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Summary: An affirmative masterpiece, full of warmth and humanity
Review: Strange as it may seem, many people do read and re-read this novel simply because they love it!It would be impossible to summarize a work such as this in a few lines, but what I love most about this work is its humanity. Joyce is not satirizing Homer: in invoking "The Odyssey", he is not so much deflating the heroic as elevating the everyday. The mundane day-to-day events which constitute life for the vast majority of us are given a heroic dimension - and, indeed, why should they not? A good, decent man like Bloom is as worthy of praise as was Ulysses. This is one of the great affirmative novels in a century where literature has, by and large, been dominated by darkness.
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Summary: un libro muy bueno y no es tan dificil como parece
Review: ulises, es un libro maravillosamente disenado, esta bien de que el autor sea tildado de pedante por haber puesto en el libro cada cosa que se le viniera a la cabeza y hacerlo un poco duro de seguir, pero el libro tiene su valor y no en vano ha siso alabado desde que salio. su complicada estructura se presta a analisis de diferentes esferas de la mente humana. se puede ver como una asociacion de ideas y se necesita de una gran memoria o de una libreta para poder encontrar las referencias o leitmotiv del libro que estan donde menos las pienses. cada capitulo de ulises representa un estilo de narracion y cada uno es una pequena obra en si independiente de las demas. que no encontremos el significado inmediato no significa que sea malo, sino que el autor no estaba pensando en dar a su obra un significado,ese surge mientras lees la obra. los capitulos parecen no tener secuencia logica y los personajes parece que hablan disparates pero si miras bien y lees con calma puedes ver que hay un hilo conductor de la historia, linda parodia de un clasico. cada capitulo es una referencia a la odisea, aunque en algunos de ellos no esta claro a que se refiere hasta el final. es una obra para gente que quiera aprender que las mejores obras estan escritas para satisfacer no a un publico sino a uno mismo y cuando el escribia quien mas disfrutaba era JOYCE LUIS MENDEZ
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Summary: A Book Which May Only Be Called a Qualified Success
Review: Yes, "Ulysses," we are told, is a work of genius; yes, it is multi-faceted and pregnant with meaning; true, it may even be a compendium of all Western Culture since Homer. But, let's be honest: It's as fun as reading a telephone directory! One risks opening oneself up to the assaults of the junior college-educated parrot, who gleefully repeats what "wisdom" was imparted to him by his talentless and blustering English instructor. But for those of us not interested in posturing; that is to say, for those of us who actually read Mr. Joyce's work--yes, every last page! (and not at the behest of some school-drudge)--we can risk dispensing with the bombast and dogma to whisper our opinions in a voice sharpened with an edge of honesty. "Ulysses," such as it is, is a bore. Few unread novels have enjoyed as much success. Such fame rests chiefly, however, on the fact that it is usually not touched . . . which, even if it were, it would reveal itself to be wholly incomprehensible--thus allowing any pseudo-intellectual halfwit to attach any meaning to it that he wishes. The truth, though? "Ulysses" is a satire--and a very tedious one--of Homer's wonderful Odyssey. But Homer's work is actually readable and entertaining! Sad, considering that the ancient Hellene is several thousand years removed from us and yet still has the power to spin a fascinating story. Joyce, however, has created--nothing! He borrows, he steals, he imitates . . . badly. For a true original; for a man of genius and an author who can actually write his own plots; one should look no further than Homer. Joyce? He's a pedant and an over-rated, long-winded bore.
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Summary: This novel is a very burdensome read and confusing!!
Review: I found this book incredibly burdensome and confusing. Could someone please decipher the manuscript so a reader may be able to comprehend the message that Mr. Joyce was espousing. Thank you for the consideration. I understand the general structure but the language is convoluted and abstact. Maybe with a little help i will be able to understand the underlying theory.
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Summary: If you are lazy dont even pick it up.
Review: One thousand years from now, when the acid will have long since dissolved the remembrance's from our tombstones and even the internet will have been forgotten, Joyce's works will still be read and loved. His works will outlive our language as Homer's have their greek. I sympathize with those of you who are puzzled, angered and allow yourselves to be defeated by the text. It is much easier to read an accessible classic like The Lord of the Rings (the peoples choice for novel of the century) or The Catcher in the Rye, though they are unrewarding and juvenile works in comparison with Ulysses. As to those of you who pretend to be intellectually superior to Ulysses or the Wake, stop kidding yourselves. Among writers in the english tongue, Joyce ties for second place with Chaucer, just ahead of Milton, a stride behind Shakepeare.
