Ulysses by James Joyce: Done!!!!

       

                                

Finally, finally, finally finished Ulysses. Whew! Seriously, it's the most difficult book I've ever read. Did I enjoy it? Well, let's just say I can appreciate it and understand why it's a classic, but I didn't form an emotional attachment to the book. It's so hard to follow that I found it very difficult to care about any of the characters. Sure, there's a fair bit of humour in it, even of the low-brow variety (think graphic descriptions of bodily functions), but there's practically no plot, and while I enjoyed the literary Easter egg hunt part, I can see how others wouldn't. 

I used the Ulysses Annotated guide by Gifford and Seidman to get me through this behemoth, and I would have been completely lost without it. If you want to understand even a fraction of the allusions in the book, get a guide. (This one's fine, if you want the annotations, but it doesn't really explain the big picture. It also had too much info on the streets of Dublin and minor character names for my taste. It even tells you if the authors don't know to whom a particular name refers. Why? Isn't that clear from context?) I read the annotations first and then the episode in the book. I recommend trying to get through the whole episode in one go, because it gets even more confusing if you only read a page or two and try to continue it later. I also discovered Frank Delaney's podcast Re:Joyce when I had almost finished, but it helped me understand the way Joyce's mind works, and I felt I got more out of the novel than I would have otherwise. I think I'll keep listening to the podcast even though I've finished the book. 

Some things surprised me, like Molly Bloom's monologue. From what I had heard, that was supposed to be the toughest part of the book, but I actually found it much easier to follow than many of the other episodes. A lot of people praise it for being feminist. I'm not convinced. Molly thinks like a man would fantasise a woman thinking about sex, and otherwise thinks about empty-headed, frivolous things like her looks and clothes, and then puts down other women. After how she's portrayed in the rest of the book as unteachable and vain and promiscuous, I kind of hated this.Women do this about other things, you know. Okay, everybody else in the book is obsessed with sex, too, so . . . 

I started reading Ulysses last September, so it took me six months to finish. Was it worth it? 

Hmm... I'd say yes, as a learning experience. As something to read for pleasure, not so much. 

Ulysses is amazingly complex: every episode has its counterpart in Homer's Odyssey, though it's a loose, sometimes only thematic, connection, not an event-for-event, character-for-character one. The episodes also have a colour, symbol, organ, art, and technique associated with them. Some made sense to me, others didn't. Every sentence and paragraph is packed with allusions and literally references, and many words are doing double or triple duty in terms of meaning. That's an amazing amount of information, and Joyce trusts the reader to get it; he doesn't over-explain, just moves on. I like that.

But as amazing as all this is, it's also very confusing for the reader. Deliberate obscurity is something I'd like to avoid in my writing. I also think one should be able to read a novel without resorting to a guide to get through it. And I feel that the structure of the book should serve the story, not be the point of the novel. The shift from one literary style to another made the book even harder to read. I understand it's kind of the point of the book, but it hurt my immersion in the story. 

Another thing to study here is the stream-of-consciousness technique and Joyce's use of sentence fragments, both masterfully done and useful tools for any writer. 

There were also bits of stunning description, and every word felt thought through and carefully selected. That kind of attention to detail is worth striving for.

I did a whole post about the literary devices Joyce uses, so I won't repeat it here, but those were also a revelation. "Aeolus" was the toughest episode for me, and the one where I got the most out of my guide.

So, I did learn a lot. 

In conclusion, Ulysses is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure. It's not for everyone, but if you're a writer, definitely give it a shot. If nothing else, at least read Molly Bloom's monologue from the end of the book to see what all the fuss is about. Don't worry, it's quite short.

Now I'm left with a hankering to re-read the Odyssey. But I need to read the Iliad before that... In Molly Bloom's words: yes I said yes I will yes.

Need Help Understanding James Joyce's Ulysses?

Yeah, me too. I haven't given up, if you were wondering, but even with the annotations, my reaction is mostly WTF?!?!?

I had trouble believing anyone would put herself through this riddle-wrapped-in-a-literary-Easter-egg-hunt monster if she didn't have to. Students, sure. Anyone just reading for pleasure? Nope.

But I guess I was wrong. There's at least one person on the planet who genuinely loves this book: Frank Delaney. He loves it so much that he's doing a podcast on it. He started in 2010, and now the podcast, called Re:Joyce, has 303 five-minute episodes. (It's up to chapter eight so far, and he does one new episode per week.) The amazing thing is that Delaney actually manages to make Ulysses seem fun. His enthusiasm is catching, and the book doesn't seem so intimidating when broken down into bite-sized pieces.

You can check it out here.

I still have one third of the book to go, plus a few hundred pages of annotations. I figure it'll take me at least a month or two, because I need to read some normal stuff on the side to keep my head from imploding.

