Classics and the Western Canon discussion

The only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works. -- James Joyce

Was he joking? I'm not sure, but we are going to considerably shorten his demand from a lifetime to about 12 weeks.

Ulysses is divided into untitled chapters or "episodes," each one loosely based on a scene in Homer's Odyssey. Joyce suggested the Homeric titles as references only; he did not want readers to concentrate or look for overt Homeric parallels in the book. Nevertheless, over time these informal titles have come to be used consistently by readers and scholars.

Some episodes are easier to read than others; with the exception of episode 3, where less stalwart readers tend to abandon the book, the earlier episodes tend to be easier than the later ones.

I have tried to balance the schedule so that we have more time to deal with the more difficult episodes, and relatively less to deal with the easier ones. This is not a comment on the importance or beauty of the episode, just a matter of time management.

The grade of difficulty I have assigned the episode is a debatable matter, but if you haven't read the book before it may help you to prepare for what lies ahead.
The difficulty is often a matter of style more than one of meaning. The easier episodes are just as rich as the more difficult ones, but I expect we may need more time for the parts that are more experimental in style. The scale is from 1 as the easiest to 10 as the most challenging.

Jan 7 - Episodes 1-3, Telemachus (2), Nestor (2), and Proteus (9)
Jan 14 - Episodes 4-6; Calypso (3), Lotus Eaters (3), and Hades (2)
Jan 21 - Episodes 7-8; Aeolus (5) and Lestrygonians (5)
Jan 28 - Episodes 9-10; Scylla and Charybdis (5) and Wandering Rocks (3)
Feb 4 - Episode 11, Sirens (10)
Feb 11 - Episode 12-13; Cyclops (2) and Nausicaa (2)
Feb 18 - Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun (8)
Feb 25 - Episode 15, Circe -- first half (9)
Mar 4 - Episode 15, Circe -- second half (9)
March 11 - Episode 16, Eumaeus (8)
March 18 - Episode 17, Ithaca (8)
March 25 - Episode 18, Penelope (7)

And before we start, a small note of WARNING:

Many editions of Ulysses begin with a court opinion issued by the Hon. John W. Woolsey lifting the ban on the importation of Ulysses into the United States. It is well known that parts of Ulysses were considered obscene and the book was banned for more than a decade in the U.S. and the U.K. It was banned even before it was formally published, now that I think about it, because the "little" magazines that published early versions of individual episodes were declared obscene and the publishers prosecuted accordingly.

Even though this is well known, it should be reiterated here that Ulysses deals with Adult Subject Matter. The sex lives of Leopold and Molly Bloom are a key element of the story, and Joyce deals with his characters' sex lives in a frank and honest way. It is entirely likely, and probably necessary, that these matters will be discussed here as well. It will be difficult to avoid a subject that the book's hero is fairly obsessed with!

(On the other hand, there is very little violence in the novel. Personally, I think the Golden Ass was far more obscene than Ulysses, but others may disagree.)

So... consider yourself warned! And enjoy!

Thomas wrote: "And before we start, a small note of WARNING:"

As Thomas says, it's necessary, if we are to do justice to a discussion of the book, to address the sexuality openly and frankly, but please do so in a sensitive manner, and keep in mind that the spoiler option is available for points that are of value but may be offensive to some.

Thomas wrote: "Ulysses is divided into untitled chapters or "episodes," each one loosely based on a scene in Homer's Odyssey. "

The Modern Library edition doesn't mark these divisions as chapters or identify them in any way other than starting what appears to be a new section with a line of capital letters.

For those who want to check where they are, this online version does have the chapter or section divisions. Whether it's the "correct" edition or not, though, I don't know.
http://www.online-literature.com/jame...

The intro to that online edition, btw, says that "Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable" but goes on to say that "the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes."

But it also offers encouragement, contending that "Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language."

Chapter 3 is what threw me the first time yes :-) And I'm struggling with it again this time round. But I'm sure that I'm going to manage it and hearing that it's considered a 'bad' chapter is fairly encouraging. Get the worst over quickly right?

