Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Some useful online resources culled from the Scheduling thread. Many thanks for the suggestions, and keep them coming!

Ulysses by James Joyce. The 1922 edition, just the text.



The Joyce Project
A nicely executed annotated edition



Ulysses :: Concordance
Online Concordance for Ulysses



Shmoop's Commentary



Frank Delaney's Re: Joyce (Podcast)
An illuminating close reading of the first few episodes.


The RTE Audio production of Ulysses (1982) Highly recommended!


Walking Ulysses
Historical and modern maps of Dublin geared toward a chapter-by-chapter reading of Ulysses

A link for the visually oriented: .
Both Robert Berry's comics and Mike Barsanti's comments are very good (alas, only episodes I and IV).

The Joyce Project from the University of Montana (guess with all the snow up there they have plenty of time to hunker down with Joyce in the winter!)

#

Click on "Notes" and then "Highlight Links" to get a color coded version of the text with hyperlinks sending you to sometimes useful and interesting comments on parts of the text. The links are color-coded to indicate in general terms what aspect of analysis they cover -- Ireland, Dublin and Vicinity, Literature, Performances, The Body, and The Artist.

The site is still under development, but is quite useful anyhow. Comments on the first two sections are complete; the others are works in progress, with fewer comments, but still can be quite useful.

Wikibook "Annotations to James Joyces's Ulysses." Like all Wikis, it must be approached with some caution, but many (most?) of the references are footnoted. Also like all Wikis, it is open for you to add to if you are so moved; perhaps as a result of our discussion over the next twelve weeks some interesting additions will be made to it that will help others.

It doesn't look like much until you click on the "contents" link, and then on an episode, where you see the basic format of the book: a copy of each page of the original text followed by comments on that page.

Definitely has spoilers (covers the entire book), but if/when you are ready for it, this documentary has commentary as well as dramatized episodes from the story:

A few pages on the historic background:

Wendel wrote: "A few pages on the historic background: Ireland 1904"

Thanks, Wendel. I've started winding my way through at least some of this. You also have probably already noted:

"...The most effective way, however of getting a sense of Dublin (and indeed life) in 1904 in all its diversity, is to go directly to Ulysses, the masterpiece of the man who made June 16th famous."

Details from this edition of the Evening Telegraph are scattered throughout Ulysses:

Dublin Evening Telegraph, June 16, 1904

@7 Lily wrote: 'Ask about Ireland' wrote: "...The most effective way, however of getting a sense of Dublin (and indeed life) in 1904 in all its diversity, is to go directly to Ulysses..."

I doubt that, given the fact that most readers don’t make it past episode 3. But sure, there are many ways to experience the past - the literary evocation of daily life is certainly one of them. Here as elsewhere, different approaches complement each other just as our left and right brain hemispheres are supposed to do.

I think though that Ulysses is not in need of much historical background (a biography is probably the best introduction). Notwithstanding all the things the text refers to, I feel that Joyce creates a pretty self-contained world. For instance, when Stephen shows, in episode 2, his impatience with Pyrrhus, he seems not so much concerned with the senselessness of history, as with the direction his own budding biography is taking.

The Irish past is often referred to, but actually it does not seem to have a strong personal interest for Joyce (or his main characters) - this is fundamentally an apolitical book. And more than once I found myself reflecting on the fact that while Joyce was describing Bloom’s bowel movements, millions were dying on battlefields just a few hundred miles away.

That is not meant as criticism, but it is not meaningless either.

Patrice wrote: "What do you think the meaning of it is? great point."

The supreme egotism of a great writer?

Wendel wrote: "And more than once I found myself reflecting on the fact that while Joyce was describing Bloom’s bowel movements, millions were dying on battlefields just a few hundred miles away...."

As an American, even one who had several uncles serve in WWII, I don't think many of us have any strong feel for what centuries of war do to cultures. Recent reads have been Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (currently re-reading), Zusak's The Book Thief, and Klay's Redeployment. Doerr writes that it has been estimated that the books on the World Wars could cover Germany several layers deep.

I quoted the phrase I did because it appeared within the material you brought to our attention.

Patrice wrote: "He should have written about the war?
"

Joyce was once asked what he did during the Great War. He said, "I wrote Ulysses."

For the most part I think Joyce sees history as a game, like the hockey game in Nestor, but on a larger and more deadly scale. His condensed history of the world is this: "Collide with man. Collude with money."

But history is not totally irrelevant to the novel either. One might expect a Hungarian Jew in Dublin to carry some historical baggage.

:-)

I do not think there is a copy of this online (I couldn't find one anyway) but I thought it might be worth mentioning as some may find it of interest.

I am currently reading James Joyce's Ulysses A Study By Stuart Gilbert

I actually first picked it up by accident. I saw it in the book story and it just said in really big letters on the cover James Joyce's Ulysses so I just assumed it actually was the book.

But than later I saw the very small fine print that said "A study by Stuart Gilbert"

But now that I am reading Ulysses I thought it was worth looking into, and I do think it offers some interesting insights and background information.

