Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps the pseudo-intellectual's literary bible
Review: I am on the last 100 pages of - what is in all liklihood - the hardest book I have ever read. How I feel about the book is still in question. Some parts I have found very poetic, lyrical, truthful, and yes! even slightly titillating; but, I must say, the vast majority of the book I think is not so much as boring as it is protracted and useless. However, with all due credit to Joyce, it's always honest. Very honest! I found Joyce's other work "Portrait of the Artist..." far more readable and inspiring. So, I don't thinks it's being unfair to Joyce when one says that Ulysses is extremely over-rated. Furthermore the novel seems to have a sort of literary snob appeal for those pseudo intellectuals (and/or Joyce-devotees) who feign some sort of intellectual epiphany from the experience of reading it. For them, yet perhaps another way to separate themselves from the "unappreciative, uninitiated, unenlightened reading masses."
Rating: 
Summary: An unique work and a remarkable novel!
Review: A very complex narrative! I think it must be the most difficult reading I ever made. Joyce built an entire new language of literature to write this remarkable novel, an original work in all aspects from tale to structure and language. People talk in many codes, from old rude Irish to Latin, Italian and common english. The description of inarticulate sounds like the cat's "Mrkgnao" was quite new to literature. The tale grasps to describe the everyday action of early century Dublin, a single day of the common life of some Irish villagers - every action, every thought and discussion, every joke, memory and dream! The story is about a man that represents the classic hero inside of the common man. Heroic deeds aren't done only in the bloody fields of senseless wars; the common man does great deeds every day without bloodshed. Remember that Ulysses was a a hero that hated war. Joyce believed that modern literature was empty within its meaningless structures and tales; only the profound significance of the classics could inject human soul back to literature. Joyce believed that people were always unconsciously reliving the classics models in their lifes, like a circle that never ends. Finally, the structure is made of many styles in order to create an entire new genre of modern literature. Think of something and you find it in "Ulysses": popular songs, discussions, theatre, oniric events, medieval tales, monologues, mind narrative... "Ulysses" has what it takes to stand among the greatest works of mankind's literature. Scholars say that Joyce wrote "Ulysses" as the book that would end with all books, the final stone of modern literature in its way to regain the soul of the classics. They may be right! "Ulysses" is a small world written into book. It's an unique piece of work! Carlos Madeira Portugal, 16th of August of 1999
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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
Rating: 
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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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