yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
June 16, 2022 8:29 AM Subscribe
JUNE 16, 1904: JAMES JOYCE MEETS NORA BARNACLE
Dublin Celebrates 'Bloomsday' As Joyce's 'Ulysses' Hits 100
Ireland marks Bloomsday with play about Ulysses obscenity trial
Joyce enthusiasts attend ‘funeral’ in Glasnevin Cemetery on Bloomsday
Paparazzi hounded James Joyce after his late marriage to Nora Barnacle
Read James Joyce’s Absolutely Filthy Letters To His Wife Nora Barnacle [NSFW]
The Joyce Project | Ulysses
james joyce | molly bloom’s soliloquy
Previouslies
Dublin Celebrates 'Bloomsday' As Joyce's 'Ulysses' Hits 100
Ireland marks Bloomsday with play about Ulysses obscenity trial
Joyce enthusiasts attend ‘funeral’ in Glasnevin Cemetery on Bloomsday
Paparazzi hounded James Joyce after his late marriage to Nora Barnacle
Read James Joyce’s Absolutely Filthy Letters To His Wife Nora Barnacle [NSFW]
The Joyce Project | Ulysses
james joyce | molly bloom’s soliloquy
Previouslies
Thanks! I wish I could have been there - my partner and I were supposed to be in Dublin this week for our 8-year anniversary we had even read Ulysses aloud to each other in preparation!
(Unfortunately trip had to be cancelled for "reasons" (I will not post, as they would derail this awesome thread)).
I hope everyone who can be there is having fun!
(Although, when I mentioned our preparation to my uncle, who is a high-school english teacher, he did comment that he has never known anyone who read Joyce's works for "fun" - only via assignment in a curriculum. Which is sad, because Ulysses was a trip!)
posted by rozcakj at 8:42 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
(Unfortunately trip had to be cancelled for "reasons" (I will not post, as they would derail this awesome thread)).
I hope everyone who can be there is having fun!
(Although, when I mentioned our preparation to my uncle, who is a high-school english teacher, he did comment that he has never known anyone who read Joyce's works for "fun" - only via assignment in a curriculum. Which is sad, because Ulysses was a trip!)
posted by rozcakj at 8:42 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Dang, maybe this year is the year I finally finish Ulysses. Been attempting it off and on since I bought a copy 20 years ago (!) on a lark. Never got past page 60 I think.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:07 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:07 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
I read Ulysses for 'fun' (ie on my own, not as an assignment) its beautiful but I should re-read, I was 18 and I'm sure I missed a lot.
rozcakj I hope you get to do the Dublin trip another year!! I hope I make it there myself some time...
posted by supermedusa at 9:26 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
rozcakj I hope you get to do the Dublin trip another year!! I hope I make it there myself some time...
posted by supermedusa at 9:26 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Doleful Creature: you may be reassured, and helped, by this.
I went to visit the James Joyce Center the first time I ever visited Dublin. I'd tried reading Ulysses a couple times, but hadn't yet finished...but was determined and intrigued.
I tend to like self-guided and "let me choose what to do" kinds of museum experiences, so I was a little miffed that they made me sit and watch a video first before they let me loose on the rest of the museum. But that turned out to be a blessing - the video was a sort of "introduction" to Ulysses itself, and just how tied up it was with Joyce and Nora's lives and story. And that proved to be the thing that got me over my biggest hurdles with the book - before, I'd gotten hung up on trying to puzzle out the symbolism of everything, but after watching this video, and learning that the day commemorated in Ulysses was the day Joyce and Nora met, the next time I read the book I just chalked any reference I didn't understand to "oh, that must be an in-joke just for Nora" and went on.
That was the first thing that helped. The second thing was a conversation I had with one of the owners, who stopped to chat after I'd been wandering around inside the museum a little while. (I was there on the off season for tourists, and I was one of only two visitors in the whole place plus I was a slightly scruffy American college student so I probably stuck out like a sore thumb.) The owner - an older man, who I later learned was one of Joyce's nephews - saw me in a courtyard studying a mural, and stopped to point out that it was meant to depict each of the different chapters of Ulysses in turn - pointing out one scene from the book over here, another one over there....we chatted a bit, him asking about my interest in Joyce and Irish literature in general. I said that I was a huge fan of Joyce's short stories (I was), and had tried to read Ulysses but...hadn't quite been able to get through it. "Ah, sure, it's a dense book," he said, reassuringly. "Most people can't get through it on the first try."
