Ulysses

Rating:
Summary: don't bother
Review: Despite its reputation, this book seems to be totally pretensious, written to impress, rather than to communicate. Have we all been taken in?

Rating:
Summary: A great book!
Review: If you didn't read Ulysses, you would never know what the English language is capable of expressing. Ulysses is like no other novel I have ever read. There is no plot to speak of, but you come out loving Mr.Bloom at the end of it. It's very hard to read at first, but helper books such as Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated and Stuart Gilbert's book point out what techniques Joyce is using. I think Ulysses is like a cult classic - you either get hooked on to it, or you get turned off by the abstruseness. So don't give up easy, and you will enjoy it once you start realizing the intricacies of of Joyce's Ulysses.

Rating:
Summary: You should probably read this.
Review: I suppose it is pretty hard to add anything to this monstrous string of reviews. But I will comment because (obviously like so many others) I found this book to be very important. The fact that so many reviews exist shows that this book has effected a lot of people (enough to expend their precious energies writing about it). As you can see, not many really ride the middle ground about it. People seem to love it passionately or they hate it passionately. This should be enough to recommend it to anyone. We all should be after books that are going to change us, challenge us, effect our lives and loves. This is a book that has done that for a great many people. If you have not read it, take the time. I do not think that you'll sit in your easy chair and say 'well, it was okay,' and flip on the television.
Personally, I found the book to be lively and entertaining. It was also challenging and arduous. Sometimes I couldn't put it down and sometimes I couldn't pick it up. Sometimes I thought it was a stupid book and sometimes I thought it was the best work of fiction that I had read. Ulysses is overall 'real.' It discusses truth, it changes a lot, like life. All the characters can be seen as stable in their lives, yet metaphysically sort of lost and wandering. That is like Ulysses. It is also a lot like you and I. There are jarring events, changes of style, unexpected devices and layers and layers of erudition. There are also normal everyday joes going about life as usual, to which we can all relate. It was not easy, and that is like life, also. Like life, it has a lot to teach you. And you can come back to this book many times and still find it fresh. It probably will seem an entirely new beast when you return.
Unlike some of the reviewers, I wouldn't recommend annotations. Trust yourself and trust Joyce in undertaking the work. Perhaps you'll miss things here or there. That is okay. You'll still 'get it,' in the end, if you make it. Part of it is seeing if you can make it, so you sort of fail in your test of yourself if you immediately resort to consulting some sort of 'dictionary of Joyce.' For anyone that sees this book as too daunting, let me just say that I'm not an English major or in a literature related field. I'm a music student, just a plain old undergraduate joe that read this book. I read the book without annotations except for one period where I was stuck and thought I didn't understand. I checked the annotations out from the library and I found that I did understand (at least as well as the annotator) and that I just needed to keep going to figure it out, just like in finding out how a Dickens plot is going to unfold. I would recommend against taking that step. Leave the annotations on the shelf. I'd recommend that you, another plain old non - literature joe or jane, try it. Trust yourself and try it.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Five sank cinco
Review: Just wanted my five stars to count..ive read about 1/3 of it REALLY IN DEPTH and i mean..its probably not for you (a la mark z danielewski + also a la literary joycean snobbery). I'm going to be a joycean when I grow up. its worth looking at _definitely_ if youre interested in reading something really abstruse and yet (heres why its so good) beyond the threshold of human poignancy. Its kind of what Eco tries to do, bringing together semiotics with detective stories, but joyce's scope is much more wide. incredible.

Rating:
Summary: He laughed to free his mind from his mind's bondage.
Review: They list and in the porch of their ears I pour...I mean who writes lines like that?? So here's my explication/review:

Ulysses : Political Commentary And Sensuality

James Joyce was a famous contributor to the 18th century literary tradition. Nevertheless, Joyce's use of the supernatural is all too often mistaken for social commentary in Ulysses. Below, it will be proven that Ulysses's Surrealist overtones and views on hate are not evidence of Joyce's surrender to love. This claim is buttressed by three points: (1) the Surrealist views of Ulysses's protagonist, Tom Joad, (2) Joyce's triumphant use of satire in the work, and (3) the author's employment of human nature, showing the influence of the the British Modernist school.

First, Joyce's male sympathies are evident in Ulysses. To indicate that Ichabod Stephenson is the work's villain, the author makes his dialogue simple. Ishmael Maxwell is a famous character for this very reason; it is also meaningful that scholars--by seeing him as an avatar of Joyce's Minimalist views--have misinterpreted the character King Adams's role in the book.

Furthermore, consider that Ulysses was not so much written by Joyce as belched forth in a fit of sublime inspiration. Ulysses's use of incest is in keeping with its Constructivist point-of-view. Captain Stephenson is a far from marginal character; in fact, it is through him that many of Joyce's 18th century influences show through.

