Ulysses

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Summary: If you want a jigsaw puzzle that encompasses 600 pgs.
Review: Masterly done. One of the greatest novels I have ever read. James Joyce always hides another story, an image that passes us during the first read, that envokes us to read the novel a second time. And as soon as we pick the book up again, just when we thought we knew the allegory, another story surfaces itself from the pages. Stunning. An example of this two-sided method Joyce uses in his story is the first chapter. We see Stephen Dedalus shaving himself while he talks to his friend Buck Mulligan, but after a second read of the chapter we don't see Stephen Dedalus shaving but as a reciever of communion from Buck Mulligan who is actually a Protestant priest that consecrates the host at the beginning of the chapter. Only a master can put two stories in one chapter.

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Summary: more than could happen in one day or written in a day
Review: i completed Ulysses,,,,,,, and found it best as one would read a diary. I use it as a travelogue of the times of the Irish in the
early 1900s in Dublin, with numerous references to characters of the times, patriots , authors,and issues of the day,,,Flashforward,,,, Joyce work can be very useful in understanding the layout and forces at work in the background of modern Irish artists, ie U2. The creative forces that inspired Joyce are still at work, and have evolved in the modern generations still growing and aspiring to right the wrongs , improve the social conditions , and achieve some aspect of honor
glory and success . Ulysses is a tremendous historical document
of those muliple influences that create a Joyce or a Bono.

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Summary: style over story
Review: I have mixed feelings about Ulysses. It's the most obscure and dense book I've ever read, made even more so by its modernist experiments, but I have to admit it's phenomenally well done. The problem is, instead of turning each page to find out what the characters would do next, I kept reading to find out what *Joyce* was going to do next. So I found it wonderful as a written work, with all the fun, strange and brilliant techniques Joyce used; but as a novel, as a story about people's lives, I really didn't have much interest. I was kept at a distance from the characters by Joyce's telling of the story, so that even when the characters were deep in frenzied monologues, I only heard Joyce's writing, and not the characters' actual voices. I suppose this is typical of modernism, but I found it made the entire experience somewhat unsatisfying.

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Summary: Reading the back of a cereal box may be more fun
Review: If reading the back of a cereal box isn't more fun, at least it's more filling... If your lips move when you read and you lick your finger before turning pages, this is the book for you.

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Summary: A great addiction
Review: Ulysses will get you, if you give it enough of a chance. The first time you read it, it will be difficult - maybe even impossible. The second time you read it, you will begin to suspect that Joyce is actually writing about the contours of your own mind. The third time you read it, your earlier suspicion will prove true as you successively laugh, gasp, swear, snort, breathe, moan, think, and yearn in anticipation of the occurrences of these events on the page. By the fourth time you read it, you will realize you never stopped reading it - that even the interlude of years between your first and second reading was only a momentary pause to catch the breath of your life outside the Book; and that you made a habit of the yearly 16-June read merely for the sake of ordering that interval of months between the readings - and during those intervals you will find yourself repeating passages in your head that you would never have imagined to be memorizable. Each time you emerge from this book you will find yourself unmistakably changed - your eyes opened to a further deepness of what it is to be human, what it is to be yourself. Joyce will demand everything of you, but he will give you a greater everything in return.

If you have tried to read this book before, and didn't make it - well, i understand. The first time, it is admittedly extraordinarily difficult. But turn, if you will, to page 903 of the hardback Knopf Everyman edition, and read the bit of catechism "What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier returning to the range, admire?" that extends through 905. Then go to the beginning, or wherever you left off if you prefer, and start again. If not now, then someday - maybe years from now - but do it. And then do it again.

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Summary: It's just a book. But what a book...
Review: It seems, in this new century of total instant access to everything, that the accepted way of persuading people to read "Ulysses" is to say that it's a damn fine book but you need to be an experienced reader with a lot of time on your hands and plenty of patience...etc. Let's get a few things clear. This is not the "Critique of Pure Reason". There is not some algorithm you have to work out in advance in order to enjoy this book. It's a novel. It's a good read. The other stuff, the background stuff, the structural cunning and the wide-ranging allusiveness, is there in case you want to read it again. Basically, this is an unusually intelligent novel, in a basically comic mode, that plays a few games with the ways that we (sometimes lazily) tend to read. The rest is just a bonus. Joyce is just so generous in his joking and his desire to give us more than we normally expect from a book that we can get a bit overwhelmed by the cornucopia of stuff that he lays at our feet.

