part of it in English a couple of years back.
Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

I haven't read it yet, we studied a part of it in English a couple of years back.
Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

Sorry to start this discussion but I disagree. I think studying it in class only sucks the fun out of it with crap teachers.

I haven't read it yet, we studied a part of it in English a couple of years back.
Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

Sorry to start this discussion but I disagree. I think studying it in class only sucks the fun out of it with crap teachers.

Yep, that's sure sucked the fun out of it for me. I'm supposed to be reading one of them for tomorrow... got to do a presentation on it... but I can't remember which short story it is.

I haven't read it yet, we studied a part of it in English a couple of years back.
Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

Sorry to start this discussion but I disagree. I think studying it in class only sucks the fun out of it with crap teachers.

Well, I wouldn't have called her a bad teacher, she certainly knew her stuff. It was just that she had no way of showing literature in the artistic way it was created, it became more like Maths, if you know what I mean.

I haven't read it yet, we studied a part of it in English a couple of years back.
Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

Sorry to start this discussion but I disagree. I think studying it in class only sucks the fun out of it with crap teachers.

Well, I wouldn't have called her a bad teacher, she certainly knew her stuff. It was just that she had no way of showing literature in the artistic way it was created, it became more like Maths, if you know what I mean.

Teachers like that SUCK! Where's PP when you need him, eh?