Well, not the 'worst' probably but an example of what I'm in for.

Nicola wrote: "Chapter 3 is what threw me the first time yes :-) And I'm struggling with it again this time round. But I'm sure that I'm going to manage it and hearing that it's considered a 'bad' chapter is fai..."

It's a tough read because the theme of the episode is change, and one of the things that changes is language. Just go with the ebb and flow of it, and if necessary you can skip it for now and return to it later.

Thomas,
Thanks for explaining just what is difficult about Ch.3. I think that if I know what to look for, that will make it easier. I was very proud of reading Ch.1. and now I see that it is on the easier side so I'll consider it a warm-up.

I found a very helpful online version of the text at www.joyceproject.com. It includes links to helpful things like translations, pictures and video. If you go to the Notes section and use the highlighting feature, all of the possibilities are in color. Anyways, I think I'll probably read the more difficult chapters online to aid in understanding.
Holly

Let me share a useful link too: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/conco.... You can search any word or phrase or whatever from the novel and it will tell you how many times and where exactly it appears in the text. For example I may search “stately” and the results point out three places in the novel where the word is used (in Telemachus, Aeolus and Wandering Rocks chapters).

I’ve read Ulysses twice but (1) in a rather hurry and (2) only in different Finnish translations. I do have an unannotated English copy of it too, and I just might tackle it along with this group. I’m not sure yet because it’s been less than a year I read it last time.

Hollyinnnv wrote: "I found a very helpful online version of the text at www.joyceproject.com. ."

Fantastic site! Thanks for the link. There are a few different annotated sites out there, but this is the best one I've seen so far. Great find!

Tommi wrote: "Let me share a useful link too: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/conco.... You can search any word or phrase or whatever from the novel and it will tell you how many times and where ex..."

Thanks Tommi. This concordance will come in handy because Joyce recycles phrases and images to create resonance and layers of meaning in the text. We'll see that this is very much a part of his technique. I hope you'll join us for another reading!

Thomas wrote: " It is entirely likely, and probably necessary, that these matters will be discussed here as well. It will be difficult to avoid a subject that the book's hero is fairly obsessed with!"

I just finished reading "The Picture of Dorian Grey". My friends have commented that I am choosing very sexual books lately.. I argued that it was this book group and not me!

Looks like I'm taking the plunge as I went and bought my book today. I'm a bit hesitant just from flipping through the book and reading snippets, but I guess there's no time like the present.

Thanks for the various links, everyone. They look really useful, especially the site that has the color-coded links.

I'm in, but I don't think I have ever been so nervous about a book. :p I decided to go ahead and read A Portrait, hoping it would break me in a bit. Is the style of Ulysses similar to A Portrait, or drastically more unfathomable?

I've been reading Kevin Birminghams's The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses, which is mostly about the censorship issues that the book faced when it was published, but there are also wonderful tidbits about Joyce and about the experience of reading Ulysses. At one point he says,

Hundreds of characters pass through the pages. Who are you supposed to pay attention to? What is important? What isn't? There is a funeral with a stranger in a macintosh whose name nobody knew. There are idle conversations, acrobatic theories about Hamlet and arcane political disputes. Most readers stop around page eighty, but it gets easier once you settle in and allow yourself not to know everything.

That last phrase is really good advice: Settle in and allow yourself to not to know everything. Don't be nervous. Dive in. You don't have to be an Olympic swimmer to enjoy the water.

Genni wrote: " Is the style of Ulysses similar to A Portrait, or drastically more unfathomable? ..."

To me A Portrait seems sort of muddled, as if Joyce didn't know exactly where he was going. It was a transition point between the conventional style of Dubliners and the freedom of expression that he realizes in Ulysses. I think you'll recognize some similarities to Portrait in the first few episodes, but after episode 6 he takes off for the horizon.

