Almosting a Joycean Listicle

June 22, 2015 5:46 PM

"In keeping with James Joyce’s own love of lists, here’s a terribly subjective list of ten books published in this century that are in different ways as inventive as Ulysses was in 1922. These novels aren’t necessarily inspired by Ulysses, except insofar as it has affected every subsequent novel, but like Joyce’s masterpiece they challenge us in ways we never knew to expect. If nothing else, Bloomsday should remind us to pick up some books not despite their difficulty but because of it." (Electric Literature)

James Joyce's Ulysses Documentary Full [YouTube, 57:41] - "Taken from a series called 'Great Modern Writers', this playful documentary introduces James Joyce's most famous work 'Ulysses'. It includes fantastic adaptations to film from passages of the novel. It also includes excerpts from a book written by Joyce's friend, the artist Frank Budgen, entitled 'James Joyce and the making of Ulysses'. Amongst those interviewed is author Anthony Burgess."

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (32 comments total)

What interesting-sounding books; thanks!
posted by languagehat at 5:49 PM on June 22, 2015 [6 favorites]

What a handy* summer reading list that is!

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*Handy in the sense of "aspirational;" handy in the sense of "guilt and shame" by Labor Day.
posted by notyou at 5:55 PM on June 22, 2015 [10 favorites]

I've read some of these books, and the vast majority aren't very funny, which is, to my mind, one of the best things about Ulysses(It's really very, very funny. For real).

I've said it in a different thread, but A Brief History of Seven Killings was, hands down, the best book I read last year. This list is missing Eimear McBride's A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, which is both difficult and excellent.
posted by thivaia at 6:23 PM on June 22, 2015 [8 favorites]

(I should point out that neither Brief History nor A Girl is A Half-Formed Thing are not particularly funny either)
posted by thivaia at 6:26 PM on June 22, 2015

Dorothy Richardson was writing like Joyce at same time but her work was multi vol.
Look her up
posted by Postroad at 6:34 PM on June 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ugh. Never edit on a phone. Ignore the double negative.
posted by thivaia at 6:37 PM on June 22, 2015

I've only read one of these, but it was amazing, so now here I go buying books I guess
posted by shakespeherian at 6:49 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

*immediately looks for 2666*

Ah, first work mentioned.

And delighted to see Anne Carson's NOX noted as well. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and challenging.
posted by jokeefe at 6:51 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Once again, Too Many Daves is snubbed by the literari
posted by shakespeherian at 7:10 PM on June 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've said it in a different thread, but A Brief History of Seven Killings was, hands down, the best book I read last year.

It is easily the best book I have read in several years. But that's also why it is an odd entry on this list -- it is an eminently readable book, without the weirdness and complications that afflict or make wonderful (depending on your perspective) Ulysses and most of the other books mentioned.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:13 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Loved 2666 but Bolaño's The Savage Detectives strikes me as the more literally Joycean work—which I guess is not exactly what this list is aiming for, rather using Ulysses as shorthand for literary inventiveness? Anyways, The Savage Detectives: it's funnier, dirtier (phew!), and even has a character named Ulises. Not short on inventiveness either. I could totally see lying on a beach soaking up the exploits of Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima ... the part about the crimes? not so much.
posted by Lorin at 7:15 PM on June 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Thank you for posting this. I read books for work, then when not working read books for pleasure (about 3,000 so far in this century), and it’s rare I see a ‘recommended’ list stocked almost entirely with books I’ve never even heard of.

p.s. I’ve been stuck on page 136 of Ulysses for some time; it’s surprised me that in addition to so often being a) incomprehensible, it also often is b) truly hilarious. I recently came across – recommended to me by a friend of the author’s – The Bluesiana Snake Festival, a much shorter, little-known novel about a crew of street sweepers in the French Quarter that also takes turns being both those things. Kind of like an illegitimate child of James Joyce and John Kennedy Toole.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:47 PM on June 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Imma let you finish but I don't see "Mason & Dixon" on that list.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:43 PM on June 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

I have read (and, yes, reread) Ulysses, and I have read Alif the Unseen. And while Alif is a very good read, I must say in my most forceful, Lloyd Bentsen-esque voice, "Alif, you're no Ulysses." (Not even close.)
posted by /\/\/\/ at 9:49 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

My understanding was that Homestuck was the 21st Century's answer to Ulysses: a hypertextual doorstopper that reproduces and depends on a shared reality constructed by the reader's interaction, developing its own visual and lexical vocabulary while evoking the milieu of video games, webcomics and internet culture so thoroughly that those fields now reflect it.

And it's funny.

Ulysses has Bloomsday, Homestuck has Egbert's birthday (4/13, if you were hungry to know).
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:40 PM on June 22, 2015

I've only read two books on this list, so that's eight to check out--thanks! While we're recommending 21st C. books for Ulysses fans, I finally got around to reading Fun Home, and I was pleasantly surprised by the connections to Ulysses (not just the parts about reading it in college but more generally the way it sometimes layers the mythic and the everyday).

