I'm just curious; I have had college instructors who have not finished the book because of its difficulty.

No, but I did read Ulysses with a little help from a reading group I helped form composed of friends and friendly co-workers. We might tackle Finnegan's Wake someday when we run out of other good books to read.

I found Ulysses to be the single most challenging and the most frustrating good book I've ever read, and, if I ever read Finnegan's Wake, I'm sure it would be doubly so. There were times when I just wanted to throw Ulysses against the wall across the room. In the end, however, it was worth the effort. The final chapter of Ulysses is one of the best in the book, IMHO, so don't give up on it.

In any event, I can't even imagine reading either Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake without the help of a reading group. I also suggest that you read as many critical essays as possible that have been written about these books concurrently while reading them. If you don't, you'll miss a ton of stuff and barely scratch the surface really. If you don't look for and find the underlying meanings in these books, they are not worth reading.

I ATTEMPTED to, but wasn't very successful.

7

I've actually been meaning to read Ulysses, but I haven't tackled it yet. I figure I should try it before I try Finnegan's Wake, but I'm very curious about both of them. Strangely enough, both times I've tried to buy the book to read it, I haven't been able to find it.

Well, they don't sell books like that at your type of bookstore...

I would suggest working your way up in difficulty: Start with Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (which is fairly short and something of a prequel to Ulysses), then hunker down and get serious with Ulysses and some related critical essays and commentaries, and finally move on to Finnegan's Wake, assuming you aren't sick of Joyce by then.

Many literati consider Ulysses to be the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. I disagree (see my thread on Gravity's Rainbow), but it's definitely worth reading. If you read only one Joyce novel, I would recommend Ulysses. Make sure you read the Hans Gabler edition, published in 1986! It contains many very important corrections to errors in the text that other editions still have. For critical essays and commentaries, my reading group recommends the book edited by Clive Hart and David Hayman and the book by Harry Blamires and the book by Stuart Gilbert. There's also Gifford's Ulysses Annotated which is nothing but a humongous collection of footnotes explaining the text in minute detail, but I frankly didn't find that worthwhile reading and used only as an occasional reference for the particularly obscure passage.

Let this quote be a warning to you though:

"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles [in 'Ulysses'] that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality."

--James Joyce

[Edited by Ed Sabol on 06-23-01 at 08:53 PM]

Well, they don't sell books like that at your type of bookstore... [/B][/QUOTE]

Howdy there, Linoge. How happy I am to see you've stalked me right on into the Book Talk forum. Have you read Finnegan's Wake?

I'm an English major, and Joyce is one of my favorite authors, and yet I've never read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake! I keep telling myself "next summer I'll start Ulysses," but I just haven't had the time, and I know that once I start I'll be consumed with it, so I'd rather just put it on the back burner. To give you an idea of how much there is to Joyce, take his "simple" Dubliners: I've spent TWO YEARS (off and on, of course) working on Dubliners and I still don't feel I've "conquered" it. There is SO MUCH to Joyce's works it's almost overwhelming, and that's why he's one of the greatest authors (not to mention linguists) the world has seen.

Well, I'm a graduated English major, so I guess it's really sad that I haven't found time to read either Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

Heh. I'm a graduated English lit **Ph.D.** and I've never read Ulysses or Finnegans Wake (there's no apostrophe, by the way.). So you're in good company.

Well, actually I read about a chapter of Ulysses, and about a page of Finnegans Wake, when I was studying for my master's exam. Bleah. Ulysses I can at least see how some people appreciate it, even though it's totally not the kind of thing I enjoy. But I seriously think that Finnegans Wake ought to be considered at most as a literary curiosity, a bizarre experiment by a well-known author -- and NOT as some sort of undying classic. Give me a break -- a book that is basically written in a language that Joyce made up just for that book? This is literature?

On the other hand, Dubliners was actually somewhat interesting. But Finnegans Wake I'd consider just a waste of precious reading time!