I'm glad to hear Thomas's comment about Portrait of the Artist. I read it for the same reason Genmi did: to try to prepare myself and to see if I was capable of doing Ulysses. Jury is still out I must confess; I skimmed large portions of it when I got lost.

That said, the sections about Stephen's perceptions of being damned and his efforts at redemption are among the most powerful things I have ever read. Just brilliant.

So, like others, I am trying Ulysses at least for a while. I can already tell from the comments, links and Thomas's guidance that it has potential to be a great experience.

I am glad to read these comments about A Portrait as this is the first time I've had a break from grad school and have time to keep up with this group and I wasn't able to finish A Portrait. I was lost. I feel a bit overmatched in this group but plan to try to participate and will definitely be reading comments to keep up.

Cori wrote: "...I feel a bit overmatched in this group..."

Cori -- please let it go. We all just read. Sometimes we may simply enjoy ourselves, sometimes we may struggle.

Zeke wrote: "That said, the sections about Stephen's perceptions of being damned and his efforts at redemption are among the most powerful things I have ever read. Just brilliant."

Yes. Loved this portion.

I've tried to read Ulysses twice before and quit both times. Each time I also paid a lot of attention to notes, comments, and scholarly "stuff". This time I may just dive in head first and read straight through, marking some things to come back to. I'll see if I can do any better with this strategy.

That's the way. It's a whiz-bang story, quite hilarious really. It needs to be appreciated that way first. The story is what justifies the rest of it.

Cori wrote: "I am glad to read these comments about A Portrait as this is the first time I've had a break from grad school and have time to keep up with this group and I wasn't able to finish A Portrait. I was ..."

Don't be intimidated. The level is not extreme, and the conversations go where ever the readers need to go. Some people are extremely well-read, but others, like me, are only beginning the journey. I can vouch that I have never felt out-of-my-depth in this group. It is really a great group to join if you are interested in serious, interesting, and broad discussions.

Patrice wrote: "Charles wrote: "That's the way. It's a whiz-bang story, quite hilarious really. It needs to be appreciated that way first. The story is what justifies the rest of it."

Does it follow the Odyssey? ..."

Maybe we will find out if/when we read it/ listen to it. Although I haven't yet....

Cori wrote: " I feel a bit overmatched in this group but plan to try to participate and will definitely be reading comments to keep up. "

We'll be very pleased to have you on the journey, but I hope you will not just read comments but will participate. Often it's the comments of those members who feel most lost that engender the best discussions, because if they are willing to ask what seem to be elementary questions they find that many others had the same question but were embarrassed to admit it. So dive on in.

Patrice wrote:

Does it follow the Odyssey? Or the myth of Icarus and Daedalus? "

Parts of the Odyssey are used as a rough framework for Ulysses, and overall themes from the Odyssey are evident in Ulysses, but Joyce doesn't strictly follow Homer. Part of the fun of reading Ulysses is trying to identify parallels to the Odyssey. Sometimes they are obvious; sometimes it's hard to see them at all.

Cori wrote: "I am glad to read these comments about A Portrait as this is the first time I've had a break from grad school and have time to keep up with this group and I wasn't able to finish A Portrait. I was ..."

Cori, I also felt a bit nervous about joining this group initially (mostly fearing that it would feel like the discussions I listened to involving friends with advanced degrees in literature). However, having read several books with this group I'm thankful to have found them. I feel that the goal of this group (although it's not what's stated on the group's home page) is to make reading the classics an enjoyable and enlightening but non-threatening process.

With regards to the relationship between A Portrait and Ulysses, would anything that happens in Ulysses be considered a spoiler for reading A Portrait? I'm not looking for specifics here, but rather just trying to get a clearer idea about the relationship between these two books in case I decide to read A Portrait later?

No. Stephen Dedalus is important to both and his issues (baggage) carry over from the Portrait to Ulysses but rather than spoil, they expand.

