Re: Joyce

November 30, 2015 5:06 PM

Delaney on Joyce Frank Delaney reads James Joyce's Ulysses a little bit at a time, explaining as he goes. The podcast began in 2010 and is still going strong.
posted by kingless (15 comments total)

Just listened to episode 0. Great! Now to grab over 200 existing episodes to start listening. Thanks for finding this.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:43 PM on November 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Just what I needed -- 300 more podcast episodes!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:47 PM on November 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Maybe the key to finishing Ulysses is a Five-year plan.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:11 PM on November 30, 2015

Is this something that is accessible for those of us who have zero experience with the book (besides, maybe, knowing that Bloomsday is a thing)?
posted by sparklemotion at 6:36 PM on November 30, 2015

Sparklemotion: yes it may be. Just listening to his gloss of the first couple sentences tells me that he will guide you through the details in a very good way. For a Joyce addict like myself I still enjoyed his approach. I already knew what he was saying but how he says it is very refreshing. He's going through the book with only small bites. Five minutes per. For some it might be too slow but for someone new to this very dense world it might be the key to getting started. Give it a try.
posted by njohnson23 at 6:45 PM on November 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

As a lover of the book, I am excited to give this a go, thanks for posting. Delaney kinda stole his title from Anthony Burgess tho.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:12 PM on November 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I read this as Samuel Delaney at first. That would have been something. Still, thanks for this, sounds like a plan.
posted by emmet at 7:24 PM on November 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is probably the only way I'll ever read or listen to anything by Joyce. Thanks.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:03 PM on November 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

'Hear James Joyce Read From Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.'
(1.2 million Likes on Facebook!)
posted by clavdivs at 8:20 PM on November 30, 2015

Hmmm, the first episode has a reading that's a bit too close for me. There's a bad habit among Joyce scholars of looking for, and appointing significance to, patterns that may be just pure coincidence.
For instance, he makes a point of "Stately", the first word of the novel, containing the letters of the last word of the novel ("yes"). Sure, and it also contains "ate", "eat", "yeast", "teat", "slate", "easy" and dozens of others. Another example: he says that "Oliver Gogarty" has the same number of syllables as "Malachi Mulligan". Yes, but it doesn't have the same number of syllables as "Buck Mulligan".

All's to say beware of academic pareidolia. Reminds me of a saying: Two sticks together could be a crucifix, or it could just be two stick together.
posted by storybored at 8:52 PM on November 30, 2015 [6 favorites]

I read this as Samuel Delaney at first. That would have been something. Still, thanks for this, sounds like a plan.

Me too. I'd contribute to that Kickstarter/GoFundMe/Whatevz.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 10:56 PM on November 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Speaking of alternative Delaneys: Rob is where it's at. After watching too much Catatstrophe lately I could continue with 290+ episodes of him reading whatever the funk he wants.
posted by KMB at 12:00 AM on December 1, 2015

You need a Sherpa when you climb Everest.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:19 AM on December 1, 2015

You need a Sherpa when you climb Everest.

But the thing is, Ulysses is the opposite of this. It's a stroll around Dublin. If you plunked yourself down in a foreign city right now and just walked around, you wouldn't understand every conversation you heard, or know every context of everything around you, but the longer you strolled, the more you would understand that what you are experiencing is still just humanity. You'd laugh at some of it, cry at some of it, shake your head at a lot of it, but it would become more and more familiar to you as you went along. And then the next time you took that stroll you would understand more and more of it (Ulysses is certainly meant to be re-read).
Of course you could take a guided tour, and you would have a different experience, not necessarily better or worse.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:37 PM on December 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

storybored: "For instance, he makes a point of "Stately", the first word of the novel, containing the letters of the last word of the novel ("yes")"

Which is also hidden in the title of the book, Ulysses

(Which I think underlines, not undermines, your point.)
posted by chavenet at 4:48 AM on December 2, 2015