Reading Ulysses

Some people, for example steve, find that not understanding large chunks of a novel are not a barrier to enjoyment: others, myself included, generally do. This is surely obvious enough. What interests me more particularly is that people will tend to assume that if steve likes the novel better than I did he must have understood it better. That obviously doesn't necessarily follow: but as I say the assumption is frequently made.

My point is a general one and not specific to Ulysses, a book I incidentally feel very ambivalent about.

As I recall the story, Joyce was in a social situation and another guest complained to him about the convolution and opacity of Finnegans Wake, asking, (I paraphrase) "Do you really expect me to spend my whole life puzzling this out?"

Joyce answered, "Yes."

A better-educated friend of mine read Ulysses around the same time as I did and understood much more of it. He said he thought it was basically garbage (which is what I think of Gravity's Rainbow).

Joyce was so deeply involved in his own work that he honestly thought WWII occured because not enough people read his book (FW).

i like steve's remark about unknowing.

I can empathise with this, having felt similar things around the same age when I started to get interested in "literature" (not having been interested in much except girls, beer and playing in bands in my late teens). Ulysses was definitely part of that: I was quite dazzled and slightly obsessed by Joyce for a time and read everything about Ulysses I could get my hands on - although there were other infatuations that hit me just as hard or harder (Rilke, Wordsworth, Lawrence). I think at bottom though there was the idea that if only I could grasp this stuff properly there would be an almost spiritual enlightenment at the end of it (I was fascinated by neoplatonism and similar rubbish). Joyce, more a aesthete and less of a would-be sage than the others, probably looks like a slightly awkward fit here, but he was pressed into service all the same.

Also, 'You will', and 'I will'?

Ulysses isn't that mysterious to me anymore, but it retains a place of significance in my life because it forever changed my relationship to my own ignorance and confusions. Since then I have tended to embrace things I don't get (but feel vague attractions to), rather than feeling defensive about them. Sometimes a massive waste of time (the economics/politics of Ezra Pound fr'instance), but often rewarding. It's not limited to works of art either (I learned how to fix cars mostly because it was so out of my aesthete-type character).

Substituing pot, etc. for beer my experience was like frankiemachine's.

oh yes, so OTM and well put.

except that now i'm filled with unknowing again since, for some reason, i can barely follow the plot of a TV show. novels are much easier though.

Well done with your reading, Jaq.

I can extend the similarity a bit, Steve - I could easily have written the following sentence after ploughing through Kenner and and the rest:

Sometimes a massive waste of time (the economics/politics of Ezra Pound fr'instance),

Maybe the difference is that I'm much, much less likely nowadays to be interested in self-consciously "difficult" art (although define-yer-terms may be a fair riposte to that because, for example, Cecil Taylor's Conquistador is on constant rotation on my cd player as I speak). The enthusiasm of Jaq, Pinefox and others, and the thread on favourite sentences, has even got me semi-interested in re-reading Ulysses, although perhaps not.

I, too, have found myself less interested in difficult-because-it-aspires-to-be art as well, but to me there's a distinction between that which arrives at difficulty organically (like Cecil, Ulysses-era-Joyce, or Messiaen) and the I'm-so-clever kind. As a phase of development, Kenner was important to me. I'm glad I did all that, not from what I took from it in terms of substance, but that it gave me confidence in sharpening my critical apparatus enough to understand the difference between complexities that proceed from expressive neccessity and those which are deliberate -and maybe pointless- displays of mental agility (kind of how I feel about FW, even though it makes me laugh).

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1091216,00.html

does anyone know anything about a japanese film from a couple years ago: ulysses relocated to the red light district in tokyo except with an underpinning of japanese paganism replacing the classical references? i remember reading about this but people keep saying "that sounds like something you'd make up"

now, how would you film chapter sixteen?

xpost: like a 70s home movie with skronky film, jumpy edits and a final "flick flick flick flick" as it comes off the projector. Chapter 14 would be super duper fun.

Has anybody else seen the 1969 (?) version? All I can say is - it stays faithful to the story.

honestly, it'd be a great miniseries.

i remember 'bloom' being called 'bl.,m' on the website. or was that another one? regardless it's a useless title, guy gets to be called like twelve names, yo. VOICEOVERS. eahrrh.

i want someone to make a case for chapter sixteen as not being alarmingly uncharitable! please!

(I have just reread it, coincidentally.)

I am happy to agree quite strongly with the people who think Ulysses should be on TV, in a series. I remember saying so, enthusiastically, to a bloke at a bus stop, about 10 years ago, maybe more, and he unleashed his spleen against me. I did not use the word 'miniseries', though. Maybe that would have helped.

how would you televise it?

we also discussed whether "miniseries" would be the correct term.

Yes, I've seen it. It's, um, bad.

Reading Ulysses, enjoying it immensely and not having a terrible time with it, and then I got to the Scylla (Shakespeare) chapter. Good lord. Not only did I have a terrible time following it (I'm not using any notes this first time through), but I found it incredibly dull.

Is this usually regarded as one of the difficult chapters? I always hear about Oxen of the Sun, but I haven't gotten there then. Does anyone else find this chapter dull? It gets better again, right?

oxen of the sun is hi-larious.

So Gabler's edition is pants? I should just go back to the Random House edition?

who says that? I found the Gabler edition to be quite good. although some editions are missing a crucial punctuation mark on the last page.

I'd take the Random House over the Gabler, which might've been rooted in good intentions but seems to be mainly fucking with the text for the sake of it.

strangely upset i can no longer remember the publishing history of ulysses :(

i prefer the wikipedia summarisation version.