living up to a New Year's resolution

[rushthatspeaks]

Every year I try to read an intimidating book.

By which I mean one it would be really nice to have read, on the grounds that I keep running into discussion of it, and also that people keep telling me it is good, but that I have no particular personal inclination towards given what I've heard, and that has some kind of aura of Stuffy Old or Hot New Classic. I almost always enjoy them when I've read them, even though I tend to have to shut myself on airplanes with them, or remove all other reading material from the immediate vicinity, or things like that. Previous New Year's resolution books include things like Moby-Dick, One Hundred Years of Solitude (which has turned out to be ridiculously useful), and The Sound and the Fury.

(In actuality, this is a years-long effort concentrated towards the eventual goal of making myself pick up A la recherche du temps perdu, which was one of my grandfather's favorite books and which he often expressed hope that I would read. It did not happen during his lifetime, but I have not given up hope.)

Anyway this year I decided to read Ulysses. And it has become obvious that I am not going to manage it without some kind of not only accountability, but ability to discuss it with people.

So this is the I-am-about-to-start-reading-Ulysses-if-anyone-else-wants-to post. I have: a copy of Ulysses, in my grandfather's very nice second American edition (if you think I'm trying to read all the books my grandfather loved and wanted to talk to me about, you're absolutely right); and Ulysses Annotated, by Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition (which should help with knowing nothing whatever about Irish politics at the time). I do not have as yet: a map of Dublin, although it is obvious from the one skim I took through the book that they ought to put one in the endpapers. I do not think I need: any help with the Odyssey, classical references, or literary references in general.

At this time next week, I'll put up a post discussing the first chunk, about twenty-five pages, and I'll do that weekly thereafter. I know I won't finish this year, but hey, I will finish. Read along, if you like, or not. I don't want this to be incredibly formal or anything.

Right now: tell me anything you want about Ulysses, or James Joyce, or secondary sources you think I might like, or why this is a stupid idea and I should go read Frantz Fanon or something, bearing in mind that I haven't read this book yet and so telling me about things that happen in several hundred pages is probably counter-productive.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I'll prop you up if you'll prop me up.

Nine

[egretplume.livejournal.com]

Are you aware of (http://yes-i-will-yes.dreamwidth.org/profile)yes_i_will_yes (http://yes-i-will-yes.dreamwidth.org/)? It is a Dreamwidth community that is just starting up a Ulysses read-along. (I am only a nominal member because I don't think I have the brainspace for it right now, but good luck -- it's a great book!)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Some years ago a group did a reading together of Ulysses, and some really interesting material was offered as a gloss. James Joyce is a hypertext writer, and someone who can unpack him a bit can add tremendously to the reading experience. But for most of us, he really does need unpacking.

Kit Kerr (lj user=:aberwyn"> and Gregory Feeley are two I know who have read, and contributed good data, to a Joycean reading. Also atpotch who has some terrific stuff in past posts.

[gwynnega]

Last year I read Ulysses via dailylit.com, a small bit per day (though if I hit a section I particularly liked, I would sometimes read a few more installments the same day). I had tried to read it a few times before, but this was the method that got me through the whole thing. One of these days I'd love to listen to an audiobook of it.

I'm a big fan of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...

[sovay]

Right now: tell me anything you want about Ulysses, or James Joyce, or secondary sources you think I might like, or why this is a stupid idea and I should go read Frantz Fanon or something, bearing in mind that I haven't read this book yet and so telling me about things that happen in several hundred pages is probably counter-productive.

"The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells."

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I'd happy join you with (translation of) Proust: i've read the first one and loved it but never gotten through it all.

Ulysses, OTOH, even though it was on my doctoral exam list for modern literature, I got no further than 350 pages.

There's this brick wall at 350 pages--I can never get past it.

I love DUBLINERS. But Ulysses? Brick wall.

GOOD LUCK!

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I would be happy to join you. It's on the long list of books I've always meant to read.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

I found it unpleasant to read for a large proportion of the time - too scatological, and the word-y madness too much like my mum's actual madness to be fun.

[gallian.livejournal.com]

I read it in college.

That is the sum total of what I can tell you about it.