I first read Ulysses when I was about 17 - I was still in what Americans would call high school, I wasn't reading it because I had to, but because I had heard it was supposed to be one of the best books around and it was set in the city around which I had grown up. I found the first three chapters a bit tricky but I kept going, because it seemed to me that the guy knew what he was doing. Then I got to the fourth chapter, and it suddenly became much easier. It seemed to me that this was the kind of thing that most of the writers I liked were trying to do, but most often failed at, because they just weren't this good. Joyce is supremely good at conveying the physical sensations of being alive - what it's like to be hungry, sad, lustful, worrisome, tired, hopeful, nervous. As the book went on, I knew I wanted to trust this guy. In the later sections, Joyce seemed to be expecting what I wanted to happen, and seemed determined to persuade me that how I wanted the book to develop wasn't necessarily the best way for the book to go - and I believed him. Since I hadn't read many "great" novels, his changes in style seemed to me to be exactly the sort of thing that an adventurous writer should be doing. I thought then, and still think, that he can be a bit garrulous, but he's such a skilful writer that I don't wish he'd made the book any shorter than it is.

By the end, Ulysses had come to represent my basic idea of a really great novel. I had no notion that most novels aren't anything like as daring or as enjoyable. The only other novels I've read since which are both as courageous and as entertaining as this one are Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and Melville's "Moby-Dick". Which, I know now, will tell you a lot about my taste in fiction.

You really don't need to be an expert reader to appreciate "Ulysses". If anything, it's better if you have either read everything, or next to nothing. The notes are handy, if you want to know all that's going on - and I don't see why that should hurt. But even without them, Joyce - as they used to say of a certain brand of beer - can reach parts that other writers (or for that matter, beers) can't reach. He is a truly wonderful writer, and I'm (foolishly) proud that the greatest of novelists in the English language was an Irishman.

People are still writing great novels - Pynchon's last was a lovely late masterpiece, and Don DeLillo is as vigorous as ever. But my personal opinion is that Joyce kicked a flagging Victorian form into new life, and the impact of his scuffed tennis shoe is still raw and smarting. "Finnegans Wake" is still awaiting the readers it deserves. In the meantime, there's no reason why any curious reader shouldn't get something out of "Ulysses". It's my favourite novel. It's also the best Irish book so far. Mind you, I can't wait till Mairtin O Cadhain's "Cre na Cille" gets translated into English...

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Summary: Great Fun
Review: Ulysses is great fun. It takes a bit more work to read than most books, just as it takes a bit more work to play tennis than it does to play catch. You shouldn't feel compelled to put the work in, any more than you should feel compelled to learn an unusually difficult sport. But people who do put the work in and who have a good time doing it shouldn't be made to feel guilty about it either. It's a pleasure to follow the interweaving lines of the Sirens chapter, for instance, and anyone who does it will see that the chapter is alive in a way that almost nothing else is in literature. Joyce is a terrific comic writer and a terrific creator of vivid, complicated characters. But he requires the reader to put in some extra effort to enjoy how good he is, and I can't blame anyone who gives up after a few pages and refuses to go any further. On the other hand, I've noticed that people who don't like Joyce's approach seem to want to attack people who do. This is silly. Again, it's like hating people for playing basketball just because you prefer skateboarding. Both the Joyce lovers and the Joyce haters should lighten up a bit.

