Rating: 
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.
Rating: 
Summary: A true classic
Review: Ulysses is pretty deep water for some of us. I'm more of a "The Triumph and the Glory" or "Stones From the River" type. But the more times one reads this great novel the more one's respect will increase for it. "Ulysses" is so multi-dimensional that you will constantly be rewarded with discovery and delight the more you delve into its mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: Joyce is pure genius
Review: I must say, Ulysses is perhaps the most difficult to understand book ever written (aside from Finnegan's wake) yet it is pure genius. I decided to read it as my independent book for a highschool english course. I stumbled through it, with lots of assistance from my teacher and found it to be the most rewarding literary experience. Joyce's characters are so complex and three dimensional that one can hardly believe they are not actual humans. It is the most enlightening experience to feel that you are in someone else's mind. Although this book is very challenging, it is something every person should experience before they die. Make a point to read this book sometime in your life.
Rating: 
Summary: Takes too much effort and has a small payoff
Review: You can't understand this book without a study guide. That fact alone should be enough to scare you away. One reviewer asks why a reader should have to work so hard to understand a novel and it is a good question, in my opinion. I think that a work of art which is not self-explanatory but which demands an additional volume and commentators in order to comprehend it is a failure. I heard one professor suggest that we should all take three years out of our lives to go through this book and to appreciate it fully. Yeah, right. I have never been too keen about anyone who thinks they know what I "should" do with my life. There are far too many other great and rewarding pleasures available to me in my life which are more easily accessible for me to waste my time deciphering what looks like the work of a schizophrenic. The modernist conceit is that Joyce and other non-linear novelists have captured the actual mental processes of man's daily life. Perhaps if you need medication and are plagued by mania, yes. My mental processes are not a mad jumble and I do not see how anyone with a professional occupation could function if this were true. It simply isn't so. There is a famous sex scene in this book where the mental thoughts of the individual coming to climax fills many pages. I asked around and no one I know thinks about anything while climaxing except for a sexual fantasy. Totally unrealistic.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most difficult yet greatest books I ever read !
Review: To read Ulysses is truly an odyssey. It is an adventure for the mind. The reader is taken to a journey through the minds of three everyday individuals and discovers hidden thoughts, desires and guilts. It is not an easy journey though, as the reader is confronted with obstacles that challenges one's own intelligence and understanding of the story. The book is written in several different ways which will confuse the reader. I feel that when James Joyce wrote the book, he wanted to go beyond just writing a regular novel. He wanted to show us the true nature of the mind the way it really is in a variety of forms. I must say that is was very hard for me to get through the book at times and so I used the cliffs notes to help me. All the characters are excellent and some of them remind me of people I know. It is a book I will read over and over again with great pleasure. I have read many other books and this is one of my favorites. I found it funny how many people were complaining about how difficult it was and how Joyce was wrong in writing it the way he did. I don't see a problem with it. Ulysses wouldn't be great if it was written in any other form. I'm just a normal teenager who simply became interested in Joyce. If I could get through the book alive, anyone can. So for those of you who are complaining, quit crying and reread the book if you didn't understand it !. Its as simple as that.
Rating:
Summary: A conflagration of genius and uber humanity
Review: Having read Ulysses, as well as dissecting it's labrynthe and numerous metaphorical qualities, far too many to go into in a maximum of a thousand words, I can say with all confidence and utmost rightousness that Joyces masterpiece belongs in the league of reverence given to Shakespeare, Dante and Homer. It is without a doubt the single most awesome display of genius in the twentieth century.
Rating:
Summary: Come unto these yellow sands/ And then take hands/ Curtsey
Review: Enough! To those unmanned by the maze: you are not stupid by default if you despise every scrabble Joyce scribbled. Many intelligent people, including Virginia Woolf, saw nothing in Ulysses and less in the Wake. To others Ulysses is the liveliest and funniest book ever. To the academics who comb Ulysses--agile horse--for the nits of criticism (thereby insuring Joyce's immoraltality), please leave alone we who would enjoy without inheriting the immense debtorship of things better left undone. To those who would deny that Ulysses is the most important (not necessarily the best) novel ever written, the very fact that so many are compelled to constantly trash it is the ultimate tribute to its place. Finally, let it be known that Joyce swore on Ulysses, on the honor of a gentleman, which admittedly he was not: --There is not one serious word in it.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of English Literature
Review: After finally summoning the courage to attempt a reading of Ulysses, I am profoundly greatful that I did. While the novel is intricately layered and multi-referenced, reading it is really not as challenging as its reputation would have one believe. Moreover, it is a page-turner in the truest sense; never before have I been so absorbed by a piece of literature. Joyce's relentless and masterful descriptions of characters' thoughts, both important inner monologues and equally flippant patter, offer an insight into the human condition which is unparalled in English literature. I am utterly convinced that Ulysses is the most important novel of the twentieth century; it is a true masterpiece of literary art, one that simply makes the reader proud to be human.
Rating:
Summary: A Stylistic Tour De Force
Review: The only two things that matter in any type of writing are What Is Written (Substance) and How It Is Written (Style). Ulysses is an amazing book when it comes to style. I can not think of a book that compares; in fact, Ulysses is many books, with each chapter written in a style that is best suited for it. I first read Ulysses when I was in graduate school, and was simply blown away by the sheer breadth and depth of Joyce's writing ability. The book influenced me dramatically: it freed me from the chains of accepted modes of written expression. I love the last chapter: not a SINGLE mark of punctuation. Maybe that's nothing new but back in the beginning of the century it was Totally Radical! But with this said, the story itself is very boring, the philosophic allusions inpenetrable and the supposedly comic elements totally unfunny. But for its stylistic brilliance and Joyce's courage/genius, I give it 10 of 10.
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