I appreciate Ulysses as an intellectual exercise, but that's as far as it goes. There's a beautiful bit of description here and there, a few bits that made me laugh, and I do enjoy hunting for obscure references, but I just can't connect to the story on an emotional level. What about you guys? Did you honestly enjoy reading Ulysses? Why? Tell me in the comments.

What James Joyce Taught Me About Rhetorical Devices

So, Ulysses is progressing, slowly but surely. Everything went fine until I got to the Aeolus episode (the one in the newspaper offices).  Suddenly it just stopped making sense. There were these weird titles, and even though I had read the notes in Ulysses Annotated, I couldn't understand what was going on. I understood the words, even the sentences they formed, but the whole of it . . . Nope. Then I noticed a note at the bottom of the page on Ulysses Annotated about rhetorical devices. This led me to an appendix titled "Rhetorical Figures in Aeolus."

Yay! Finally it makes sense; Joyce designated the "art" of this episode to be rhetoric and then proceeded to stuff it with every rhetorical device imaginable.

What is a rhetorical device? Wikipedia defines it as a technique that the author (or speaker) uses to convey to the reader (or listener) a meaning with the goal of persuading her to consider a topic from a different perspective. Maybe it's to provoke a rational argument from an emotional display, or to evoke an emotional response or to give perspective to action. Different aspects of this are logos (using logical ideas to appeal to the audience), pathos (appealing to the audience's emotions), and ethos (describing the guiding beliefs of an ideology, nation, or community, an appeal based on the character of the speaker). Check out Aristotle's Rhetoric for more. (I'm adding it to my to-be-read list, but one massively difficult book at a time.)

 I found stuff on the list that I've never heard of, a lot of it fascinating. It kind of makes me want to try some of them out in my writing, too. No, not like Joyce. I do appreciate the complexity of the Ulysses, but I feel that writing and storytelling should be about communicating with the reader, not only with English professors. (Come on, admit it, Joyce is kind of a show-off. A lot of the time it feels like he's thumbing his nose at the reader, doing a little jig, and singing "I'm smarter that you, I'm smarter than you!")

Here's a few examples, divided into three categories. The middle one has the stuff I plan to try out. (The quotations are from Ulysses and the explanations of the rhetorical devices from Ulysses Annotated) :

Kiddie stuff

Allegory: description of a subject under the guise another subject. Example: "Youth led by Experience visits Notoriety."

Alliteration: the repetition of similar consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. Example: "Peeled pear."

Anticlimax: opposite of climax. Example: "Father Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes McCarthy."

Anagram: the transposition of the letters of a word. Example: "feetstoops."

Anataclasis/antistasis: repeating the same word in a different sense. Example: "More Irish than the Irish."

Apocope: the omission of the last letter or syllable of a word. Example: "Nannan" (For Nannetti.)

Asyndeton: the omission of conjunctions. Example: "They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish."

Climax: arrangement of words, phrases, clauses in order of increasing importance. Example: "and then the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher and then the angel of death kills the butcher."

Diasyrm: an expression of ridicule or disparagement. Example:"All his brains are in the nape of his neck."

Ecphonesis: an exclamation. Example: "Start, Palmerston Park!"

Epimome: persistent use of the same word or words. Example: "Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck."

Epiphora: the insistent repetition of a word at the end of several sentences. Example: "Working away, tearing away."

Homoteleuton: a series of words with same/similar endings. "Mouth south: tomb womb:"

Hypochorism: a pet name. Example: "Doughy Daw."
Irony: intended meaning is opposite of the words used. Example: "Our lovely land."

Metaphor: the comparison of one thing to another without using like or as. Example: "Weathercocks." (Referring to journalists.)

Onomatopoeia: the formation of a name or word by imitation of the sound associated with it. Example: "Sllt" (Thesound of the printing machine against the paper, or something like that.)

Oxymoron: the conjoining of contradictory terms to give point to a statement or expression. Example: "I feel a strong weakness."

Palinderome: a word or verse that reads the same backwards and forwards. Example: "Madam, I'm Adam."

Parenthesis: an explanation inserted into a sentence with which it has no necessary connection. Example: "The Roman . . . brought to every shore on which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession."

Paronomasia: a pun. Example: "The Rows of Castille . . . Rose of cast steel."

Polysyndeton: the use of several conjunctions together or repetition of the same conjunction. Example: "And then the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher . . ."

Prolepsis: the anticipation of and response to an opponent's objection. Example: "Vast, I allow."

Prosopopoeia/personification: an imaginary or absent person is represented as speaking/acting; also, investing abstractions with human qualities.

Simile: comparing something to something else using like or as. Example: "The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles."

