Ulysses

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Inaccessible
Review: It was Joyce's stated intention to keep the academics busy for years chasing down the innumerable and vague references buried in virtually every line of his over-long master work, and he succeeded. Why Joyce would set out to purposefully confuse and mislead critics and readers can only be explained by his overbearing, self-absorbed, pretentious nature. A thorough study of Homer's Odyssey and Joyce's Portrait of the Artist - two foundations upon which Ulysses was constructed - will assist the reader in navigating Joyce's murky waters - but not nearly enough to make the effort enjoyable and worthwhile. Stuart Gilbert's famous study will bring the reader further into Joyce's stream of consciousness - but Gilbert chooses to be pretentious and occasionally obscure as well (no surprise since Gilbert and Joyce were collaborators). Joyce was a first rate literary artist - no mistake. Ulysses stands as a milestone in the art form - in many respects the first true "modern" novel (for better or worse). However, for the clerisy of readers, Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are the limits for appreciating Joyce. Ulysses steps over the line, leading to Finnegan's Wake, which is completely out-of-bounds. Those who do make the effort necessary to understand Joyce's work in Ulysses will come to realize that, rather than celebrate and memorialize the Dublin he knew - as Homer did for the Hellenic world in The Odyssey (creating a lasting vision of the Greek world as the Greeks saw it) - Joyce lays his world in waste and ruin, leaving the landscape in desolation. Joyce's bottom line message can only be interpreted one of two ways: first, that the Heroic Age is so far removed (keeping in mind that Joyce considered the Irish to be Greek descendants) as to be unrelated (if not in opposition) to modern events; or second, that man is incapable of heroism in any form. An interesting interpretation of Joyce's Ulysses is its relationship to the science of chaos, in its complex formation. However, chaos (or more strictly speaking, non-linear dynamic systems) that exists in reality produces incredible complexity from surprisingly simple, non-linear feedback systems. Joyce constructed his work by merging too many source motifs with the intention of creating complexity. In the end, it is the overwhelming negativism that wins out in Joyce's Ulysses, without redemption. Ulysses is one of the great over-praised works. Over-praised because it is inherently flawed, as most great experiments are bound to be.

Rating:
Summary: One finds oneself wishing this had been the perfect book ...
Review: Certainly, Ulysses must be one of the hardest books to review. The fact that so many has been written about it makes one shy to add one's own humble opinion, while the fact that it has recently (although somewhat controversially) been chosen as the best book of the last century makes one want to give it the benefit of the doubt with respect to every critical remark.

And most of all, Ulysses is simply a brilliant book. The reader finds herself immersed in a dull day, which nevertheless reflects all aspects of life in Dublin around 1900. And this realist, evocative aspect of the book is balanced by its success in mirroring large parts of the literary heritage with which every book must come to terms. Loosely based on Homer's Oddysey, and riddled with references to Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible, it shows both a tremendous respect for man's wish to put his life into words and an ironic distance from every specific attempt to do so. There were indeed many times I found myself thinking that I was reading the perfect book, the "novel to end all novels".

Nonetheless, in the end I concluded - albeit hesitantly - that Ulysses is a flawed gem. There are two aspects of the book that make it so. First, there are the constant allusions to Irish folk music. Indeed, large parts of Ulysses (and not only the Sirens chapter) read as though they should be sung. While this certainly adds a layer of meaning to the book for everyone who knows these tunes, it makes for frustration with everyone who does not. Moreover, with the inclusion of this fickle and all too transitory form of art, Joyce has strongly connected his novel to the early 1900's. While this might have been his intention, it detracts from the novel's universality and its ability to transcend the boundaries of its time. Even now, 75 years after its publication, I often felt like I was gazing at a world which is both completely lost and partly incomprehensible. The second major flaw is the apparent lack of structure between the episodes. While every episode itself is highly structured, and one of the main joys in reading the book is to gradually discover these structures, I could not help but wonder why certain structures were chosen, and how they relate to each other. The prime example of this is the Ithaca episode, in which Joyce has turned some rather mundane events into an elaborate catechism of questions and answers. While hilarious at times, this structure seemed highly arbitrary to me. I am quite sure that many interpretations of this aspect of Ulysses have been given in the secondary literature, but the essence of structure - as in poems - seems to me that it should invite the reader to understand it: the reader should see glimpses of a larger whole in order to start looking for it. Unfortunately, in Ulysses I did not find myself invited, but more often the subject of some incomprehensible joke of the author.

I am well aware that both flaws are only so on the basis of some (probably outmoded) theory of literature, and that they can both be turned into major beauties of the book. Nonetheless, I think that Ulysses is the prime example of a book who wishes to be perfect, but which, unfortunately, is not.