To my mind the concept of a spoiler with regard to Ulysses is not meaningful. The book is, for such a large book, amazingly of a piece, which points to Joyce's genius. Every encounter with it adds to the rest of it and there are always new little discoveries to make. This is why re-reading it is so delightful. It can't be spoiled by knowing what is coming.

That said, if I were to be let loose there would be something of a problem with overload. It would be like being buttonholed at a family reunion by some garrulous uncle who talks incessantly about relatives you never heard of and what your great-aunt said to cousin Minerva in ought-six which caused such a brouhaha.

That would perhaps be something like a spoiler. Perhaps it would be best after all to pay no attention to the little man behind the green curtain. Thomas will be more circumspect.

Cori wrote: "..."

I think Everyman and everyone are right: Dive in, read, enjoy, write about bits that interest you. Those bits either interested others, too, or, others will go back and have a second look because of something your write. I became a better reader because of this group, and I'm so thankful for that. The books I engage with are much more "mine" afterwards. Have fun.

Tiffany wrote: "I feel that the goal of this group (although it's not what's stated on the group's home page) is to make reading the classics an enjoyable and enlightening but non-threatening process.
"

Very well said. So well that the group description now DOES say it! (Hope you don't mind my borrowing it.)

Tiffany wrote: "With regards to the relationship between A Portrait and Ulysses, would anything that happens in Ulysses be considered a spoiler for reading A Portrait? I'm not looking for specifics here, but rathe..."

My understanding is that "spoilers" are plot-spoilers. If that is the case, then there isn't anything in Ulysses that will spoil A Portrait, unless the question of whether Stephen becomes a Jesuit priest or not is a real cliff-hanger for you.

But I have been thinking about the problem of spoilers for this discussion. The problem is this: the story of Ulysses is told entirely in the present as it unfolds in the minds of three characters, so we only get to know the past as the characters think of it in the present. For example, in the first episode Stephen remembers "Cranly's hand," which will mean something if you have read A Portrait. Otherwise you'll pass over it like thousands of other references in Ulysses that mean something but aren't immediately evident. Will revealing what "Cranly's hand" means to Stephen spoil A Portrait? I tend to doubt it.

The problem we face is that a lot of Ulysses can only be understood in reverse. It's like that Kierkegaard quote about how life must be lived forward but can only be understood backwards. It seems to me that first-time readers can really benefit from knowing a few things in advance, though this might spoil the discovery process. On the other hand, the discovery process for a book of this magnitude can take three or four readings. Or, as Joyce would have it, a lifetime.

My inclination is to relax the spoiler rule with regard to facts, but not with regard to plot elements (such as they are.) This will also allow us to bring in material from reference guides and commentaries when helpful. That said, we would still like to avoid Charles's garrulous uncle if at all possible.

Thomas: It seems to me that first-time readers can really benefit from knowing a few things in advance, though this might spoil the discovery process. On the other hand, the discovery process for a book of this magnitude can take three or four readings. Or, as Joyce would have it, a lifetime.

Not to be a wiseguy, but as I have struggled through the first several sections, as well as Portrait I am reminded of Mark Twain. He said: "It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it."

Has anyone found the ReJoyce podcasts? Very interesting and helpful, by Frank Delaney. You can get them (free, of course) through iTunes.

Gah. I started reading the first 3 pages and I just about threw the book across the room. What on earth is it about? How was any publisher persuaded to read enough of this to see that it was "good"... I am really really confused right now.

Cass wrote: "Gah. I started reading the first 3 pages and I just about threw the book across the room. What on earth is it about? ... I am really really confused right now."

I've been looking at my book for the past two days now waiting for the right time to start. I keep telling myself I need to catch up on my other books before adding another to the rotation, but I think I'm actually waiting until I'm mentally ready, whatever that is going to entail I don't know. Like Genni said up at messsage 13, I'm pretty nervous to start this one.

Cass wrote: "Gah. I started reading the first 3 pages and I just about threw the book across the room. What on earth is it about? How was any publisher persuaded to read enough of this to see that it was "good"..."

