Rating: 
Summary: This is the greatest book ever written. Yes.
Review: "Ulysses" is the greatest book ever written. After several attempts, I have read it in its entirety only once, but I hope read it again and again. I'm not one who tries to appear pedantic, but I feel very strongly about my amature opinion. When you grasp the accomplishment that Joyce produced, you are in awe."Ulysses" is just the events of one day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin. The three "main" characters are Leopold Bloom, an Irish Jew, (the only reason I mention his ethnicity is because it's important to the story); Stephen Dedalus, a school teacher, who can be seen as a continuation of the protagonist from "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and as Joyce's own persona in the story; and Molly Bloom, Leopold's adulterous wife, whose non-punctuated "monolog" in the final chapter is probably the most quoted section of the book. Nothing fantastic action-wise happens in the story, beginning in the morning with Stephen's roommate--they live in an old military post built during the Napoleonic Wars--Buck Mulligan shaving, and ending very late in the evening with Molly Bloom's recollections of the day and her feelings for her husband, among many others; but it's the methods of production and presentation that you admire. Joyce uses "stream-of-consciousness" or some would say more accurately, "internal monolog". Characters thoughts are presented in prose to give the effect of being inside the characters mind, kind of like having a front row seat. One of the many difficulties is that the role of narrator often switches, and sometimes switches to characters that aren't even identified. This often confuses first-time readers and scares off scores of others. "Ulysses" isn't an easy read. Reading it takes work. But it's not impossible. Some may feel that no book is worth the effort, but I assure you "Ulysses" is, and it won't take that much out of you to understand it. One book I highly recommend is "Introducing Joyce". It's an easy read and covers Joyce's life and his major works, especially "Ulysses". Which editon of "Ulysses" should you purchase? Either the corrected 1961 version, the Gabler edition (which has even more corrections and actually lists the chapters, numbered and titled, and has them clearly identified), both of which are published by Vintage Books. There is also the Oxford World Classics edition, based on the original 1922 publication that also has corrections, footnotes, and a map of Dublin. I proudly have all three. =D
Rating: 
Summary: You may have fooled the others...
Review: but you don't fool me.
It seems that there are three types of Ulysses reviewers out there:
Type 1: "This book is a work of genius that requires great effort, rigor, and intellect in order to digest."
Type 2: "This book is way too smart for me, but I THINK it's good. Everyone says its good, so I'm probably just too dumb to understand. When I read the Cliff's Notes it helped."
Type 3: "Why the f@$k should I "read" something by someone who didn't take the time to "write" something? This is stream-of-consciousness at its most unreachable and unrewarding. This is a slap in the face to Aldous Huxley, Philip Dick, KV, etc. Books by those authors are actually ENLIGHTENING and furthermore, ENJOYABLE(!!!!) to read."
Guess which type of reviewer I am and win a prize.
Rating:
Summary: A Tribute on Bloomsday, 100 Years Later
Review: Easily the most exciting book ever written. I'd give it 6 stars (or 10) if i could. Yes, i needed the Cliff notes to help me through it, and yes, i was on disability at the time, recovering from 4 knee surgeries, and it took more than 6 weeks, but it was all worth it. It's an amazing thing, a polyglotting amalgamation of languages (i counted more than 30, and am sure i missed a lot more), internal and external dialogue, brilliantly rendered characters and even dirty jokes.
Perhaps i was ignorant beforehand, but i'd always thought that "stream of consciousness" referred to only the WRITER'S mental wanderings, the way beats like William Burroughs (e.g., Naked Lunch) and Allen Ginsburg (Howl, America, etc.) would later do it, or Marcel Proust (a` la recherche du temps perdu--let's face it, the translations just don't cut it) during Joyce's time. But Joyce, progenitor of the beats and contemporary of Proust, did it for DIFFERENT PEOPLES' CONSCIOUSNESSES, moving from spoken word to internal thought states of several of his vividly drawn characters, and back again. It's almost impossible to convey the wonder of discovering this beauty, the way Joyce represented such a quantum leap in literature from Dostoyevsky, Dickens and Kafka before him, as Einstein did from 19th century physics.
And to those who say "anyone who says they've [sic] read this book is a liar," i promise you i read EVERY WORD, from "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan" to "Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea, Lacus Mortis. Ominous, revengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned the giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun" to "and his heart was going like mad and yes i said yes I will Yes," the final words of Molly Bloom's soliloquy. And "Frisco Beach" too. (I'm NOT an English literature professor, just a physician--please don't hold that against me!)
Challenging? yes. Worth it? oh my, yes. Your eyes (and "The Doors of Perception") will be opened forever, never to approach writing the same way. WOW!