"Yeah, but..." I blushed. "I've tried reading it four times now and still haven't been able to finish."
He laughed at that. "Ah, darlin', it took me twelve tries!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:27 AM on June 16, 2022 [36 favorites]
I went to visit the James Joyce Center the first time I ever visited Dublin. I'd tried reading Ulysses a couple times, but hadn't yet finished...but was determined and intrigued.
I tend to like self-guided and "let me choose what to do" kinds of museum experiences, so I was a little miffed that they made me sit and watch a video first before they let me loose on the rest of the museum. But that turned out to be a blessing - the video was a sort of "introduction" to Ulysses itself, and just how tied up it was with Joyce and Nora's lives and story. And that proved to be the thing that got me over my biggest hurdles with the book - before, I'd gotten hung up on trying to puzzle out the symbolism of everything, but after watching this video, and learning that the day commemorated in Ulysses was the day Joyce and Nora met, the next time I read the book I just chalked any reference I didn't understand to "oh, that must be an in-joke just for Nora" and went on.
That was the first thing that helped. The second thing was a conversation I had with one of the owners, who stopped to chat after I'd been wandering around inside the museum a little while. (I was there on the off season for tourists, and I was one of only two visitors in the whole place plus I was a slightly scruffy American college student so I probably stuck out like a sore thumb.) The owner - an older man, who I later learned was one of Joyce's nephews - saw me in a courtyard studying a mural, and stopped to point out that it was meant to depict each of the different chapters of Ulysses in turn - pointing out one scene from the book over here, another one over there....we chatted a bit, him asking about my interest in Joyce and Irish literature in general. I said that I was a huge fan of Joyce's short stories (I was), and had tried to read Ulysses but...hadn't quite been able to get through it. "Ah, sure, it's a dense book," he said, reassuringly. "Most people can't get through it on the first try."
"Yeah, but..." I blushed. "I've tried reading it four times now and still haven't been able to finish."
He laughed at that. "Ah, darlin', it took me twelve tries!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:27 AM on June 16, 2022 [36 favorites]
Very recently, someone was being paternalistic at me about Ulysses, till I said I had read it several times because I love it. But, I said, I struggle with Finnigans Wake, and he actually had good advice that applies to Ulysses too: read it out loud. I think rozcakj and partner had a good experience because they read it each other. If you don't have a partner for reading, make a club.
And thanks chavenet for a lovely Bloomsday post. I still dream of going to Dublin for it, and I hope I will one day.
posted by mumimor at 9:40 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
And thanks chavenet for a lovely Bloomsday post. I still dream of going to Dublin for it, and I hope I will one day.
posted by mumimor at 9:40 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
I have this weird idea that my particular love for butter (which my family shares) is somehow an Irish thing, which must have been implanted in my head by the incredibly lovely opening breakfast scene (Stately, plump Buck Mulligan indeed)
there is such homely reverence for the old woman bringing their butter and milk so they can have their breakfast.
posted by supermedusa at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
there is such homely reverence for the old woman bringing their butter and milk so they can have their breakfast.
posted by supermedusa at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
That title phrase is quoted in the MOMA masterpiece photo-essay A Family Of Man, and it sends shivers down my spine. I live my life to feel exactly that degree of joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. Yes.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:13 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:13 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Late every 16-June I remember that it's Bloomsday, and I remember that I still haven't finished Ulysses, and I wince softly.