Cass,
I read the schmoop short summary and analysis before reading the chapter. It helped a lot.
Holly
http://shmoop.com/ulysses-joyce/

Laurel wrote: "Has anyone found the ReJoyce podcasts? Very interesting and helpful, by Frank Delaney. You can get them (free, of course) through iTunes."

These are fantastic! Delaney is analyzing Ulysses on a very detailed level, at times taking it sentence by sentence, and the result is extremely illuminating. The only downside is that it will take him about 20 years to finish the book.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

Everyman wrote: "Tiffany wrote: "I feel that the goal of this group (although it's not what's stated on the group's home page) is to make reading the classics an enjoyable and enlightening but non-threatening proce..."

I've been immortalized! :)

Hollyinnnv wrote: "Cass,
I read the schmoop short summary and analysis before reading the chapter. It helped a lot.
Holly
http://shmoop.com/ulysses-joyce/ "

Great idea, Holly. Ulysses is an extremely unconventional book. It's not even a novel really, so it has to be approached in a different way. It takes a while to settle into it, and having a summary up front is a good way to get started.

Thomas wrote: "Tiffany wrote: "With regards to the relationship between A Portrait and Ulysses, would anything that happens in Ulysses be considered a spoiler for reading A Portrait? I'm not looking for specifics..."

Thanks for the clarification!

Cass wrote: "Gah. I started reading the first 3 pages and I just about threw the book across the room. ..."

I'm only on the second section, but I'm reading it very lightly. By which I mean, not trying, on this first read, to dig into it very deeply, but getting a sense of the people and, particularly, the situations and settings -- I find his descriptions at times quite lovely.

Can't talk more specifically until the discussion formally starts, but reading it this way makes me wonder a bit what all the fuss is about. So far it's just about a few interesting people in an interesting situation starting out their day.

Cass wrote: "Gah. I started reading the first 3 pages and I just about threw the book across the room. What on earth is it about? How was any publisher persuaded to read enough of this to see that it was "good"..."

Well. How to respond to this? It will not be the last time someone runs into the wall. Do we refer, or do we walk through it? I know we haven't begun reading yet me try my hand at helping, to see whether I can.

Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus (Kinch) are Irish university students sharing quarters in a martello tower on the Dublin coast, with a view of the sea. Martellos were defensive forts built by the British all up and down the coast in the 19th C and thus were offensive to Irish nationalists. Buck and Stephen have an English student, Haines, living temporarily with them. When the story opens, Buck emerges from the rooms below onto the top of the tower to shave, making a mock Catholic mass out of the occasion, not entirely a joke as Stephen has issues with his Catholicism, as suggested by Buck's censure of him for not praying for his dying mother. He calls to Stephen to join him. Buck's bantering manner abates, and the two converse easily about current concerns. These first pages are littered with unexplained student talk, references to unknown people, thoughts on past matters as yet unknown to the reader, locations and local terminology which is mysterious -- as as you would expect on, in effect, hearing two people talk (or think, in Stephen's case) about matters which need no explanation to them. This creates the air of verisimilitude which will permeate the book, the sense of seeing the world, feeling it just as the character would with no mediation. This practice is one of Joyce's great contributions to 20th C story-telling.

So here we have three young men. Mulligan, acid-tongued, mocking and ironic but with a strong feeling for Stephen. There is Stephen, in the depths of a spiritual crisis, refusing to wear grey because he is in mourning, exasperating Mulligan with a jesuitical fastidiousness, apparently keen-witted (jesuit, kinch). And there is Haines, an Englishman and automatically annoying to the two Irish friends simply for that reason, giving us a hint of the political feelings which will underlay the book. There are also at work memory and the sea, important themes signaled by the heightened diction used at those points. The two friends go down again to take care of the morning's business.

How did I do? Is this the right thing to do? Ought I be doing it at all? Is it intrusive? Too directive? What will the ethic of the discussion be?

