Ulysses: Yea or Nay?

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by John F

In Virginia's review, who is Tom?

Google says it’s T S Eliot.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by John F

In Virginia's review, who is Tom?

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Google says it’s T S Eliot.

That was my take too.

But what stands out for me from Woolf's review is what I imagine many of Joyce's contemporaries felt. Seems some of her objections were more about breeding and social class than anything else. Her private thoughts on the novel were even more pretentious and snobbish, it seems. Ironic, since those are the exact things many want to attribute to Ulysses (and/or Ulysses proponents). **Shrug**

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That was my take too.

But what stands out for me from Woolf's review is what I imagine many of Joyce's contemporaries felt. Seems some of her objections were more about breeding and social class than anything else. Her private thoughts on the novel were even more pretentious and snobbish, it seems. Ironic, since those are the exact things many want to attribute to Ulysses (and/or Ulysses proponents). **Shrug**

I wonder to what extent Woolf might have been resentful at having been pipped at the post. Stream of consciousness as a technique was out there, but Ulysses would prove to be the apotheosis, rendering such Woolfish novels as Mrs. Dalloway as in a school and not groundbreaking. And to what extent was she influenced by Joyce at that?

Let’s also not overlook the sneer at Eliot, as well, who was, y’know, American and therefore ill-bred and low class by definition, as were Irish not of the ascendancy.

[Pajamaman]

She said of Eliot:

“Pale, marmoreal Eliot was there last week, like a chapped office boy on a high stool, with a cold in his head, until he warms a little, which he did.”

[Pajamaman]

It seems Woolf was primarily a horrid snob, and a racist only secondarily. Eliot was of the monied classes, and I don't think "yanks" from that "great colony" were particularly opposed (though America was seen as a wild and often lawless place, which was true). Whereas Joyce was working class. The horror. He was also Irish, and the combination would certainly have qualified him as a "mick", a group universally biased against in all levels of English society.

Wasn't Woolf involved with Bloomsbury who were all banging each other? I supposed they were doing opium and coke too. Woohoo! Sadly none of this translated into books that I find tolerable.

Now, Eliot, that's another matter...it seems even the Americans are capable of great works, on occasion Mind you, Eliot saw the light and became a British citizen. I heard a recording of him reading poetry, and he demonstrated a polite British accent. Pound should have move to London.

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.

It took an American-born to sum up London commuting exactly.

[Pajamaman]

Here's the rest of her charming snipes:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a...=pocket-newtab

[Pajamaman]

The poll might have included the option "I read Dubliners, couldn't see what all the fuss was about, so moved on."

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Here's the rest of her charming snipes:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a...=pocket-newtab

Thanks for the link. She's not someone I would like to meet, but then being another colonial, she wouldn't want to meet me either! At least she seems to have kept her insults to the privacy of her diary.

So there are five of us prepared to have a go at Ulysses. Are we going to do so?

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Thanks for the link. She's not someone I would like to meet, but then being another colonial, she wouldn't want to meet me either! At least she seems to have kept her insults to the privacy of her diary.

So there are five of us prepared to have a go at Ulysses. Are we going to do so?

I don't think she had anything against colonial's per se; just the one's that had to work for a living. Horrid oiks.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I don't think she had anything against colonial's per se; just the one's that had to work for a living. Horrid oiks.

[mbrisco]

If the Guardian recommended it, it's good to think twice and handle cautiously. And yet, I'd still like to get around to it someday if I find myself highly unemployed. Has to be better than watching TV.

[ableal]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

It took an American-born to sum up London commuting exactly.

You're on a roll here

Coincidentally, one day around 5 pm I happened to be crossing London Bridge, walking north, and the flow of clerks rushing south as so many stampeding sheep somewhat startled me.

Many moons ago, I postponed Proust for my retirement, cannot do less for Joyce. They'll have to wait for me to get a round tuit (freely available on the internet, I heard).

[Apache]

Originally Posted by ableal

You're on a roll here

Coincidentally, one day around 5 pm I happened to be crossing London Bridge, walking north, and the flow of clerks rushing south as so many stampeding sheep somewhat startled me.

Many moons ago, I postponed Proust for my retirement, cannot do less for Joyce. They'll have to wait for me to get a round tuit (freely available on the internet, I heard).

The only people I find selling round tuit's are always procrastinators.
Apache

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by ableal

You're on a roll here

Coincidentally, one day around 5 pm I happened to be crossing London Bridge, walking north, and the flow of clerks rushing south as so many stampeding sheep somewhat startled me.

Many moons ago, I postponed Proust for my retirement, cannot do less for Joyce. They'll have to wait for me to get a round tuit (freely available on the internet, I heard).

Now there's a thought: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. Yay or Nay? And if you're really hard, read it in French. For what it's worth, his prose is sublime, but he doesn't do plot

[GERGE]

Ulysses is one of the greatest books I have read.

I remember the first time I encountered Ulysses. I was in high school; it was years and decades ago and the girl sitting next to me, who was my absolute best friend back then, bought its very recent and very newishly popular Turkish translation. Being very bored of calculus, I tried to read Ulysses in class instead. It was a terrible experience, so harrowing that it felt like class took even longer than what calculus would have made me feel, which I shared with the translator later, not knowing who he was. Having trouble believing such a well-regarded book could be so terrible, I stopped eating lunch at school for a week to hide some money in my wallet and when enough was hoarded, I ordered an English version of Ulysses and promptly started waiting 2 months for the delivery. We didn't have e-books back in those days of yore, therefore wanting to read in languages not native equaled either waiting for weeks or paying more than the book for shipping. Ulysses arrived in time. It was sublime. It made me cry. It made me lose my sense of self. It wasn't written in my language, so I could easily lean back from the everyday language and thought patterns I was using and look at it as a marvel of linguistic engineering, it was as if I were traveling through an alien country and words constituted an architectural festival just for my mind. It was as if I was learning to think again in a solipsistic world. The people in Ulysses were me, the environment in Ulysses was all around me. It was consummate.

That said, I really like Ulysses. You should read it.