The syntax and allusive density and in-jokiness always foil me -- but there are so many plainspoken passages that are simply lovely, like this one:
posted by wenestvedt at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
The syntax and allusive density and in-jokiness always foil me -- but there are so many plainspoken passages that are simply lovely, like this one:
The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.I better try again!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
Also, I feel this should be easier for Americans than for someone like me who grew up with received pronunciation. I certainly can't do Irish-English, but just a Yorkshire dialect (Which I spoke before it was schooled out of me) makes more sense of the text, and US English has more of the rolling Rs and other aspects of Irish.
posted by mumimor at 10:52 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 10:52 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ulysses is best approached in bites. Just try to do chapters. Don't worry too much about the order. Some are very readable. Some are impossible. I found guidebooks of notes very worthwhile. The best and most helpful trick for me was listening. I struggle with reading, though, so that may not be for everyone.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:54 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:54 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is great. Thanks!
Recently, I did what might be, arguably, the most specifically embarrassing thing I've done in the last decade and literally said, "yes I said yes I will yes" out loud. To my astonishment, it was answered immediately by a much deeper cut from the same book that I only barely recognized. ("Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. . . ") Flirting with people who are both smarter and better read then you is awesome.
posted by eotvos at 11:01 AM on June 16, 2022 [18 favorites]
Recently, I did what might be, arguably, the most specifically embarrassing thing I've done in the last decade and literally said, "yes I said yes I will yes" out loud. To my astonishment, it was answered immediately by a much deeper cut from the same book that I only barely recognized. ("Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. . . ") Flirting with people who are both smarter and better read then you is awesome.
posted by eotvos at 11:01 AM on June 16, 2022 [18 favorites]
I was in Dublin seven years ago this week, and it was just wondrous to walk into bookstores and bars and find teams of people reading the book aloud, passing the baton with each chapter. The last place I walked into, not far from Trinity College, a group of actors was doing the reading, and I was just in time for Molly to take it home. Unforgettable.
posted by martin q blank at 11:29 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by martin q blank at 11:29 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Never got past page 60 I think.
My advice: skip ahead a bit maybe. Specifically, skip chapter 3. ("Ineluctable modality of the visible...") It's just Stephen Dedalus being WAY too full of his over-intellectual-ness and such. Look, I like the character, I related to him a ton when I first read this (at basically his age), but man, that third chapter is insanely dense. Things start getting a lot more relaxed when the focus moves to Leopold Bloom.
My college prof suggested we could just skim over a chapter known as "the oxen of the sun" - when Stephen and his mates are hanging around in a maternity hospital. The idea of the writing is each paragraph is a parody/pastiche of a particular piece of writing across the historical development of the English language. Quite a clever idea, but makes for quite a slog of a read, and as my prof said, most people nowadays have no idea who Joyce is copying along the way so the effect is muted anyway.
posted by dnash at 11:50 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
My advice: skip ahead a bit maybe. Specifically, skip chapter 3. ("Ineluctable modality of the visible...") It's just Stephen Dedalus being WAY too full of his over-intellectual-ness and such. Look, I like the character, I related to him a ton when I first read this (at basically his age), but man, that third chapter is insanely dense. Things start getting a lot more relaxed when the focus moves to Leopold Bloom.
My college prof suggested we could just skim over a chapter known as "the oxen of the sun" - when Stephen and his mates are hanging around in a maternity hospital. The idea of the writing is each paragraph is a parody/pastiche of a particular piece of writing across the historical development of the English language. Quite a clever idea, but makes for quite a slog of a read, and as my prof said, most people nowadays have no idea who Joyce is copying along the way so the effect is muted anyway.
posted by dnash at 11:50 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Although I read "the oxen of the sun " in a college built on an echo of a Great Books plan, and between that framework and everybody’s personal interests we had a great time chasing the echoes.
Also I and one fellow student had had occasion to make an actual cow go somewhere and we had a good time picking out bits that we thought were not just how Literature speaks to the Ages but how people speak to cows.
posted by clew at 11:59 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Also I and one fellow student had had occasion to make an actual cow go somewhere and we had a good time picking out bits that we thought were not just how Literature speaks to the Ages but how people speak to cows.
posted by clew at 11:59 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
I love this book, and am overdue for a re-read. I lowkey celebrate Bloomsday each year, but it's become complicated, because I now live in Spokane which bigly celebrates its own Bloomsday in a very different way and on a very different day.
Anyway
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
Happy Bloomsday
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:26 PM on June 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
Anyway
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
Happy Bloomsday
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:26 PM on June 16, 2022 [9 favorites]
martin q blank: I was in Dublin seven years ago this week, and it was just wondrous to walk into bookstores and bars and find teams of people reading the book aloud...
