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I did it!

I picked up a copy of this book in London while studying abroad there in 2014 - I'd seen it topping the list of "best novels" and "books you have to read before you die" and figured I'd give it a go. This proved to probably be a mistake, because it led to me purchasing the literal cheapest copy on the shelf, one with zero annotation, explanatory notes, or even an introduction. Just cold, hard, Joyce. In British English, no less. A lot of critics on the internet seem to think that's the best way to experience this book, but unless you know legitimately everything about literature and culture and Ireland circa 1920, I do not recommend it. I ended up following along on Sparknotes to make sure I wasn't missing the boat.

It took me a long time to read this book, with a lot of fits and starts, and I can't in good faith rate it. Maybe I'll come back and slap some stars up here, but for now, I can't possibly narrow the experience of reading this novel down to a number between 1 and 5. I enjoyed a lot of it and I feel..strange now that it's finished. Towards the end, I found that I'd grown fond of these characters and the open-ended way that the story ends left me acutely aware of the fact that I'd only seen them for one day -- their stories started before the first chapter and finish beyond the book's pages. It's unsatisfying but oddly intimate. I just spent 700 pages reading legitimately every single one of their thoughts, dreams, hopes, desires, emotions, and even heck, gross bodily functions. It's hard not to feel connected to them at the end.

But, at the same time, the book is a friggin SLOG. I've never read anything more purposefully pretentious in my entire life. Having written an incredibly stylized book already, was is necessary for Joyce to buck his own established literary conventions three hundred or so pages in and just start doing whatever the hell he wanted? No! Did he do so regardless? Of course, he did! Jeez Louise, did the guy really have to spend an entire chapter mimicking the birth of the English language? He definitely did not have to do that, and yet he did! Would I be much happier with this book if we just carved out everything from when Bloom arrives at the hospital to when he and Stephen arrive at the gate of his house? Yes, absolutely! Listen, I understand that this is a literary marvel, that Joyce pulled off an absolute mastery of prose, but that doesn't mean it's a good read. More than anything, I think I'm annoyed because I would've really enjoyed this if it weren't for much of that horrid middle section. I mean truly, the emotions and realism of the final chapter have left me almost breathless.

There's a moment around 3/4ths of the way through when Bloom is on the beach and he thinks to himself that he better hurry along, because the day is almost done. I had an almost physical reaction to reading that line: the day is almost done, so the book is almost done. I felt almost sorrowful for a second. I'd spent this long in the head of this strange little Irish man, figuring out exactly what makes him tick, and soon, we'd have to part. I think about that now that I've finished -- was I mournful that a journey was almost over, or in shock that after taking so long to navigate this maze, I was almost out? I genuinely don't know. Did I like this book? I genuinely don't know. But I've finished it, finally freaking finished it.