Reading Ulysses

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.

i say that, i mean i never actually managed to finish it.

dyao, <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28novel%29#Publication_history'>;Wikipedia sez</a>. (Third paragraph in that section.) Also, <a href=http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/#editions>;Robot Wisdom</a> sez Gabler is a pompous German with a tin ear, but seems to have backed off criticism since I last looked.

I'll say this: RH edition is easier to read in bed.

Url, ups. And double ups, guy who writes RW is apparently a wingnut crank.

Just read joseph collins' og 1922 review of ulysses on a whim. He makes a big deal of bloom being vile and depraved and having no moral compass. This was strange to me because one of the main points of the book, for me, is that despite the vagaries and trials of ordinary human existence, in a world that is at all turns hostile to the flowering of individual personality, Bloom manages to be a decent man. I wonder if early reviewers actually couldn't recognize that bloom is a remarkably generous and kind spirit or if they were afraid that noting these qualities would "excuse" his sexual irregularities, which reviewers wanted desperately to distance themselves from. Or is Bloom maybe not that admirable and I am misreading him. Despite his numerous anxieties, the frantic and confused quality of his interior life at times, there is something very open about his orientation toward others that -- to me at least -- seems extremely spiritual. I think he was intended as a model for a way to live without belief, god as a "shout in the street" and all that. I don't think he is in any way an "everyman"

i never noticed anything being wrong with him, except his being an ad salesman

also on a whim, on a few train rides this weekend i re-read the telemachiad. the stuff with mr deasy is wrenching. i love how stephen is already not impressed with his own pseudo-profundity but can't bear to view himself on an equal level with the people around him. also what other author can just make up words and make it seem like the most natural thing? is there a better novel?

Try 2666 sometime, that's better.

oof no

Coincidentally two weeks ago I was telling a friend (who has tried to read this five times now, and has not finished) to start with the last chapter (which is what the 'reading difficult novels' link above tells you to do). I did the 'sequential, only got 10% thing' about 5+ years ago, but looking back the important thing was getting to Molly.

Although I nearly also said that Thomas Bernhard has taken the one para thing on and improved on it and you should read Old Masters instead but actually hearing about her struggles and work (she is reading bits of the Odyssey plus a guide too) I found myself quite interested in re-reading Ulysses. Might do it over the World Cup acually, starting with the last chapter.

Of course Old Masters' content is a whole different thing to Molly. Nastier, misanthropic, more my thing.

Treeship, I am sure you are correct - Mr Bloom is good, unusually for a complex fictional character. Collins was basically wrong. Your thought that reviewers avoided stating the goodness because they were scared of the kinks is a nice one. Though I feel that the truth was, they just couldn't yet see the goodness. And even today, in a way, there is a 'banality of goodness' that can make one swerve away from it.

never had any interest in reading this

kudos

keep us updated

Still don't care

He had no use for ulysses, but posted here anyway.

Hey I just checked--still don't care about this

I read it once front-to-back with very minimal support about 15 years ago and tackled it again last year in conjunction with a (somewhat corny and condescending) guide and honestly I still got a lot more out of the second experience. The guide was useful for keeping track of the mythical and theological elements but even without it I appreciated the human (and comic) dimension so much more the second time round. It's the difference between reading it as an adult and reading it as a gauche and overconfident student I suppose. It's still possible to get a lot out of Ulysses even if you're only following two-thirds of it.

I still dislike the underworld section though.

I like that one but dislike Oxen of the Sun

it's funny that someone isolated the history of english prose he was using for oxen

man ilb is ~controversial~ today

waterface, why don't you care about this

It just seems not my thing. I respect what he did--he tore the novel wide open with this. But it's not my thing. Too wordy. Too complicated?

Matt DC otm

I'm definitely one of those proponents of "read it the first time unaided and drunk and let it flow", but obviously people read in different ways. I refuse to read introductions before I've finished a novel, for instance - it's important for me to have my own thoughts before comparing notes with others.

I like Treeship's comments.

Heh, I read it unaided and didn't even realize out that it was about adultery.

*realize out

Read it twenty-two years ago w/the help of Cliff Notes. Have reread chunks and chapters since. My favorite is still Hades.

Just finished reading this for the first time a few weeks ago. On-and-off project over the past several months. I used The Bloomsday Book as a guide and I'm thankful I did. Kept me well grounded.

I think the hallucinatory brothel visit (Circe?) was my favorite chapter. Was surprised at how much I enjoyed Oxen of the Sun, considering its reputation. My opinions would probably be significantly different if I attacked this unaided though.

Second time through is way easier. You need to know what's happening in advance to really enjoy all of the other stuff, which idk, I could see how someone could think that's a flaw in the writing or just something they don't want to deal with.

Still don't care about this book

16 iBooks pages in and it's weirdly enticing. I'm assuming that people who say this is not that difficult mean it in the same way that Webern is "not that difficult"?