I used to work in Boston right next to the Customs House, and on Bloomsday 1999 & 2000 there were groups doing public read-alouds there. It was sooooo cool to see literature being enjoyed communally.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:28 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I used to work in Boston right next to the Customs House, and on Bloomsday 1999 & 2000 there were groups doing public read-alouds there. It was sooooo cool to see literature being enjoyed communally.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:28 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I read Ulysses for fun, and I think it’s brilliant. When someone raised the question “who is the greatest user of the English language since Shakespeare?”, James Joyce was my answer… but I do think it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Which is a problem generally with formally inventive literature: I would say the same thing about Tristram Shandy or Moby Dick, as well.
Personally with all three novels my initial enthusiasm carried me through a first reading but I find it hard to go back to them. Re-reading them I don’t have the patience for the less successful parts.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 1:06 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Personally with all three novels my initial enthusiasm carried me through a first reading but I find it hard to go back to them. Re-reading them I don’t have the patience for the less successful parts.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 1:06 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
I am in Dublin right now. We have been talking about going for Bloomsday some year and this was the year. It has been amazing!
Ulysses is a wonderful book and I can't wait to reread it. I'd love to post more but a bit busy right now!
posted by vacapinta at 1:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Ulysses is a wonderful book and I can't wait to reread it. I'd love to post more but a bit busy right now!
posted by vacapinta at 1:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Recently, I did what might be, arguably, the most specifically embarrassing thing I've done in the last decade and literally said, "yes I said yes I will yes" out loud. To my astonishment, it was answered immediately by a much deeper cut from the same book that I only barely recognized. ("Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. . . ") Flirting with people who are both smarter and better read then you is awesome.
You've just reminded me of this awesome short memoir essay I read once...a woman who became enamored of a guy when she was in college, and had a massive crush on him. At one point he said in passing that Joyce was one of his favorite authors, so she decided that welp, okay, she was going to start reading Joyce so that she could impress him.
Well, time went on and life got in the way and the dude (who was a year ahead of her) graduated, but...she kept reading Joyce because she was realizing that wow, she liked Joyce too. She started out small, with the short stories...then moved on to Ulysses...gave up on the first try and downshifted to Portrait of an Artist....then another try at Ulysses...then Finnegan's Wake...and on and on, and the years kept going and she went on to a writing career (and I think she even went into academia with a focus on Irish literature? something like that).
And years later, she ran into her big crush - and the sparks were still there, and this time he actually reciprocated and they started a whirlwind dating thing, and she was all swept off her feet because omigod it's the big crush and now he actually wants me back.
And then, maybe like a month into things, came the day when she saw this great New Yorker cartoon that riffed on Joyce, and she cracked up and showed it to him. He just studied it a moment, then gave her a puzzled look and said "I don't get it."
"It's....it's a riff on the last line from Portrait of an Artist, you know?"
"...No?"
And after a couple more awkward questions, he finally came clean that - way back in college, when he'd said that Joyce was his favorite author, it was all an act to pick up chicks. He'd never read Joyce in his entire life.
It wasn't the entire foundation of their relationship, but it was indicative of how with this guy, ultimately he was all sizzle and no steak, and they broke up soon after; but, she concludes, the whole thing introduced her to Joyce, and that was worth it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:25 PM on June 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
You've just reminded me of this awesome short memoir essay I read once...a woman who became enamored of a guy when she was in college, and had a massive crush on him. At one point he said in passing that Joyce was one of his favorite authors, so she decided that welp, okay, she was going to start reading Joyce so that she could impress him.
Well, time went on and life got in the way and the dude (who was a year ahead of her) graduated, but...she kept reading Joyce because she was realizing that wow, she liked Joyce too. She started out small, with the short stories...then moved on to Ulysses...gave up on the first try and downshifted to Portrait of an Artist....then another try at Ulysses...then Finnegan's Wake...and on and on, and the years kept going and she went on to a writing career (and I think she even went into academia with a focus on Irish literature? something like that).