I'm presently reading Ulysses; I'm on page 280 out of 760 or whatever. It's difficult to understand at times, and I'm sure that I'm not getting everything in the book, but it is readable (unlike Finnegans Wake). I actually read selections from Dubliners, all of Portrait of the Artist, and chapters 1, 9, 10 and 18 (final chapter) of Ulysses at the end of my honors seminar at notre dame last semester, and decided I might as well read all of Ulysses over the summer. It is essential to read Portrait before attempting Ulysses, since you really need to have an understanding of the Stephen Deadalus character before beginning--if you've read Portrait, at least Chapter one of Ulysses is manageable :-) Furthermore, some general knowledge about Joyce and what he was trying to accomplish is helpful, as well as some general knowledge of Irish history (not to mention professors telling you what sorts of things to look for).

I am just now getting into Joyce and have started reading the Dubliners. I started here because I originally wanted to read Ulysses but figured it would be best to read Joyce chronoligically. A friend of mine just started Ulysses and we were talking about the old American ban on the book due to "pornographic content". My friend says he can't really see why it was banned but he is only a hundred pages in it. Does anyone know why?...was it just a sign of the time it was in?

Thanks

bump;

does not one of the 41 views of this thread have any insight to this?

It was more subject matter than language, per se. Molly's long monologue at the end has a lot of honest crudity in it. He used the "F" word now and again, throughout the text. He's a lot less explicit than Henry Miller, but it's still there. You should look for James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses by Paul Vanderham. (NYU Press)

He coveres everything thoroughly.

Today is June 16, 2004.

100 years ago today, Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin, while his wife Molly pondered an infidelity, and Stephen Daedelus searched for a father figure. This is the story of Ulysses, the greatest novel written in the English language. If you've never read it, do yourself a favor, and pick it up today.

I just finished reading The Dubliners and now remember why it was I somewhat enjoyed some of it back in high school...

But I have a question that can be answered in a number of ways:

What do the different stories stand for, metaphorically or realistically?

I'm looking for maybe a website providing interpretations of different literary works (not necessarily Joyce's alone) and also your interpretations.

For example, in "The Dead", is it implicated in the end that Gabriel himself is dead spiritually? That's obviously one interpretation, but I'm wondering what others have to say about it. But I don't just want in depth analysis of "The Dead", although I'm sure most will pay attention to that, since it's the bulkiest of the stories therein.

Oh, and my favorite story of the bunch is "A Painful Case".

Ok. Discuss.
-ringding-

Okay, well, obviously nobody here likes Joyce and/or "Dubliners"...

The Wikipedia page on Dubliners at least has a brief breakdown of each story's basic context/plot.
-ringding-

I love Joyce, and The Dubliners. I feel your pain - I started a thread on Ulysses a couple of years ago, on the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday. No one posted in it.

This thread reminds me I need to read "The Dead" soon.

It's not that I don't love Joyce, or Dubliners -- I think The Dead is perhaps the greatest short story in the English language. It's just that when browsing through DVDTalk I'm using a different part of my brain than I do for in-depth critical analysis, and I'm afeared that if I tried, the cognitive dissonance might just kill me.

As said above, Molly's part at the end is fairly ummm... implicitly explicit?

I too very much like Joyce and Dubliners. I too have been meaning to (re)read the Dead for some time. I too encourage reading groups--I took an Irish lit class in college for the sole purpose of reading Ulysses... and was gripped! I really did love it, and found it much less frustrating than I thought I might. Some chapters were incredibly rewarding.

Anyway, Finnegans Wake looms on my shelf, mocking me. Someday... someday.

Re: the ban -
Yes, Molly Bloom's soliloquy is a big part of it, as is the entire Sirens chapter, which takes place in the brothel, and the passage (why can't I remember the chapter title?) where Bloom masturbates while watching the woman on the beach...

The passage on the beach is brilliant.

I agree with the advice to read Ulysses concurrently with a study guide, and I recommend the aforementioned "Bloomsday Book" by Blamires. Without one, yes, you can appreciate the language and the fantastic writing, but you may miss the nuances, that is unless you're well-versed in Irish history, musical theory, mythology, the topography of Dublin, the in-jokes Joyce wrote in from his personal history, etc.

As a side note, my Joyce professor in grad school has himself never read "Finnegan's Wake."

Circe! That's the name of the brothel chapter...