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Summary: The Greatest Book of the 20th Century
Review: In 2000, the Modern Library came up with a list of the one hundred greatest English language novels of the 20th century. Topping their list at number one was Ulysses, by Irish novelist James Joyce. After completion of this novel, I can conclude that they have made a wise decision.
Ulysses follows the lives of two Dubliners, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, on a single day in Ireland. Leopold Bloom is a lonely middle-aged Jewish man who has a wife, Molly and a daughter, Milly. He also had a son that died as a child. Stephen Dedalus is a young school teacher who has seperated himself from his old drunken father. During the day, Stephen and Bloom make their seperate ways through the hectic streets and taverns of Dublin. Along the way the encounter various characters (such as the Citizen and the Anonymous Narrator) that act as symbols for Dublin society and the world in general. By the end of the novel, the theme has been understood. Like that of Homer's Odyssey (hence the name of the title), Leopold (Ulysses) has gained a son in Stephen (Telemachus), and Stephen has gained a father in him.
Ulysses is undoubtedly Joyce's masterwork. He takes command of the English language, as well as nearly a dozen others, throughout the course of the novel. Various literary styles are exhibited to fit the theme of each chapter. For example, to show the busy workplace of a newspaper office, Joyce begins each section with a headline that sums it up. A complete five act drama is even included in a single chapter of this novel. Joyce's methods of characterization are also very obscure, yet brilliant. Characters are not characterized by their actions or by dialouge, but by their thoughts and fantasies. This allows the reader to see each character's hidden emotions and fears. These inner monolouges may be triggered by the smallest occurrence, then escalade into the meanings of life and death.
I would only recommend Ulysses to an experienced reader with a lot of spare time. This novel is 783 pages long and takes roughly thirty to forty hours to read. Joyce's various writing styles, although genious, are very difficult to read. So, if you think that you can get past these obstacles, should you read Ulysses? There is a simple answer that you will only understand after completion of the novel: Yes.

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Summary: Rubbish
Review: First off, let me say that I did not complete this book. One of my English teachers once told me that if a book did not capture your imagination within the first 50 pages, it would be wise to put the book down. Well, I gave this book 225 pages, and I thought that it was once of the most boring and esoteric books I have ever come across. I first read -A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-, which I thought was quite good. I came in with high hopes for -Ulysses-, but was very let down. I found myself not only getting lost with the pages and pages of thoughts Joyce presents us with, but also with some of the dialogue, when all the characters ramble on about someone speaking Irish. I have no doubt that Joyce was a genius, his books are filled with game show like trivia. However, I think for a book to be considered a "Classic," or, "one that should be read by everyone," then that book should not have to be referred to as a "Project," nor should it take people a year to read, as some of the other on-line reviewers have said it took them. So to summarize, if you want to take a hefty load of your reading schedule just so you can say you've read -Ulysses- be my guest, your a better reader than I am, but for the time being, give me Steinbeck or Faulkner anyday.

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Summary: A beautiful, maddening brick to smash against your skull.
Review: To smash your skull against a maddening, beautiful brick.

Let me just begin by stating how much I loathe Ulysses. I hate Stephen Dedalus. I hate Leopold Bloom. I hate Molly Bloom. I even hate their cat. They're all fatuous and arrogant and dull and dishonest and insecure and insincere and superficial and greedy, and they all take part in a story that's a boring, tedious, frustrating, incoherent, big fat waste of my time and energy. Anyone who claims otherwise is either a massive liar or a sick masochist who deserves to have a bag slipped over their head and be taken away from society. As such it remains one of the most astoundingly honest and ambitious works in modern literature. There is not a book currently existing which is simultaneously as repelling and compelling. Is there a more divisive stirrer of passionate debate in the field of art? Normally a very relaxed, some may say apathetic and pacifistic, individual, I once heard my English teacher saying that Ulysses was nothing but complete garbage. I calmly stood up and punched him in the throat, and I received polite applause as I was escorted from the classroom. Later on, when I reread a section of Ulysses near the middle, I discovered that he was completely right. But you know what? That's life. And that sense of living pours off Joyce's pages and through his eccentric mouldings of the English language like a waterfall. It's almost too much to bear at times. We eat, we drink, we urinate, we defecate, we sneeze, we fart, we stink and we have sex, and after a few decades we die. No hidden wisdom. No great awakening. No grand nobility. No spiritual nirvana. That's LIFE. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the more depressed you'll be. Wonderfully, wonderfully depressed.