And years later, she ran into her big crush - and the sparks were still there, and this time he actually reciprocated and they started a whirlwind dating thing, and she was all swept off her feet because omigod it's the big crush and now he actually wants me back.
And then, maybe like a month into things, came the day when she saw this great New Yorker cartoon that riffed on Joyce, and she cracked up and showed it to him. He just studied it a moment, then gave her a puzzled look and said "I don't get it."
"It's....it's a riff on the last line from Portrait of an Artist, you know?"
"...No?"
And after a couple more awkward questions, he finally came clean that - way back in college, when he'd said that Joyce was his favorite author, it was all an act to pick up chicks. He'd never read Joyce in his entire life.
It wasn't the entire foundation of their relationship, but it was indicative of how with this guy, ultimately he was all sizzle and no steak, and they broke up soon after; but, she concludes, the whole thing introduced her to Joyce, and that was worth it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:25 PM on June 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
He laughed at that. "Ah, darlin', it took me twelve tries!"
Excellent news -- I've only tried twice. I even bought the companion the explains all the arcane references. I mean, I was learning a lot, but petered out. So many books, so little time...
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:12 PM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Excellent news -- I've only tried twice. I even bought the companion the explains all the arcane references. I mean, I was learning a lot, but petered out. So many books, so little time...
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:12 PM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
The BBC did an 8 hour radio adaptation that was a good way to ease into the book. It's still available on The Internet Archive.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:04 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:04 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Heartily corroborate the advice that if you find yourself stuck in a chapter, just move on to the next one. There's plenty of book and it's not as though you'd remember every page if you did read them all. Don't sweat it.
I read most of Ulysses on a Disney cruise with a solid dozen of my nieces and nephews. We didn't have kids yet, and now that I do have them I recognize how jealous all the parents in our traveling group must have been of me, parked in a deck chair for hours with my ebook reader, skipping heavy cruise meals to enjoy some Literature. It was a really lovely week.
posted by potrzebie at 4:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I read most of Ulysses on a Disney cruise with a solid dozen of my nieces and nephews. We didn't have kids yet, and now that I do have them I recognize how jealous all the parents in our traveling group must have been of me, parked in a deck chair for hours with my ebook reader, skipping heavy cruise meals to enjoy some Literature. It was a really lovely week.
posted by potrzebie at 4:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Read James Joyce’s Absolutely Filthy Letters To His Wife Nora Barnacle
Preparatory To Anything Else
posted by dannyboybell at 4:24 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Preparatory To Anything Else
posted by dannyboybell at 4:24 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
I even bought the companion the explains all the arcane references. I mean, I was learning a lot, but petered out.
D'you mean the Stuart Gilbert book? That's way, way, way more info than I think one needs to just enjoy the book. In my college class, we were given a very short summary (I can't remember where it was from, possibly Anthony Burgess's "Re Joyce") - just a listing of chapters, with the "name" of each, brief explanation of the structure/style, and summary of the action. How far down the rabbit hole of all the structures and symbols Gilbert dives into - save that for a second reading if you so choose.
Also, Joseph Campbell (of "Power of Myth" and "Hero With 1000 Faces" fame) was a huge fan of Joyce, and gave many lectures and such about how Joyce was an exemplar of using mythic imagery in modern life. Some of those lectures were collected into the book Mythic Worlds, Modern Words. I haven't looked, but maybe some of the videos I watched years ago may have made it onto YouTube or the like. I feel like Campbell had a way of helping people understand what Joyce was doing in a way that can help a non-scholarly reader appreciate it better.
posted by dnash at 4:47 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
D'you mean the Stuart Gilbert book? That's way, way, way more info than I think one needs to just enjoy the book. In my college class, we were given a very short summary (I can't remember where it was from, possibly Anthony Burgess's "Re Joyce") - just a listing of chapters, with the "name" of each, brief explanation of the structure/style, and summary of the action. How far down the rabbit hole of all the structures and symbols Gilbert dives into - save that for a second reading if you so choose.
