Journey through Ulysses
Posted: March 22nd, 2010 | Author: Ian | Filed under: Literature | Tags: currently reading, James Joyce, Ulysses | 3 Comments »Now that I have finished House of Leaves (not to mention my thesis), it’s now time to move on to another novel. Since I failed to complete last year’s Infinite Summer I am going to set out in earnest to read Infinite Jest from cover to cover starting in June.
In the mean time, though, I am devoting this spring to Ulysses by James Joyce. For now, I am planning to read without the aid of annotations but we will see how that goes. If all goes as planned, the reading will be finished in time for Bloomsday and I can celebrate properly.
Besides a few parts of Dubliners I’ve not read much Joyce and since Ulysses is the best novel ever I am ashamed. Feel free to read along with me; I could use the company.
Who knows, perhaps I’m a burgeoning Joycean.
I cannot lie. I fear this work; I have yet to start it, though a buddy of mine agreed to read it with me this summer. I am not sure I can get through it by myself.
So what I’ve never understood is how a novel like Ulysses, which apparently very few people finish, is the best novel of all time. (Of all time!) Certainly, the best novel ever must be one that is successfully finished by its readership.
Then again, 7 out of 10 novels on the readers choice are either Ayn Rand or L Ron Hubbard. I guess I should just climb back into my white high place where I read journal articles about stuff that no one ever pays any attention to except the people who write them.
We used Dubliners as our text for my undergrad Advanced Comp class–spent the whole semester writing about that one book. I started out thinking “So what?” and finished thinking “This guy is amazing!” But, I’ve never tackled Ulysses. Maybe someday.