Adelle wrote: ":-)"

Ditto.

An encomium of Ulysses by Stephen Fry. Does not have spoilers.

If you are getting discouraged, may be encouragement.

On early examples of stream-of-consciousness writing in the English language, brought to my attention by a medieval studies professor:

Pilgrimage, Volume 1: Pointed Roofs, Backwater, Honeycomb

Patrice wrote: "I just started watching a DVD I got from netflix "Bloom".
It stars Stephen Rea as Bloom and Angeline Ball as Molly,
It is beyond good. Much better than I could have imagined.
The script is taken s..."

Stephen Rea and Angeline Ball are fantastic in this. I'm not so sure about the actor who plays Stephen though. I can't tell if it's bad casting or bad direction, but the character doesn't quite ring true for me. Not a bad treatment overall, especially given the monumental challenge of making a movie from this book.

Incidentally, Joyce loved movies, at least when he could still see, going so far as to open the first cinema in Dublin in 1909.

Thanks for this! I look forward to watching it...after we finish reading.

Patrice wrote...I just started watching...
Kathy wrote: "Thanks for this! I look forward to watching it...after we finish reading."

I was just yesterday thinking that I couldn't imagine a film adaptation of this work. I actually laughed out loud imagining the reviews such a film would garner from the average movie-going public. But if you say Bloom's worth watching, Patrice, I will look it up, as Kathy says, after we finish reading.

Bid Adieu To Girlish Days

Exhibition Marks James Joyce Study of Heretical Franciscans at Marsh's Library

Zippy expressed an interest in seeing the other illustrations in my Franklin Mint edition of Ulysses. I have uploaded two so far to the group photos page. There is the milk woman, and, I believe, Steven.

/photo/group...

I hope nobody minds my using the group photo page for these. I suppose they are copyrighted illustrations. Not sure where to host them. I could take some silly artsy photos of the book open alongside a cup of tea or a cross and upload them to Instagram but this seems like fair use insofar as we are using them to learn about the novel.

Theresa wrote: "Zippy expressed an interest in seeing the other illustrations in my Franklin Mint edition of Ulysses. I have uploaded two so far to the group photos page. There is the milk woman, and, I believe,..."

I didn't even know we had a group photos page! Thanks for doing that. As long as you identify the source, posting a few pages from a book is probably fair use and so not a copyright violation. (If it is, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ/Amazon can take them down.)

I have started uploading more to the group page. If anyone wants to take the time to cross post them to the appropriate threads that would be great. I am behind in the reading so I don't want to 'see' the threads that the illustration belongs to.

My book doesn't label the episodes with the Homer equivalent, but it is not hard to figure out by the page number and the text on the adjacent page that I have included in the snapshot.

Some discussions have cropped up on the photos themselves, so it might be best to have the photos in the discussion threads to avoid anyone seeing spoiler chat. I suppose the images themselves could be considered spoilers...but the page numbers titles should indicate whether you are ready to inspect the illustration.

Are spoilers really a big deal for this book? Would anyone even understand a ulysses spoiler if they saw one? Spoilers are big deal with Dickens, but Joyce?

Well..seeing the spoiler on this book the other day kinda ruined the book for me.

oh. ok. I hope it was removed from whatever thread it was in?

Finding out about Stephen's mom before finishing A Portrait was also a bit of bothersome to me (but her fate doesn't appear until Ulysses so technically it is not a spoiler as they are two different books)

Yes, it's been removed. But one does disengage when someone blurts out how it ends.

;-) but you are safe :-) it was removed.

speaking of 'safe' there are about 15 or so illustrations, The one on page 514 might not be 'safe'. It is only an illustration but there is upper body female nudity in it. I will leave it till last and find somewhere else to host it, maybe flickr where such photos can be hosted so long as they are filtered/flagged.

Thomas wrote: "Details from this edition of the Evening Telegraph are scattered throughout Ulysses:

Dublin Evening Telegraph, June 16, 1904

"

What is "Last Pink"? the last edition of the day colored to distinguish from the morning edition? Not relevant to anything!

Susan wrote: "What is "Last Pink"? the last edition of the day colored to distinguish from the morning edition? Not relevant to anything! "


I'm not sure, but I would be surprised if there were more than one edition per day. I'll hazard a guess and say that it was pink to distinguish itself from its competitors, similar to the Financial Times today. I think there is an Italian sports newspaper that does the same thing.

Most large circulation newspapers in Britain at least do go through several editions in a day. The content is broadly the same, but it allows for late-breaking news to make it into that day's paper. Sometimes there are regional differences as well.

Has this link been posted?



Ten authors weigh in on the influence of James Joyce.

Patrice wrote: "I love what Martin Amis said, that Joyce was a genius with no talent. I've thought that many times while reading."

What is the difference between genius and talent? What is genius? Talent for what?

Sometimes I hear critics of modernism and the words of a very different kind of poet come to mind: "Don't criticize what you can't understand."

Thomas wrote: ""Don't criticize what you can't understand."
.."