Also, Joseph Campbell (of "Power of Myth" and "Hero With 1000 Faces" fame) was a huge fan of Joyce, and gave many lectures and such about how Joyce was an exemplar of using mythic imagery in modern life. Some of those lectures were collected into the book Mythic Worlds, Modern Words. I haven't looked, but maybe some of the videos I watched years ago may have made it onto YouTube or the like. I feel like Campbell had a way of helping people understand what Joyce was doing in a way that can help a non-scholarly reader appreciate it better.
posted by dnash at 4:47 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
EOTVOS I HAVE DIED
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
DID YOU FAINT I AM FAINTING
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I tried many times to read Ulysses and only got traction when we had a bunch of us go at it in a group. One chapter a week. Then when we finished we were so exuberant we did it again! So I love to compare it to mountain climbing - much easier when you're all roped together so that no one falls into a crevasse.
Also it's good to have Sherpas. For us it was The New Bloomsday Book for a high level overview and Ulysses Annotated for the minutiae.
And for helpful fun, there is the Irish RTE full dramatization, not to be missed!
Would dearly love to visit Dublin someday soon....
posted by storybored at 9:19 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Also it's good to have Sherpas. For us it was The New Bloomsday Book for a high level overview and Ulysses Annotated for the minutiae.
And for helpful fun, there is the Irish RTE full dramatization, not to be missed!
Would dearly love to visit Dublin someday soon....
posted by storybored at 9:19 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
I was the most addled ADD English Lit major ever.
Wait, what book are we talking about?
posted by not_on_display at 10:41 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wait, what book are we talking about?
posted by not_on_display at 10:41 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Was just thinking about it… I actually took time off between my 2 attempts and read Homer’s Odyssey. It was good and all, but didn’t make the 2nd pass go too much better.
Right now, I’m having trouble parsing a collection of Lester Bangs essays so I wonder if I still have the mental oomph for this at all.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:13 AM on June 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Right now, I’m having trouble parsing a collection of Lester Bangs essays so I wonder if I still have the mental oomph for this at all.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:13 AM on June 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
I bought Ulysses around 10 years ago or so, and got about a hundred pages in; it was interesting but apparently the drift of events in my personal life caused me to put it down. I picked it back up last year after skimming a couple of plot summaries on the internet so that I would have some sort of clue during the confusing bits, and finished it. I felt like the good parts were very and some other parts just didn't land at all for me. I was almost completely lost during the chapter structured like a play and basically was waiting for the bit where Dedalus hits the chandelier with his umbrella (nothung!) because it had been drawn to my attention in a different book about Wagner.
posted by Whale Oil at 10:18 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Whale Oil at 10:18 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ok, as mentioned above, we were there in Dublin for Bloomsday this year.
We read Ulysses earlier this year and I would highly recommend everyone to read this book. It is strange, it is funny, it is wild, it is brilliant. I was left wanting more and will likely read the whole thing again maybe as a yearly tradition.
Here's how I did it and I think is a good way to make your way through the book:
1. Before each chapter, read a good chapter summary. This helps give you a framework for what is about to happen. I used Ulysses Guide which has great episode summaries and points out some of the more important references.
2. I don't usually use audiobooks but in this case the RTE production of Ulysses, also mentioned above, is the gold standard. It is an entire cast of talented Irish voice actors and the reading is treated as a professional production. You can read along with a copy of the text.
What the audio version does is solve a problem that many first-time readers have with Ulysses: Who is talking?
Joyce's text has no "he said, she said" but instead has dialog interspersed with the inner thoughts of different characters. This can be very confusing at first. The audio production solves this problem for you as you get a different actor chiming in if the voice changes! It is really the way to go.
Oddly, you get used to Joyce and I read the last few chapters without the audio guide.
As for the text, there are many downloadable ebook versions online. If you want an annotated one, you can download one from the Joyce Project.
Ulysses is a wild ride and you need to just relax and just enjoy some parts without worrying too much about that they mean. The Circe episode of Ulysses for example I found laugh-out-loud funny especially the part where Bloom has an extended fantasy about being in charge of the world. You can do all sorts of psychological analysis here or you can just enjoy it and let the absurdist play wash over you.
