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Jeroen Vandenbossche's Reviews > Ulysses
Ulysses
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This one featured on my reading list for ages. I have always had a soft spot for continental modernism (Proust, Mann, Svevo, Kafka) and absolutely loved "Dubliners" back in my twenties but for some reason I never got round to reading "Ulysses". This year, as the excitement about the centenary intensified, I wanted to see what the hype was all about. By sheer coincidence (believe it or not) I started reading on 16 June, unaware that this was in fact Bloomsday (Twitter quickly made me aware).
I finished a few weeks later and I think I kind of get what all the fuss is about.
The reading experience is indeed totally unique. The novel is extremely versatile, rich, funny and layered. Like the other modernists I mentioned, Joyce manages to turn banal experiences into something completely new, enriching your own experience of the world long after you finished your reading.
The style is simply amazing; almost an exhaustive catalogue of what one can do with the English language if one is willing to explore it from the centre all the way to its outer limits.
I guess many readers (myself included) also enjoy the countless intertextual references and language puzzles the novel contains. It is undeniable that they make you feel smart when you "get" them, and people like to feel smart.
I cannot say I enjoyed all chapters equally, however. As they are each written in a totally different style I guess no one really does. I myself particularly enjoyed Chapter 10 (referred to as "Wandering Rocks" by Joyce aficionados) and Chapter 17 (the so-called "Ithaca" episode). The first one is like Ulysses in miniature; it is composed of 18 short scenes offering a panaroma of the city of Dublin by zooming in on quasi-simultaneous occurrences involving criss-crossing characters. It made me think of the film "Short Cuts" by Robert Altman, even if Dublin in 1922 is in no way like Los Angeles in the 1990s ;-). If you are unsure whether you want to tackle the entire novel, maybe consider reading this one first to get a sense of the variety of styles Ulysses is all about.
The "Ithaca"-episode is entirely written in question and answer form, a parodic tribute to the catholic practice of catechism. I found it to be absolutely hilarious and reminiscent of some of the later writing by Georges Perec.
I also very much enjoyed the infamous interior monologue by Molly in the last chapter, which is dazzling, funny and moving all at once. (That's quite the ending there James, and I think you know it).
That said, I admit I struggled quite a lot with Chapter 15 ("Circe"). I like a good literary puzzle as much as the next guy, but I found a 100 pages long drunken hallucination which refers back to virtually every single character or idea introduced in the preceding parts of the book a bit much.
Whether I would enjoy this particular chapter more upon a second reading in a few years time I do not know. That there will be a second reading of the book is almost certain, however, if God permits of course.
I finished a few weeks later and I think I kind of get what all the fuss is about.
The reading experience is indeed totally unique. The novel is extremely versatile, rich, funny and layered. Like the other modernists I mentioned, Joyce manages to turn banal experiences into something completely new, enriching your own experience of the world long after you finished your reading.
The style is simply amazing; almost an exhaustive catalogue of what one can do with the English language if one is willing to explore it from the centre all the way to its outer limits.
I guess many readers (myself included) also enjoy the countless intertextual references and language puzzles the novel contains. It is undeniable that they make you feel smart when you "get" them, and people like to feel smart.
I cannot say I enjoyed all chapters equally, however. As they are each written in a totally different style I guess no one really does. I myself particularly enjoyed Chapter 10 (referred to as "Wandering Rocks" by Joyce aficionados) and Chapter 17 (the so-called "Ithaca" episode). The first one is like Ulysses in miniature; it is composed of 18 short scenes offering a panaroma of the city of Dublin by zooming in on quasi-simultaneous occurrences involving criss-crossing characters. It made me think of the film "Short Cuts" by Robert Altman, even if Dublin in 1922 is in no way like Los Angeles in the 1990s ;-). If you are unsure whether you want to tackle the entire novel, maybe consider reading this one first to get a sense of the variety of styles Ulysses is all about.
The "Ithaca"-episode is entirely written in question and answer form, a parodic tribute to the catholic practice of catechism. I found it to be absolutely hilarious and reminiscent of some of the later writing by Georges Perec.
I also very much enjoyed the infamous interior monologue by Molly in the last chapter, which is dazzling, funny and moving all at once. (That's quite the ending there James, and I think you know it).
