Ulysses

[Oblivion437]

Oh shit...I've gone and done it...

That title, it's so imposing, isn't it? Just admit it, it's an imposing title.

<u><Font color=white size=+3>U</Font><Font color=blue size=+2>L</font><font color=yellow size=+1>ysses</font></u>. It's so vaguely evocative of almost Godlike power, and it's not a word or name to be brought down upon lightly. It's a sledgehammer of a word. Due to its position in the lexicon of literature, that note has only amplified. It's now a mountain on the end of a tree larger than the earth itself, and it's poised to throw enough weight around in any discussion to level all but the most titanic presence.

Does it deserve this? This fearful awe of it? Or is it a gentle giant, to commune and speak with openly for its grand and glorious wisdom? Does it have much to say, that its presence is so substantial and grand that the notions about it be mere fluff? Maybe not.

Ulysses is a towering achievement in the English language, literature, modernism, the last word in realism and quite possibly one of the most significant works of literature ever constructed. It takes the English language to places its never been before, and never since. Powerful, and openly frank on many things, it's a great read, a great ponderance, and most of all, a great accomplishment for its writer, James Joyce.

By the time he finished it in 1914, James Joyce noted (duefully, and with ample proof) that his mastery of literature and the English language had arrived at such a point that he was able to do anything with it. In Ulysses, he does. He does EVERYTHING, and then he does some more.

From a stylistic standpoint, as far as literature goes, everything is done. Every perspective, format, style, technique, rythm, idea and concept of literature is explored, fully fleshed out, and tossed aside in plumming the depths of literature in the process of going even deeper.

Ulysses explores something barely understood today: The human mind, and how it works...

It focuses, primarily, about Stephen Dedalus, a teacher and depressed Irishman, something his friend calls '...the fearful Jesuit strain...injected the wrong way..." It also focuses around a Jewish Dubliner living on the other side of town by the name of Leopold Bloom, who tries to find things to do so that he doesn't have to go home to discover his fat wife sleeping with another man. Bloom possesses a sort of broader and more colorful range of motions, where Dedalus possesses rigidity, Bloom is sort of naive, sensual, and even in one event, sexual. That sexuality got the book banned, but it isn't a big thing in the book. It was enough for Virginia Woolf to dismiss it, but then again, who the hell cares about Virginia Woolf? She'd end up riffing on Joyce's style (and failing) later with Mrs. Dalloway, and will go on as second best, at best...

What it does with the events of these two young men's day, June 16, 1904 (the day Joyce met his then-future wife for the first time) the insight it draws upon it, the sheer depth of the exploration, is unbelievable. It does something that is hard to get used to, but it does it in such a fashion as to have a person levelled by its sheer perfection.

We're privy to their thoughts, their ideas, their emotions, everything. We see two contrasting viewpoints about a normal day, we see how they react, we see how they come to accept and understand everything around them.

The style is highly broiled in Celtic influence, with Joyce's Irish roots reflected in his subject matter, his style, and ultimately, the way everything ends.

There are some crazy things in this book, like a fifty page monologue of thought delivered in four sentences, a chapter written in question-answer format, a chapter written as a play, ultra-lyrical straight prose, and Joyce's trademark gobbledygook made up words (Portmantheaus, I believe is the official term for the stuff) used to tremendous effect... Like I said, EVERYTHING happens...

This is truly a wonderful book. Realistic to a degree that's almost impossible to understand, and honest to a fault. One of the finest pieces of literature I've ever read.

[ 10-02-2004, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

[Oblivion437]

I'm assuming a link to a place where you can read it would be nice, so here you go:

http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/1/

[Melusine]

Wow Oblivion, go and show a completely different side of yourself why don't you?

To me Ulysses is still more sledgehammer than gentle giant; i.e. I haven't dared to pick it up yet because of some superstitious fear that I might not be equipped to appreciate it well enough. I have read parts of it though, but never the whole thing. Maybe it'll be something for the next summer break because I do want to read it and take my time reading it - not squeeze it in between my other reading. I've read some Pynchon and I'm not afraid of difficult or challenging reading, so maybe I should give it a try.
Speaking of Joyce, I have an extremely beautiful version of Finnegan's Wake, an on-page English-Dutch hardback in a slipcase, in a critically acclaimed translation (of course I always read English books in the original, but from a translator's point of view it is still interesting to compare). The problem is though, that I have an even bigger awe for Finnegan's Wake... One of the head teachers at the English Faculty of my Uni has spent ten years discussing it with a reading group of sharp minds and still feels he's missed a lot in the work. Ah well. Cool post, thanks!

[Oblivion437]

Let me put it this way: If by page five of Ulysses you've found something funny, chances are you'll understand it fine.

As for Finnegan's Wake: Don't get me started, or finished!