In any case, Dublin has changed a lot but the layout is about the same. On the morning of Bloomsday we were at the Martello tower, which opens the book. It is a small place and the stairway up to the top is so narrow that it is not for the claustrophobic. Nevertheless when you reach the top, a reader reads out the entire first chaper of Ulysses which takes place right where you are standing. It is marvelous.
We went to Davy Byrnes the day before to have a Gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of Burgundy. We were glad we did because getting in there on Bloomsday itself is near impossible. The sandwich was delicious and the staff told us that they are pretty much selling cheese sandwiches all week.
We also went to Sweny's early to get our lemon soap. The proprietor of Sweny's, PJ Murphy, is a great character. We actually had Sweny's, which still has the original fixtures, to ourselves, and PJ brought out his guitar and started playing us a song. He also brought out a bottle of whisky and invited us to have shots with him.
The town of Dublin is full of people walking around in period-wear. On the trip down to the Martello tower, several couples on the bus got into a lively discussion/argument about what form of transport the different characters in Ulysses used. Pubs all over Dublin, such as the pub across the street from Sweny's are just full of these characters.
There's a website which attempts to collect all the goings-on but I can tell you, having been there, that there is a lot more going on informally, especially around pubs and bookstores.
In the afternoon we were at the MoLie where we attended a lecture by Paul Muldoon, the first annual Dedalus lecture!
So, overall a successful trip and one I'd highly recommend. We had a great time and even the usually changeable Irish weather celebrated the day with sunshine.
posted by vacapinta at 1:14 AM on June 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
We read Ulysses earlier this year and I would highly recommend everyone to read this book. It is strange, it is funny, it is wild, it is brilliant. I was left wanting more and will likely read the whole thing again maybe as a yearly tradition.
Here's how I did it and I think is a good way to make your way through the book:
1. Before each chapter, read a good chapter summary. This helps give you a framework for what is about to happen. I used Ulysses Guide which has great episode summaries and points out some of the more important references.
2. I don't usually use audiobooks but in this case the RTE production of Ulysses, also mentioned above, is the gold standard. It is an entire cast of talented Irish voice actors and the reading is treated as a professional production. You can read along with a copy of the text.
What the audio version does is solve a problem that many first-time readers have with Ulysses: Who is talking?
Joyce's text has no "he said, she said" but instead has dialog interspersed with the inner thoughts of different characters. This can be very confusing at first. The audio production solves this problem for you as you get a different actor chiming in if the voice changes! It is really the way to go.
Oddly, you get used to Joyce and I read the last few chapters without the audio guide.
As for the text, there are many downloadable ebook versions online. If you want an annotated one, you can download one from the Joyce Project.
Ulysses is a wild ride and you need to just relax and just enjoy some parts without worrying too much about that they mean. The Circe episode of Ulysses for example I found laugh-out-loud funny especially the part where Bloom has an extended fantasy about being in charge of the world. You can do all sorts of psychological analysis here or you can just enjoy it and let the absurdist play wash over you.
BLOOMThe novel takes place on the day of June 16, 1904, now known as Bloomsday. The characters in the novel walk all over Dublin and so the novel itself is a sort of map of Dublin. One of my favorite chapters is Wandering Rocks which has different inhabitants of the city go about their day, traversing the city, doing this or that. It is a series of short episodes all taking place at the same time. And their is a parade going through town at the same time which different characters encounter at different points. It is an interesting structure and Joyce's inventiveness in this novel is what makes this the book so fascinating.
My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.
(Thirty two workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)
THE SIGHTSEERS
(Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)
(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an elongated finger at Bloom.)
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH
Don't you believe a word he says. That man is Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.
BLOOM
Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh!
(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)
In any case, Dublin has changed a lot but the layout is about the same. On the morning of Bloomsday we were at the Martello tower, which opens the book. It is a small place and the stairway up to the top is so narrow that it is not for the claustrophobic. Nevertheless when you reach the top, a reader reads out the entire first chaper of Ulysses which takes place right where you are standing. It is marvelous.
We went to Davy Byrnes the day before to have a Gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of Burgundy. We were glad we did because getting in there on Bloomsday itself is near impossible. The sandwich was delicious and the staff told us that they are pretty much selling cheese sandwiches all week.