Syncope: the loss of letters or sounds in the middle  of a word. Example: "o'er."

Synonymy: the use synonyms for amplification. Example: "the vista far and wide."

Tautology: needless repetition of a word/phrase. Example: "Our old ancient ancestors."

Say what?

Anacoensis: the speaker appeals to the hearers for their opinion. "Look here. What did Ignatius Gallaher do?"

Anaphora: repetition of a phrase in several successive clauses. "See it in your face. See it in your eye."

Anthimeria: the substitution of one part of speech for another. Example: "Now am I going to tram it out all the way . . . "  ("Tram" becomes a verb.)

Ellipsis: a deliberate omission of a word or words implied by context. Example: "Hand on his heart." <-> (His) hand on his heart.

Erotesis/erotema: the bold assertion in the form of a question of the opposite that the question asks. Example: "Or was it you that shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between you?"

Hyperbaton/anastrophe: the inversion of the natural order of words or phrases, especially for emphasis. Example: "Hell of a racket they make."

Hypothyposis: the visionary imagination of thing not present. Example: "The ghost walks."


Metonymy: the substitution of an attribute of the thing for the thing itself. Example: "THE WEARER OF THE CROWN" (Refers to a king?)

Mimesis: an imitation of the words or actions of another. Example "Boohoo! Lenehan wept." (Mimicking the grief of Pyrrhus' followers.)

Paramegnon: the conjoining of words derived from one another. Example: "imperial, imperious, imperative."

Solecism: the violation of the rules of grammar or syntax. Example: "pensive bosom."

Syllepsis: a word made to refer to two or more words in the same sentence while proper applying to only one, or applying to them in different senses (literal and figurative). Example: "Gave it to them on a hot plate, the whole bloody history."

Synecdoche: the use of a more comprehensive term for a less comprehensive (whole for part or part for whole). Example: "Neck." stands for the whole man here.

Synchoresis: concession, a rhetorical device of enlisting sympathy before a tirade. Example:"Vast, I allow: but vile."

Truncated simile: a comparison of one thing to another especially as an ornament in rhetoric or poetry. Example: "Steal upon larks."

Zeugma: the use of a single word to modify or govern two or more words, especially when applying them in different senses. Example: "We are the boys of Wesxford/ Who fought with heart and hand."

WTF!?!?!?

Anacoluthia: a want of grammatical sequence; passing from one construction to another before the former is complete. Example: "Maybe he understands what I."

Anastomosis: insertion of a qualifying word between two parts of another word. Example:"Underdarkneath."

Anastrophy: inversion of the usual order of clauses/words. Example: "Was he short taken?"

Chiasmus: reversal of words in parallel clauses. Example: "Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores."

Diaresis: the division of one syllable into two. Example: "Co-ome thou lost one/ Co-one thou dear one."

Enthyme: an argument based on a probable premise. Example: "If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch." (The implication is that it's payday.)

Metathesis: a transposition of words; the interchange of position between sounds or letters in a word. Example:  kcirtaP."

Prolepsis: the taking of the future as already existing. Example: "The moon, professor MacHugh said."


Sources:
Ulysses by James Joyce
Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman
Wikipedia

James Joyce's Ulysses: Worth The Trouble?

I've almost finished my Proust quota for this year, and I'm looking for a replacement. I always have a classic in rotation with my lighter reading, for contrast and for learning about great prose. I've picked up quite a few writer tricks this way, so I think it's worth it, even though some of them tend to be kind of hard to get through. Some books are pure fun, like cotton candy fluff, but you can't live on that. Sometimes you need to buckle down and eat your oatmeal, because it's good for you. This looks like an oatmeal kind of book. Or maybe spinach. Brussel sprouts?

Anyway, I'm going for it. 

I've heard so many horror stories about this book that I did some research before starting. Apparently you need a reference book to read the actual book, so I browsed a bit on Amazon and ended up with this one: 

Seriously, the pic doesn't do it justice. This thing is fricking huge, and heavy enough to kill a few Mirkwood spiders with. Inside, it's full of tiny print in multiple columns; it reminds me of the bible. And it's all annotations; the original text isn't included. (Btw, someone needs to do an e-book that has the text of Ulysses with links to the annotations. Two books seems like the hard way to do this. I'll have to have both books nearby and go back and forth. Come on people, we're living in the information age!) 

Okay. If I wasn't intimidated before, I sure am now. 

The plan is to read each section once, then wade through the annotations, and then read that section again, so I'll actually be reading the whole thing twice. Do I get a t-shirt or a mug or something when I'm done?  Or a gold star? Literary fistbump? Okay, I'll settle for bragging rights, then.

I'll let you know how it goes. 

Wish me luck, I'm going in.