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Summary: Habent sua fata libelli
Review: That book has a luck. It's the worst book which has ever been written. Strangely, there are some people who think it is the best one. that's what the latin phrase (above) means
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Summary: Life is too short to read Ulysses.
Review: Perhaps the worst book I have ever read. It is a blasphemy that it ever was published. Its only function is to keep blinkered academics busy trying to wring another drop of meaning from a text already exhausted from analysis. A brief glance through it is enough to confirm that it is precisely the novel you would write if you wanted to become a celebrated author but hated writing, hated readers, and wanted to punish academics. This monstrosity of hideous prose confirms that Joyce had no style and certainly no class. The novel can rightly be blamed for being the originator of the misguided notion that the squalor-and-filth quotient of a story is directly proportional to its artistic merit. The very least one might ask of a book is that it be readable. With this is mind, Ulysses, ludicrously canonised as the greatest of all novels, is a failure in the most fundamental respect. It is the only book I can think of where the reader deserves more credit for finishing it than the author. In the words of a *real* writer (H. L. Mencken): it is rumble and dumble, it is flap and doodle, it is balder and dash.
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Summary: The most important book of the twentieth century
Review: One cannot stress the importance of Ulysses. As a book, it almost defies explanation, such is it's achievement, in that it seems to be a story a story of so very little, yet with the importance of Odyssean epic. It's hard to explain. The thing about Ulysses is that it's sheer inventiveness will capture you. Joyce not only places you in the scene via description, the very words he uses become the description themselves, in the shape and texture of them. The book is also a library of allusions, but they can be taken as they are, or decoded within the book itself. There has never been a book quite like it before or since, and it is absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century's malaise. It addresses not only the development of Ireland, but the development of man, and predicts the trends of the next hundred years effectively.
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Summary: For his mere petulant tenacity, how else may one rate this?
Review: it is hard to imagine exactly what i think of this except for the fact that maybe precisely once more you forget but forget no forgivance that once around is more for twice but you grow with twice
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read. Period.
Review: I don't want to elaborate on how hard this book can be to read (I think the other 75 reviews have covered that), but I will say that with Joyce you get out of it what you put into it. Those who love this book rave about its groundbreaking techniques & virtuosity of language. Those who hate this book complain that it is nothing but Joyce showing off & taunting his readers with a book that has no unity or point. This book DOES have a point. All the style in it is only used as means to an end. There are characters. There is conflict (there are several, but I believe the basic conflict is each character struggling with the reality their lives as opposed to what they want their lives to be). There is a climax (and what a climax it is). There is a resolution. This is, at heart, a very sad and haunting book. I think the message in this novel is that we are at the mercy of our lives (i.e. circumstances control us, not vice versa), and that the only way we can deal with the fact that we have no control over our lives is by fooling ourselves. It is a study of the contrast between what we think we are and what we really are. It is saying that the only way people deal with their biggest problems is by running away from them (note the way Leopold Bloom constantly avoids confronting or even thinking about his wife's adultery, and note the way Stephen Dedalus reacts when confronted by his mother; I could cite plenty of other examples). This may be the ultimate truth of life, that we can never face the truth about ourselves. Joyce never states this directly; it is left up to the reader to find for himself. I would be doing this book injustice if I didn't mention that it fleshes out 2 of the most three-dimensional, complete characters in all of literature. This isn't a perfect book: the climax takes place about 200 pages before it ends. I also thought the last chapter, which is probably the most-praised chapter in the book, was disappointing. Joyce apparently tried to create a complete picture of a female character in about 50 pages, when it had taken him 700 pages to create 2 complete pictures of male characters. It threw off the pace of the novel to suddenly get inside the head of a completely different person. Ithaca could have easily been the last chapter, as it summed up all the day's events as opposed to going on to something totally different (which is what the last chapter did). Still, the characters, the themes, and the sheer scope of Ulysses make it as close to perfect as any book can be.
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