We also went to Sweny's early to get our lemon soap. The proprietor of Sweny's, PJ Murphy, is a great character. We actually had Sweny's, which still has the original fixtures, to ourselves, and PJ brought out his guitar and started playing us a song. He also brought out a bottle of whisky and invited us to have shots with him.
The town of Dublin is full of people walking around in period-wear. On the trip down to the Martello tower, several couples on the bus got into a lively discussion/argument about what form of transport the different characters in Ulysses used. Pubs all over Dublin, such as the pub across the street from Sweny's are just full of these characters.
There's a website which attempts to collect all the goings-on but I can tell you, having been there, that there is a lot more going on informally, especially around pubs and bookstores.
In the afternoon we were at the MoLie where we attended a lecture by Paul Muldoon, the first annual Dedalus lecture!
So, overall a successful trip and one I'd highly recommend. We had a great time and even the usually changeable Irish weather celebrated the day with sunshine.
posted by vacapinta at 1:14 AM on June 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
After reading that, I have to go to Dublin for Bloomsday now. :)
posted by storybored at 10:08 PM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by storybored at 10:08 PM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oh, postscript for those interested in the different versions of the text.
The strange case of the missing Joyce scholar.
Kidd vs Gabler, one of the "great academic shootouts" of all time.
posted by storybored at 10:10 PM on June 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The strange case of the missing Joyce scholar.
Kidd vs Gabler, one of the "great academic shootouts" of all time.
posted by storybored at 10:10 PM on June 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
read it out loud
So… I prefer “science-fiction/fantasy” mostly, and… always kind of couldn’t really understand why people liked poetry… (even though I have a couple published authors/poets in the family)
Today, alone in a strange city, my aunt suggested “If” by Kipling, and for some reason I decided to read it aloud… And it resonated, and moved me to tears…
posted by rozcakj at 11:49 PM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
So… I prefer “science-fiction/fantasy” mostly, and… always kind of couldn’t really understand why people liked poetry… (even though I have a couple published authors/poets in the family)
Today, alone in a strange city, my aunt suggested “If” by Kipling, and for some reason I decided to read it aloud… And it resonated, and moved me to tears…
posted by rozcakj at 11:49 PM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
One important thing I forgot to add about my Bloomsday experience and to me the most surprising, was the international reach of Ulysses!
I expected the Irish and even the surprising number of Americans we met who had planned a holiday around it. But wow Spaniards and Italians and Japanese clutching their Ulysses translations I did not anticipate at all and was wonderful to see!
posted by vacapinta at 5:53 AM on June 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
I expected the Irish and even the surprising number of Americans we met who had planned a holiday around it. But wow Spaniards and Italians and Japanese clutching their Ulysses translations I did not anticipate at all and was wonderful to see!
posted by vacapinta at 5:53 AM on June 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Rozcakj, yeah, isn't that a wonderful feeling when you read something aloud and the sound and meaning of it is like a key that opens up a door to a cascade of feeling? What's going on with that?
There are passages in Ulysses that even when I read silently "feel good" just from the sound of it bouncing around inside my head. Then when you put voice to it, boom!
There are others that sound good in just a fun way, like this one:
"Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes."
On the page it's a delightful description of the mathematical symbols in a school boy's workbook. When I read it out, it takes on a bittersweet flavor which is amazing because of the context (the student is floundering).
(p.s. Okay, rabbit hole. The sentence immediately after refers to "Moors" which alliterates with "morrice" and "mummery", but also references the Islamic origins of algebra. Multidimensional stuff! Hooray!)
posted by storybored at 7:37 AM on June 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
There are passages in Ulysses that even when I read silently "feel good" just from the sound of it bouncing around inside my head. Then when you put voice to it, boom!
There are others that sound good in just a fun way, like this one:
"Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes."
On the page it's a delightful description of the mathematical symbols in a school boy's workbook. When I read it out, it takes on a bittersweet flavor which is amazing because of the context (the student is floundering).
(p.s. Okay, rabbit hole. The sentence immediately after refers to "Moors" which alliterates with "morrice" and "mummery", but also references the Islamic origins of algebra. Multidimensional stuff! Hooray!)
posted by storybored at 7:37 AM on June 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
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