Rating:
Summary: An Accessible Version to This Great Work
Review: Here is a completely redesigned and comprehensively edited text of one of the greatest novels in the English language. First published in 1922, this new version removes obstructions between writer and reader that have previously marred the enjoyment of this most extraordinary novel.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent example of totally wasted effort
Review: Ulysses is/was an important book, in setting the scene for a lot of modern novels. It claims to be a novel, but it's very hard to see how it could be. The characters and story are virtually nonexistent: what demands attention on every page is "the brilliance of James Joyce." He has a tremendous vocabulary and a mastery of all the styles _ever written_ in the entire history of English, but somehow overlooks the whole point of the effort, which was (I think) to write a novel, not a catalog of parodies or a pastiche of Homer or whatever you want to term this fashionable mess. It got worse: his next book was Finnegans Wake, and the rule he "overlooked" in that treat of a book was that it needed to be _written in English_. That was too limiting for our Great Artist, so he wrote FW in any old language(s) he felt like.

I have an MA in English and I have worked as an English teacher. In my honest opinion, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are not necessary to read. They are not novels. They're SOMETHING, I grant you. They're very hard to read, and all that. You can really get snobbish about having read them.

Frankly, I'll take Gone With The Wind. (Gasp!!)

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest novels i've ever read
Review: Like everyone who've read the book, i saw ulysses very complicated and hard to read. It's a huge book; about 1000 pages and the hardnesses in them makes readers have difficulties while reading. The confusing writing style, too many characters and names of places, conflict between thoughts and speeches, many words/sentences in many different languages, a great cultural background with many colors, unordinary writing skill.. All these and other causes make the book ununderstandable and complex. But, beyond this, you can feel the genius writer among the pages. Joyce, hides himself, his prodigy, all of the people, thoughts and happenings of 16th July's Dublin. The most important impact of the book is, to me, the prodigy you read in it.

Rating:
Summary: briliant and smart
Review: this is one of the briliant book i have ever read there is a lot of information on it on historical things and its very interesting to read those details its a hard book but it worht it its a smart and funny i suggest that the reader try to engoy the book this book is a peace of art and not fight whith it

Rating:
Summary: Joyce broke the mold so readers need to also
Review: Ulysses, while seemingly understood (by literary professionals anyway) as a masterpiece of literature, is a very hard narrative and one that turns off alot of people. I think part of the reason that many readers have difficulty with the novel, though, is that they approach it similarly to other reads. Personally, I think this is a mistake.

Ulysses is, in my opinion, the literary equivalent of improvisational jazz. Improvisational jazz is considered by many musical professionals as the purest of music. Jazz performers find it thrilling, joyful, and simply without comparison to other musical forms. Yet, many others consider it boring and difficult to understand. I think at least part of the reason for this is that it lacks the musical structure to which we are all programmed to respond to. Many people have no frame of reference to place it in.

In a literary sense, I think Ulysses shares these aspects in many ways. Many passages are difficult to understand, especially if one seeks a familiar literary structure within which to place it. And yet, if one steps out of the box a little and takes the time to appreciate its poetic lyricism, to allow the words to flow without necessarily seeking to place them within that familiar structure, some otherwise difficult passages can be reached at level different from other novels. The normal reader's desire to understand the passage in its purely contextual form is lessened. The end result is that the novel becomes a less daunting read.

Ultimately, though, I give it only four stars. Irrespective of a reader's approach, too many brain cells have to fire for too long to get through it (its over 1000 pages long). I don't think most people want to work that hard to read a book.

Rating:
Summary: Though dense in places, a masterpiece of writing.
Review: Ulysses is complex, evocative, and displays an incredible mastery of language. The landscape of Dublin 1904 is still as stunning - in a dark sort of way - as it was when Joyce was composing this great book.

Certainly, it is hard to read in places. Chapters fourteen and eighteen are especially trying. There are spots where it seems that Joyce gave too much information, or not enough. But for the most part, Ulysses is very readable, with exquisite prose.

This is not a book to shy away from. It is well worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: don't get hysterical
Review: Of course the novel is brilliant. I don't really need to go into that. What everyone tends to forget is that Ulysses is damn funny. Most people don't really read this book: they spend all their time thinking about how stupid it is (i.e., how they don't understand it) or how magnificent it is (i.e., how they don't understand it). Screw the hype, read the book. You don't need any guides; you're in the hands of a master.

Rating:
Summary: A mentally expensive book
Review: It took me three years to actually read this book, having stopped a few times. I think it's a great book and I would have given it five stars if it did not require such a committment to read it. If you don't mind working, it's required reading. It's a unique book in that no book like this will ever be published again. I suppose that uniqueness (of form, style) is what makes it a great book, but it isn't "entertaining." It hits you somewhere else.