Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1922

but to reduce this to a personal thing, moments of Ulysses intrude on my life every week in the same way that moments of The Simpsons do

but also one day i need to have a proper swim in Proust

One day I'll reread Ulysses and will likely get far more out of it than I did at the ripe old age of 21.

Been a long time since I read it for a class---minus Bloomsday, also assigned, but I did alright on the test---I'd like to go back and try it with some commentaries now, but my take at the time was of X-Y axis: X being what vertical layers of classical reference and fluent phrasing brought to Y horizontal storyline, proceeding through day and night around town, axis itself the power of association, music and notation on a grid of how the mind works, mind of the author and characters, connective tissue: so, to me, it's multi-d social realism, proceeding from and via Dubliners and Portrait. Classical bits to an extent provided mainly an initial grid, points of departure, not really amounting to a major preoccupation. Not to say that commentaries couldn't point out something about this that I've missed---but if you have to have it pointed out to you, is it really part of the book, if you have to read something else to get it?? Well maybe, if it then settles into the way you re-read it, but see I wanted more of a cold reading, a blindfold test, always do.

Also supposedly he contacted people still in Dublin, had them check details, even measure, to make sure he was putting it all in accurately. So even if he got carried away sometimes, "language writing beyond him," there was that kind of grounding attempted.

So that was the appeal to young me: you can have it all! "Yes I will yes."

I think I've just voted in one of these for the first time.

Nailed on AA Milne vote there.

fwiw i did vote ulysses because i think it's wonderful. it's one of those books which whenever i dip back into it i get *feels*... of place, language, thought, people, thinking and socialising, history. what a glorious exuberance of literature, thought and spirits.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh yes I read The Secret Adversary this year. It is quite a funny curio. The concept of Russian communism as basically a one man job that could be defeated. Thinking there must've been a ton of these red scare type books.

It is not better than The Prisoner or Ulysses though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1923

The Enchanted April is v good. Quite fantastical - not in terms of elves or unicorns, just what happens to the characters. It's not entirely lightweight, there is good, if implicit, anti patriarchy stuff, and some strong character work, but if you fancy some pure feelgood escapism I'd recommend it.

I had fun making these.

Missing pom and LBI.

yes

These polls were so great. I was hoping someone would take the winners of each year and do decade ones but...

I looked at the 1929 recently as I'm reading Red Harvest. Goddamn there are too many books and not enough days.

Oh all right.

That's the spirit!