Charles wrote: "How did I do? Is this the right thing to do? Ought I be doing it at all? Is it intrusive? Too directive? What will the ethic of the discussion be? "

Great! Yes! Yes! No! No! I have no idea!

@Holly

Thank you I will. For once I don't think I even care about spoilers. I will take anything that helps me get through this (or I should say... get into this).

@Everyman
Yes, that is the approach I have taken so far. Just reading it like I would a trashy novel. Not caring too much about anyone or trying to figure out what they are talking about. This is probably a comment I should save for the discussions but if an author wants to write a book like this then he can do all the work. I.e. I leave it in the hands of the author to get the information through to me, because I am not prepared to give anymore effort than that until I see some returns (ha. So harsh of me).

@Charles.
I think I need a better idea of why I should push through. From where I sit I have just read 3 pages of rubbish. I have to keep reminding myself that everybody raves about this book... so push through. But I am desperate to know why I should bother. What do I gain from it.

Thank you for the overview. Gosh I appreciate it (and I realise I am dragging the discussion a bit forward). I got the jist of the mockery, but wasn't sure where they were (I thought they were in a lighthouse.. I don't know why) and a lot of the terminology is confusing. It is enough to encourage me to read a few more pages!

PS. I must sound exasperated... lol, I am down but not out!

The business of the martello tower may be puzzling. A Dubliner of the time would have grasped the nature of the place where Stephen and Mulligan live by its architecture and position on the coast without having to be told what it was, and of course the two friends are not going to tell us, or each other, what they know so well as to be unspoken, taken for granted. For Joyce to step aside at this point and give us a little lesson on martello towers would be a total violation of the narrative method being employed. This problem is what Thomas meant by understanding in reverse. There is no help for it other than to consult a reference book, thus spoiling the flow of the story and the sense of being inside it, or to just note it and move on.

The problem of the tower is also in contrast to larger structural issues which have a very different weight and significance. The link with the Greek story of Ulysses identifies the first parts of the book as the Telemachiad, or the search of Ulysses' son for his missing father and in aid of his beset-on mother. Without any further explication or any clues other than the barebones awareness of the Greek original we can see right away there is more at work here, of greater significance than the surface issues of language, geographical detail,and so forth which we encounter from page 1.

I positively vow not to be so offensively donnish in future. I'm only fretting, anxious to begin on the right foot (or, for left-footed people... oh, never mind).

I just found this comment on the Schmoop page:

"There has always been a big disparity between the praise that people shower on Ulysses and the real experience of reading and trying to understand it"

Well, I can relate to that!!

Cass wrote: "But I am desperate to know why I should bother. What do I gain from it."

:-( I don't know.
But it's such a lovely, magnificently human book that I'm desperate you should bother.

Skip ahead to p55 (Vintage ed) and the entrance of Leopold Bloom. Read a page or two. Bloom is fixing breakfast in bed for his wife Molly. Is that more approachable? If it is, then we need to get out the wheelbarrow and get you across the muddy first three parts. |:-) ?

Patrice wrote: "Thomas, would it help to read it aloud? With an Irish accent? ;-)
"

Listen to the RTE performance! It's magnificent.

https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-A...

Cass wrote: ""There has always been a big disparity between the praise that people shower on Ulysses and the real experience of reading and trying to understand it"
"

I think this is the case with any new form of artistic expression. Joyce wrote from his own intellectual experience, which was vast, but he didn't mean the book to be exasperating. He said after it was published, "The pity is the public will demand and find a moral in my book or worse they may take it in some serious way, and on the honor of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it."

I am hoping that we can have a little fun with it.

Thomas wrote: "Listen to the RTE performance! It's magnificent.

https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-A..."
That was even better than I expected. I listened to the first chapter (that I have read many times before) and it opened in a new light. In this audio book it is much easier to distinguish things like humour and stream of consciousness (the whispering voice). I would definitely recommend this performance to those yet unfamiliar with the novel.