That said, I admit I struggled quite a lot with Chapter 15 ("Circe"). I like a good literary puzzle as much as the next guy, but I found a 100 pages long drunken hallucination which refers back to virtually every single character or idea introduced in the preceding parts of the book a bit much.
Whether I would enjoy this particular chapter more upon a second reading in a few years time I do not know. That there will be a second reading of the book is almost certain, however, if God permits of course.
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Reading Progress
June 15, 2022
–
Started Reading
June 15, 2022
– Shelved
July 17, 2022
–
Finished Reading
May 1, 2023
– Shelved as:
best-fiction-ever
August 18, 2023
– Shelved as:
literature-other
Comments Showing 1-7 of 7 (7 new)
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Hi there! I am not going to lie: the book is indeed very challenging, even for experienced readers. What makes it quite hard, on top of the very rich vocabulary and convoluted style, is the fact that every chapter is written in a different way. You know that feeling, when you start reading a book, that you have to get “into the flow� before you can truly enjoy it? In the case of Ulysses you will have to get into the flow 18 times as every chapter is disorienting at first. That said, I truly enjoyed the experience and would recommend you give it try, not because you “have to� or because someone claims it is the “best� or “most important� novel of all times (frankly, those are meaningless, silly claims) but simply because you may genuinely enjoy it (or not). Don’t try to “get all of it� (no one really does) just dive in and see if it something for you.
Thank you very much, I'll give it a try somewhere next year, something else can't be dissapointing, and if it is, that's fine, at least I'll have tried.
Great review. I loved the question and answer chapter too (among others!)
Thanks David! Memorable reading experiences like this one are rare although 2023 has been a year of interesting discoveries as well. All the best!
Many thanks Gaurav! Appreciate it!
Of course difficulty varies from reader to reader, and - not to brag - I feel like I can handle pretty 'difficult' books, it's fine. But then I feel like Ulysses and James Joyce's weird writing are something different. Tolstoy's War and Peace made me realise I can think something different when it comes to writing (in this case an awful amount of realism and character depth) is actually slightly enjoyable, but then on the other side I'm currently in the process of reading Kafka and I don't get it. I don't get Kafka. A lot of people say it's super good and I'm just here feeling like a massive idiot for not getting whatever Kafka is trying to tell me in a story about a man in some weird village with a castle that stops mid - sentence, because Kafka decided he didn't wanna go on writing it anymore and then he died two years later. I know he's trying to say something, but I don't get what good ol' Franz is trying to say EXACTLY. Even the back of the book gives 5 different theories as to what Kafka's trying to say in 'The Castle'. Some dead German made me feel dumb because I don't get what he's trying to convey. I don't want that to happen, and certainly not with some Brit whose full name is literally James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, that's the most stupid name ever! He can't make me feel dumb!
It's the elements that make reading this magnum opus of Joyce so interesting, that also make it so unappealing if that makes sense. Take intertextuality, I know what it is, thanks to school of all places, but I don't think I have the knowledge to just get every reference to books written before the 1920's. I feel like my brain'd just be too small to get Ulysses' intertexutality, but then I don't wanna NOT read one of the most important works of the 20th century. I really want to, I don't know, solve language puzzles next summer vacation or whatever that's supposed to mean, that seems super fun, I'd finally have something fun to read in the summer vacation as opposed to some guy getting screwed over by a corrupt judicial system for a whole year to just get brutally murdered without a reason in the end (I'm looking at you, Kafka). You could argue I could just put it all off until I'm well in my thirties, when my brain would hopefully get everything James Augustine is trying to say, but I'm FOURTEEN, I can't wait 16 years to be smart enough to read one of the most important works in the entire history of modern literature. It's now or never, not now or in 16 years.
So please, Jeroen, or whatever your name may be, you are my only hope. You seem like a smart guy, your Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ - bio seems to be a subtle alternate version of some random quote from Plutarchus saying that reading is important. In Latin. That's not an insult, it's actually really cool. So please, help a juvenile out and tell me if this book is so difficult that I shouldn't read it. Also, excuse me if I seem tired and rambly, because I am in fact tired and that often makes me rambly.