Incidentally, the listicle I used to level up on experimental lit in grad school was "A Highly Eccentric List of 101 Books for Further Reading" from Robert McLaughlin (ed.), Innovations: An Anthology of Modern & Contemporary Fiction, Dalkey Archive Press, 1998. I don't think the list is online anywhere, but I have a version of it--it's just a bit large to infodump here.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:50 PM on June 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Well infodump it elsewhere and link here.
posted by notyou at 5:37 AM on June 23, 2015

Ulyssses (It's really very, very funny. For real

Well, parts of it are. Parts of it are heartbreaking, too. (I just re-read it last year.)
posted by aught at 6:00 AM on June 23, 2015

Imma let you finish but I don't see "Mason & Dixon" on that list.

I was thinking Gravity's Rainbow myself, which like Ulysses has a heady mix of hilarity amid the tragedy and obscurity. Not that M&D isn't a great book too, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but (I thought) it's pretty readable, once you get the hang of the mock-18th c. prose.
posted by aught at 6:15 AM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

... Dalkey Archive Press...

Just an aside to note that the Dalkey Archive Press has done great work for many decades keeping great but under-appreciated literature in print (the press is named for an avant-garde Flann O'Brien novel that has James Joyce as a character, appropriately enough - to complete the circle of reference).
posted by aught at 6:26 AM on June 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

notyou, sure, here's McLaughlin's list of late 20th C. innovative fiction. I have to point out it's not as diverse as it should have been--I think McLaughlin implicitly doubled down on that in a footnote to another essay somewhere.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 6:39 AM on June 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

Came in here to add "Book of Numbers," then actually RTFA and there it is! Definitely recommended.
posted by nevercalm at 6:49 AM on June 23, 2015

Yep! Ready made summer reading list.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 8:04 AM on June 23, 2015

awesome list, just in time for some serious summer reading!
posted by capitalkpics at 9:43 AM on June 23, 2015

My understanding was that Homestuck was the 21st Century's answer to Ulysses: a hypertextual doorstopper that reproduces and depends on a shared reality constructed by the reader's interaction, developing its own visual and lexical vocabulary while evoking the milieu of video games, webcomics and internet culture so thoroughly that those fields now reflect it.

And it's funny.

Ulysses has Bloomsday, Homestuck has Egbert's birthday (4/13, if you were hungry to know).
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:44 AM on June 23, 2015

> notyou, sure, here's McLaughlin's list of late 20th C. innovative fiction.

I have to admit, a list presented like that is fairly useless to me. That's in no way saying it's useless to others, simply a personal observation. I know I'll never read half those books, and if there's no short introduction to what it's about or what makes it interesting, my eyes glaze over.

I read far too little these days, or to be precise I read more on the whole but less literature, and I appreciate the list in the OP. One could always discuss which other books should be on the list, but I see it more as "here are some interesting books" than as "here are the interesting books."

Regarding challenging books, I'm far more impressed by those that manage to be relatively light reading yet still challenge or expand your mind or what it means to be a novel. If nothing else, they're likely to challenge more readers by not scaring them off.
posted by simen at 10:48 AM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of the last book but I have read another excellent work by the author. Consider me intrigued.

And yes, homestuck or maybe worm(I haven't read worm) would definitely be the modern inheritor to Ulysses. Either that or some obscure million-word fanfic written in the author's own constructed language somewhere.
posted by sandswipe at 6:02 PM on June 23, 2015

Imma let you finish but I don't see "Mason & Dixon" on that list.

I'm not sure I've ever met another person who finished Mason & Dixon. I really liked it, but whenever that title comes up people's reactions are never positive.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

notyou, sure, here's McLaughlin's list of late 20th C. innovative fiction.

Hey, my nickname (more or less) here came from the first title on that list!
posted by thivaia at 9:31 PM on June 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

> I'm not sure I've ever met another person who finished Mason & Dixon. I really liked it, but whenever that title comes up people's reactions are never positive.

Really? You're hanging out with the wrong crowd. I read it to my wife and we both loved it.
posted by languagehat at 6:20 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure I've ever met another person who finished Mason & Dixon. I really liked it, but whenever that title comes up people's reactions are never positive.

I gave a copy to a friend for Christmas one year and I don't think he'll ever forgive me. Maybe I'll ask for it back. He owes me anyway for making me read "House of Leaves" (not that I didn't come around to liking that one, but it sure required a lot of holding the book in different ways to get through).

Thanks for the list! Finally finding myself with more time for reading for pleasure again; looks like some good leads here.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:40 AM on June 24, 2015

aught: "the press is named for an avant-garde Flann O'Brien novel that has James Joyce as a character, appropriately enough - to complete the circle of reference"

Said novel is decent, but could have used another rewrite, I think.

My recommendation is to get the very nice Everyman's Library Complete Novels - you get two fantastic novels (At Swim-Two_Birds and The Third Policman) plus three not bad ones (The Dalkey Archive, The Poor Mouth, and the Hard Life).
posted by Chrysostom at 12:55 PM on July 15, 2015