Last, Ulysses cannot be fully understood without examination of the post Minimalist school of Roman literature. Many teens see the book's closing scene as the most enduring; I, however, do not. Nick Daniel is a witless character for this very reason; this is definitely why One-Eyed Caulfield is such a monumental character.

It's easy to forget that Ulysses was the most brilliant work of its time. Perhaps it's time that scholars reevaluated their estimation of the book. Though contemporaries found Joyce's use of dystopic future-vision ponderous, history will vindicate Ulysses. Q. E. D. -- Quite easily done.

The End

Rating:
Summary: Everybody's favourite pitch
Review: There are few books that could actually change your life, as in change the way you view artistic creativity, and Ulysses is one of them; reason being because Ulysses is the bible for modern writers in its unparalleld absorption of culture and human folly. Typically, this novel is a university favourite as there is so much to discuss, unravel and admire.

I don't see how anybody can say that Ulysses is their favourite read. Like all of Joyce's works it is not particularly warm and, for me, wasn't a work to inspire and enflame the spirit. As you all know, or should know, Ulysses is the most important fictional text of the 20th century and that in itself makes it worthwhile to the patient reader.

Rating:
Summary: The Irish Oddesy
Review: How can anybody short of a literary genius review this book? I am certainly not qualified. I will simply tell you whether I enjoyed what I read.

There were sections of the book that I really enjoyed but there were parts that seemed to me just a long procession of gibberish.

Do not attempt to attempt this book without some study aids to assist you; unless you are a genius.

Rating:
Summary: A True Classic.
Review: Ulysses, James Joyce's seminal work,has had a profound effect on millions of readers. Ulysses is both crude and sensitive, lyrical and blunt, funny and sad. It shows the reader a glimpse of one man's struggle to define himself amidst the chaos of modern experience. Ulysses is, perhaps, the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature of the 20th century.

Also recommended: REDEFINING THE SELF: SELECTED ESSAYS ON SWIFT, POE, PINTER, AND JOYCE by John Condon Murray

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the last bit's a girl thing...
Review: The book is simply wonderful, and there is nothing I can say that is more eloquent or unusual than the other many reviews before me.
The only thing I would like to mention, is my thoughts on the end. That one, long, run-on sentence. To my mind at least, it felt like he understood perfectly the way a woman can think.
Of course I'm generalizing, but I read a review written by a man who'd read the first 50 pages, then skipped to the end to find that flow of thought, and thought it was perfectly weird.
I felt sorry when I read that, because the way the thoughts swirl in and out and round about and seem to build with 'fervorency'(is that a word? did I spell it right?), is exactly the way my thoughts wander on occasion, and I marvelled at the way Joyce seemed to be privy to that sort of, what I consider to be, 'female' thought.
It was beautiful. I enjoyed it more than I can say. I recommend it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Just Read It... Don't Try to Understand...
Review: If you approach Joyce's Ulysses looking to be told a story worthy of the Modern Library's #1 book of the 20th Century, then you will most likely be disappointed. But if you throw aside your expectations of what makes a book great and just read the words as you would the people, places, sights and sounds that trigger your thoughts during the course of a normal day, then you will be amazed.

In Ulysses, James Joyce uses his superhuman vocabulary and literary knowledge to relate a day in the life of a couple Irishmen (Stephen Dedalus and his friend, Leopold Bloom) and the people with whom they interact. Joyce's words are abnormally sophisticated, yet one never gets the feeling he is simply showing off. While his writing style is often referred to as stream-of-consciousness, it is clear that every word is appropriately placed and deeply thought out. As Ulysses meanders along through its day, the objects that enter the periphery of the protagonists triggers emotions and thoughts that lead to: poems, songs, theological and political discussions, laughing, shouting, incoherent noises, etc. The novel ranges from sublime to aggravating, but that is only because it is so true to its form. How many times in a normal day, if we were to stop and ruminate upon what we were just thinking, would we then think, "What was that?" But then it's quickly on to the next interaction destined to spark different emotions, thoughts, ideas, etc...

It is impossible to sum this book up. It follows no plot or pattern other than that it is simply 1 day. A few people... 1 day.

Reading this book reminded me at times of the Simpsons episode where Homer is seen watching an episode of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. "Brilliant!" Homer remarks, but then quietly to himself, "I have no idea what is going on here." While I often found myself in Homer's predicament while reading Ulysses, I was always able to appreciate Joyce's writing, even if the individual words were all I understood. For that reason, I plan on reading this book again several years from now to see what life has taught me that might expand my understanding of Joyce's beautiful day.