Tuesday, June 16, 2009

With three minutes left of Bloomsday...

I'm starting Ulysses.

Comments, advice, etc, welcome. Joe-the-Math-guy, Jana-who-Creates and I are going to meet regularly on the telephone to discuss it regularly.

I would love to post law student/mom/mathematician insights on the book as a regular thing, but we will see if that happens.

CC

5 comments:

LinguistFriend said...

If you really want to get people's attention, you could comment on the last fifty pages first.

PeaceBang said...

Wow. After slogging through Madame Bovary, too. I'm impressed.

Louise said...

I was assigned "Ulysses" in a comparative literature class in college. Even the professor admitted that it was long and treacherous, and had us skip 4 or 5 chapters.

All I remember is that James Joyce plus 4th year engineering course load was an unsolvable equation for me. I punted on the novel, retaining only "Yes Yes Yes," but have no shame for referencing it obliquely in our blog name.

Louise said...

Also: This bldgblog post made me go, "Huh." Might be a useful way to think about the book.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/bloomsday.html

Rick Hoyt-McDaniels said...

Ulysses is one of my all time favorite books. I wouldn't call reading it a "slog" (or Madame Bovary either). And I can't believe a literature professor would assign the book and then have the class "skip 4 or 5 chapters." Jeez. What are we coming to?

The book is rewarding and a classic because it's rich and complex. It's funny, and strange, and sexy, and earthy, and smart. You don't read it because you're looking for light and easy but because you want to completely immerse yourself in a writer's mind and a well-imagined fictional world.

I remember being fascinated by the way Joyce constructs his book, assigning each chapter not only an episode of the Odyssey, but a different literary style, and food and color and so on. You might spend some time on the internet periodically looking up those references.

And by the way, I enjoyed the later, more experimental chapters better than the first few, so don't give up too soon.