this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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I'm slowly (although understandably, I believe) going through Ulysses by James Joyce and I'm trying to find a balance between the massive notes and engaging with the text itself.
I know that, especially in the English speaking literary world, it is customary to stand in the former camp but I can't really gel with that, it feels like I'm reading something other than the book, and I didn't really have this problem with Dubliners.
When I end up reading all of it I suppose I would then be ok going back to it later on reading all of the notes, but I've tried doing that as a first read and it didn't really work for me.
It's 's too early to even connect some thoughts, so I'm more looking for recommendations than able to give some to others!
I tried reading it once for pleasure (didn't get far) and then had to read it two years running for entirely different university modules.
The refreshing way it was taught was that it skipped around from chapter to chapter, and was read out of order. Because really the plot such as it is doesn't have much bearing on it. But I wouldn't say it made it more enjoyable to read just easier to understand. And, honestly, it just let you skip out the really boring bits.
Martin Amis made a very good point about Ulysses - it's read and analysed and dissected by academics but who actually just curls up and relaxes with it for fun? The answer is not many. If you're looking for something which doesn't need a lot of footnotes to understand don't feel guilty about dropping it!
RECOMMENDATION: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. An Irish near contemporary of Joyce's, with a similar love of messing around with language but who is actually readable and very funny in an absurd way!
I resonate with a lot of what you're saying, and yeah, I don't think I'll feel too guilty about taking a break or two since I can get back on it whenever I want.
My one problem with the amount of footnotes is that they can be so dense and cumbersome that the stream of consciousness sections didn't even feel like a stream of anything: it was like when you repeat a word so often you start losing your grip on what the word itself is. Of course they're helpful to an extent, a considerable one on a work like this one, but if this book was so wild and innovative when it came out I want to feel some of that!
Also, thanks for the recommendation! It sounds like something I'd really enjoy
I suspect that there was a little bit of an element of A Brief History Of Time about it, crossed in with the fact it was known to have 'dirty' bits in - lots of people bought it but how many people read it cover to cover is questionable. So I'm sure a lot of people when it came out were just skipping to the interesting bits as well, or just putting it on their shelves to show off their bohemian credentials!
It has genuinely funny passages, genuinely brilliant experimental pieces and lots of bits which are quite boring. That's the thing about experimental literature - I find the same with William Burroughs as well - you have to wade through the experiments that didn't work to find the bits that did. I've always been more interested in experimentation with storytelling devices like breaking the fourth wall and so on than the stream of consciousness experimentation which feels easy on the writer and hard on the reader.