Ulysses

What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book

Ulysses

James Joyce

Literature

Aug 27, 2018

Ulysses is perhaps the most famously difficult of all modern novels. Its difficulty, however, doesn’t lie in the story it tells, which, in its essentials, is quite simple: The book recounts certain events, most of them not in the least extraordinary, that occur in Dublin on June 16, 1904. What does make Ulysses more difficult than most novels is the manner of its telling. The stylistic richness and bravura of Ulysses are both daunting and exhilarating, often in the same line. The concentration of Joyce’s powers makes each passage a treasure to be excavated, each page its own Troy. Beneath all the complexity, Dublin remains the Muse, if not the real hero, of Joyce’s epic. No other work of literature had ever set out to replicate—and celebrate—the noise of urban life with such alertness, art, spite, and glee. Capturing the city he loved and despaired of in all its hunks and colors, grime and glory, grievances and yearnings, Joyce created a literary metropolis that hums, moans, shouts, and sings with the collective music of the human comedy. There is no other book like it.

Add Reply

Jane Huttner

Oct 25, 2019

I don't like this book. The writer doesn't explain what's really going on that well

Add Reply

Dan Cooper

Nov 17, 2019

One must acknowledge, considering something 100 years old, that innovation is an accomplishment which may seem, later, diminished by successive works created in the space it made. Modernism, the stream of consciousness, etc may all have been done better since Ulysseys, but wouldn't have been in its abscence. So it's significant and I admire it for that. But significant doesn't mean good. Consider another epic with a Ulysseys for perspective; The Civil War was significant, confusing and too long, doesn't mean you want to experience it.

Add Reply

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

Nov 20, 2019

Pem McNerney bravely argued the case for reading Ulysses at our first Battle of the Books at R. J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT. While admitting that it is a challenging read, she encouraged listeners to try to appreciate the beauty of its complexity.

Add Reply

Frank Carey

Jan 11

A life=changing read. I would recommend a good student guide and also - listen to the Irish Radio reading of the book (widely available, including on Spotify).

We use cookies on this website