Rating: 
Summary: On faith
Review: I am still digesting "Ulysses." I read it while walking around Dublin a few years ago. It was marvelous to trace the steps of Leopold and Molly, and to see what they "saw," but the novel remains a distant pleasure to the reader. I must admit it is not the most accessible book ever written, but it gets four stars for its intent ... and that it is better than "Finnegan's Wake." Be warned: This book is not for the casual reader.
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Summary: Happy Bloomsday
Review: I am writing this review on the 100th anniversary of the most famous day in the life of the wandering Jewish Dubliner Leopold Bloom, who was created by James Joyce and immortalized in Ulysses. "Bloomsday," as this day is called in some circles, prompted me to once again revisit this vast, difficult, and important book. I should note that I have only read Ulysses from cover to cover once, and that was more than 15 years ago. But I refer to it and re-read parts of it periodically, even though the years appear to have dampened some of my enthusiasm for this brick of a book. The more I think about Ulysses, the more I decide that most of the value of reading and understanding the book (two very different things, by the way) comes from its ambition and the impact it has had on 20th century literature. This is the work that -- probably to the chagrin of literature students everywhere -- more or less invented the stream of consciousness style of literature, and which literary historians say marked the start of the modern era in English literature. The narrative, a nearly 800-page examination into the events in Leopold Bloom's life on June 16, 1904, is dense but also very compelling, and the language is often crisp and colorful. Unfortunately, the language is even more often a bizarre maze of metaphors, references, and descriptions so inaccessible that some scholars think they may contain some kind of secret code. At one point, the erotic and deflating soliloquy of Molly Bloom (Leopold's wife) takes up something like 25,000 words unmarred by a single punctuation mark -- a section long enough to be published separately as a novella. Without a doubt, a similar book written today by an unknown talent would never find its way the shelves of the neighborhood Books-A-Million without first shedding 300 or 400 pages under the red ink of some unfortunate editor. There's also little doubt that the modern literary cannon is better off for the fact that that didn't happen when Mr. Joyce produced this seminal work. Readers are also better off, but only the ones willing to work at it.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: I feel myself quite inadequate to write even a small review on such a masterpiece. This is a book of astonishing beauty and remarkable insight. I do believe it well worth the time and effort. The last few lines are truly the most extraordinay I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: a true classic
Review: I tried to read Ulysses when I was about 20. I couldn't get into it. The stream of consciousness put me off completely Now I'm over 60 and I greatly enjoyed the book. I could hardly put it down. The writing is beautiful. I just had to go out and get a gorgonzolia sandwitch with a glass of burgundy.
Rating:
Summary: To read the words is to read the man
Review: I was intimidated at the bulk of ULYSSES, I must admit. But i found myself shocked by it's radiating brilliance. The book is a labor to read, one often has to re-read a paragraph or (god forbid) a chapter to allow the work to truly flow and make sense. Joyce uses beautiful detailed writing of the human mind, all of our peculiar little idiosyncracies and actions that define us as human beings.
The greatest feat I've had in my young life is reading the last page and closing the book. You sit back and for hours are confounded as to the brilliance and success of Joyce to write the actions of two characters in a day. Each thought, each subconscious connection and little bits of thinking and reacting are somehow branded into the pages of ULYSSES. I dont think i will ever read such a significant work again. It is bold, it is at times monotonous, at times incoherent, but there are some golden pages were you are sucked into the writing, for the words on the page are your thoughts, your fantasies, your raw human nature.
It took me a month to read the book, i read it in the midst of depression and suicidal thoughts. I was able to lose myself in ULYSSES, i was able to walk the streets with Dedalus and Bloom. I was able to sit on the beach and watch the dog sniff around for something he had lost in a past life time. It is a masterpiece while being imperfect, which is an awful lot like being a human being.
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Summary: --Introibo ad altare Dei
Review: I wrote this review previously w/ my other Amazon account but now that I changed email addresses, I'm going to publish this review in this account Ulysses is considered by me to be the greatest book ever written. Now the following review is just the very basic storyline, in order to even begin to fathom the magnitude of it's magnificence, you need to read the other reviews and so here it is. It describes in florid detail a single day in the life of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and Stephen Dedalus, a young would-be-writer -- a character based on Joyce himself. Bloom, a Jewish advertising salesman, spends the day wandering through the streets and offices, pubs and brothels of 1904 Dublin
Rating:
Summary: One tough cookie
Review: I'm normally one to stick with a current bestseller or Oprah pick like "Da Vinci" or "Bark of the Dogwood," but saw the renewed popularity of this timely novel and decided to give it another shot. This, after having attempted the thing in college. I can understand most people's dislike for this book, given its unusual style and form, but if you take it in context, with historical information, and can get past the curse words you stand a chance. Many people don't understand modern classical music because they don't understand its place in history. Many people don't understand Jazz or Punk or Hip Hop because they don't understand their places in history. Ultimatly Ulysses will be like many other works of art in this regard. Take your time with it and relax with it. And don't expect some commercially successful page turner--this, it ain't.
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