That would make the appreciation of art & literature (including the use of the qualification 'genius') dependent on an act of faith.

Which, of course, it always is, to a certain extent. What modernism shows, is that art is beyond definition - but that never deterred its priests and preachers.

Patrice wrote: "That said, something kept pulling me back to the book. But honestly, I don't think I can say what it was. If you want to say that is my failing, I accept that.
"

It's not your failing at all -- clearly Joyce was not interested in conforming to anyone's standards other than his own, which makes it difficult for everyone, (especially critics.) I really admire the way you, and the whole group, have approached the book -- openly but with a lot of questions.

Amis's snipe is taken out of context so perhaps it is less vacant than it seems, but it still makes no sense to me. If talent is ability, and genius is "incredible ability" then genius is a superlative form of talent. How can a genius not have talent? I don't get it... it sounds a little to me like the Emperor criticizing Mozart in "Amadeus" : "Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. There are simply too many notes, that's all."

I've got a background struggle on the meaning of "aesthetics" relative to literature. It is fueled by this discussion of a modern writer (Gonçalo M. Tavares) of whom Saramago himself has supposedly said "Tavares has no right to be writing this well at the age of thirty-five." I could almost accuse the critic/commentator (Miguel St. Orberose) in this series of trying to derail any paths to the Nobel that some have predicted for Tavares. But, what I should like to understand, and do not, is the criterion of aesthetics. ("...that happens because people are conditioned to look at literature as if its chief purpose were to convey ideas and not aesthetics.)

Who has written well of what aesthetics is relative to Ulysses? (That's really my interest here, not Tavares.) My gut is suggesting U may be more about aesthetics than ideas, but I don't really know what that might mean, especially if it plunges one into what is "beauty".

Lily wrote: "I've got a background struggle on the meaning of "aesthetics" relative to literature. It is fueled by this discussion of a modern writer (Gonçalo M. Tavares) ...

If we could ask Stephen Dedalus this question, he might direct us to his discussion of aesthetics in Portrait of the Artist. Have you read that passage? I'm not sure that Joyce took it entirely seriously himself (inasmuch as the conversation happens between Stephen and Lynch, who is a bit of a pig) or that it applies entirely to Ulysses, but it's a good place to start. I also like Umberto Eco's The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce

And now I have to check out Tavares... thanks, Lily.

Thomas wrote: "If we could ask Stephen Dedalus this question, he might direct us to his discussion of aesthetics in Portrait of the Artist. Have you read that passage? ..."

No. What should I search for? "aesthetics" didn't work.

"I also like Umberto Eco's The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce."

I'll look for that. I generally like Eco. [It looks like I'll get to see a copy.]

As for Tavares, he is being discussed currently here:
/topic/group...

A number of good links are in the posts. I was drawn to the ones about two publishing houses in the U.S. vying for his work and one that interviews the author himself (as well as the one I referred to above). The moderator Whitney seems especially interested in his work -- getting a good discussion has been more of a pull than you have had here with U. That group doesn't seem to have this group's wonderful fervor to pull a piece of literature apart, even while trying to understand it as a whole.

Patrice wrote: "I just checked out the link Lily provided. The book is about how Ulysses is filled with Thomas Aquinas. This is what I meant by having a different life experience...."

Patrice -- you mean the one Thomas provided @48? ( The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce by Umberto Eco)

This description? "Eco discusses how Joyce's fiction was suffused by its author's reading of St Thomas Aquinas, Giordano Bruno, and Nicola De Cusa."

Patrice wrote: "I love what Martin Amis said, that Joyce was a genius with no talent. I've thought that many times while reading."

I think Amis means that Joyce is terrific with the difficult things, but doing a lousy job with the easy pieces. An interesting thought.

U made me think of Scarborough’s Grand Hotel - the one that was bombed by German battlecruisers in WW1. It had 365 bedrooms, 52 chimney’s, 12 floors and 4 towers - one for each season. Impressive! But if the Grand Hotel had really been like U. it would have been turned inside out - like John Hejduk's Wall House: not a living space enclosed by walls, but a wall surrounded by living spaces.



The Wall-House is not a great home. But you will never forget it once you've seen it.

Lily wrote: "Thomas wrote: "If we could ask Stephen Dedalus this question, he might direct us to his discussion of aesthetics in Portrait of the Artist. Have you read that passage? ..."

No. What should I sear..."

Try this. It starts on page 239 and goes for the next 12 pages or so.

I haven't tried this.

I was looking tonight for that delightful site with the thumbnail pictures to correspond to sections of text -- and I can't find it. But above looks like could be of interest -- maybe someday....

That's what I was looking to find!

Lily wrote: "

That's what I was looking to find!"

That's a nice find. I'm enjoying the images.

Not really a resource, but since we're heading into the last week...

Everyman wrote: "Lily wrote: "

That's what I was looking to find!"

That's a nice find. I'm enjoying the images."

Someone had already posted it somewhere, but I couldn't find that. Sorry! (If you deserve credit for the heads up and see this, come acknowledge yourself. I wouldn't have found these images without you.)