Ulysses (1922)
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shiels
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this chapter is comparatively easy. It sounds like Irish people now , and is very funny and these bizarre strings of gossip full of ands
At a certain speed I’m bored and frustrated by it when there’s no give in terms of plot it can feel rambling or almost sloppy at a certain pace. but then if you slow down and take it sentence to sentence youre taken by how impeccable and poetic it is
At a certain speed I’m bored and frustrated by it when there’s no give in terms of plot it can feel rambling or almost sloppy at a certain pace. but then if you slow down and take it sentence to sentence youre taken by how impeccable and poetic it is
It feels like the most complete picture of life I've gotten from a book. Everything's in there. You get the ideas stuff like you do with Pynchon, but there's lots of moments of children just playing in the street or someone just enjoying a meal or looking at the trees, a horse taking a dump, water flowing out of a tap. And it somehow all feels important.
Michael S. Judge (the Death Corner guy) talks about some authors being able to zoom out as they zoom in and I'd say that's a good description of Joyce. As he zooms in on this day in Dublin, you feel as though you can see the universe.
And somehow, in the midst of all that, he manages to fashion one of the most endearing characters I've ever come across in Bloom. I warmed to him immediately, felt protective of him when The Citizen was giving him shit and people were making fun of him, felt sorry for him whenever he thought of his dead son. Stephen doesn't get fleshed out quite as much and he's much more distant, but, like I said the other day, they're eternally wandering back from the pub to me. I dunno quite how to describe it. I can just picture the two of them in conversation, walking off into the distance, and it feels as though they always will be.
There's something about duos that lends itself to that sort of thing. Dante and Virgil, Stephen and Bloom, Mason and Dixon. I read an article on history and Ulysses earlier and they cited the closing lines of Inferno re: Stephen and Bloom gazing at the stars from Bloom's garden,
intotherose-garden.com
History in James Joyce’s Ulysses: From a Nightmare, to a Dream
If history is a night from which Stephen Dedalus is trying to awake, writing could be said to be a dream into which James Joyce awakened, his pen a machine to turn bad dreams into good…[1]. In Ulys…
intotherose-garden.com
I would agree with all you've both said already.
I like how he pushes things to the limit, like for example that ithaca chapter, where you are like, "wtf is he really doing this? For 20 pages?". Funny, serious, profound, confounding, childish, provocative, lyrical, weird, perverted (particularly final chapter) all on one page.
As I've said before, so much of it was over my head, like the hamlet bit, but the main thing about it was it made me integrate the experience of reading with being in the world.
I like how he pushes things to the limit, like for example that ithaca chapter, where you are like, "wtf is he really doing this? For 20 pages?". Funny, serious, profound, confounding, childish, provocative, lyrical, weird, perverted (particularly final chapter) all on one page.
As I've said before, so much of it was over my head, like the hamlet bit, but the main thing about it was it made me integrate the experience of reading with being in the world.
sus
Moderator
Let's talk more about dynamic duos. They're a powerful force in literary history. Should we start our own thread or just riff here?There's something about duos that lends itself to that sort of thing. Dante and Virgil, Stephen and Bloom, Mason and Dixon. I read an article on history and Ulysses earlier and they cited the closing lines of Inferno re: Stephen and Bloom gazing at the stars from Bloom's garden,
History in James Joyce’s Ulysses: From a Nightmare, to a Dream
If history is a night from which Stephen Dedalus is trying to awake, writing could be said to be a dream into which James Joyce awakened, his pen a machine to turn bad dreams into good…[1]. In Ulys…
sus
Moderator
Lots of good Girard on this one. Syllogistic desire.
There are slave-master dynamic duos and there are battle-of-equals dynamic duos. The difference counts.
luka
Well-known member
No routines allowed sorry. You're only allowed to talk about the experience of reading and being annoyed by Uylesses.
One thing I had was it taught me yesterday how to spell cigarettes for the first time. I've always struggled with that word until I noticed yesterday it is a little cigar
cigar-ette. The last time I had a major breakthrough like that was about two years ago when another word I had trouble with business I noticed was really
busy-ness
One thing I had was it taught me yesterday how to spell cigarettes for the first time. I've always struggled with that word until I noticed yesterday it is a little cigar
cigar-ette. The last time I had a major breakthrough like that was about two years ago when another word I had trouble with business I noticed was really
busy-ness