Bloom's Day

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:46 pm

In celebration, I shall visit the men's room, then write about it.

And, in commeration of my own personal experience of "Ulysses," you will all take an incomplete in a class because you realize you can't possibly finish my masterpiece (hey, I was making a #$@#$ movie!) and then, the next quarter, you'll only finish half of what I write.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:44 pm

Happy Bloom's Day to you too. Hope you had a gorgonzola sandwich to celebrate.

alexv · Post by **alexv** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:08 am

On the 16th day of blessed June, to honor Stanislaus' tormentor, I developed a "cloacal" obsession, which, happily, passed.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 11:29 am

And it is homage to how much I got out of the book that I understand neither of your references...but maybe if I'd gotten to Molly Bloom's big "yes" it would have stuck with me better.

(It should be said that I nevertheless really, really love James Joyce. "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is my favorite coming of age by far, and "Dubliners" has never left me since the first time I was assigned...I mean read it...in high school. My memories of "Ulysses" are vague, but fond....)

alexv · Post by **alexv** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 12:06 pm

Bobster, Stanislau was Joyce's devoted long-suffering brother, and the "cloacal" reference comes I think from H. G. Wells or someone like that, commenting on Joyce's potty obsession. I was struck by the "cloacal" reference, since in spanish "cloaca" means sewer. I had never come across the word in English.

Like you, I never finished Ulysses, but I just finished reading Ellman's biography of Joyce, which is a great book, and is the source of my comments.

I liked Portrait, but Dubliners is the only Joyce book I can say I truly enjoyed the whole way through. Given your cinematic bent, you might be interested in the following tidbit picked up from Ellman's book: Joyce at one point got involved with some Italian backers in bringing the first movie theater to Dublin. They actually pulled it off, but it failed.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 1:31 pm

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 7:12 pm

Come, come, Moodster.

Bloom had a gorgonzola sandwich for his lunch in Davy Byrne's pub, which you can still visit today, though it ain't exactly Joycean in feel now.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 8:19 pm

I'll read it again. Like with cigarettes. If I live to be 90, I'll take it back up.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:32 pm

"Ulysses" and "Remembrance of Things Past" and "War and Peace" the great trilogy of "I'll get them one day" books.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 10:06 am

bobster wrote:"Ulysses" and "Remembrance of Things Past" and "War and Peace" the great trilogy of "I'll get them one day" books.

For Proust, it might help if you take it on slowly. I think "Swann in Love" can be found as a standalone, and it's only about 150 pages. Then if you like that, you can read "Swann's Way." And that's all anyone ever reads anyway...

Kissy Monster · Post by **Kissy Monster** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:09 am

Mood Swung, this thread is clearly for people who did NOT read Ulysses. Since you are the only one to have read the book cover to cover please refrain from commenting. Bobular, Otis Westlinghouse, and Alex X do not allow the author to influence their verdicts. Even Ellman only read the Cliff's Notes! Please learn from their example.

Miss Buenos Aires you have read 'Swann's Way' so you are on thin ice too.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:13 pm

Not quite, oh newcomer of curiousness. I too read it cover to cover. Actually, MS can't claim to have done that, she's saving it up. What's your usual name, then?

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:26 am

oh yes I said yes, MS can claim to have read it cover to cover, Mr. Westinghouse.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:08 pm

Respect, Ms Swung!

Kissy Monster · Post by **Kissy Monster** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:18 pm

Otis to Kissy:

Come, come o newcomer of curiousness
Why visit on us all your furiousness?

MS does deserve respect for reading that enormous and enormously difficult book. You read it in college probably but although you initiated the idea of reading and discussing it on this board you bowed out.

It seems to me that there is a cult around James Joyce like that of no other writer--endless lore from his books will be discussed along with biographical details and curios, yet few have a desire to wade through Ulysses. Even the most literary-minded members of this board like you and Alex the Fifth resisted reading or rereading it, and I think there is a reason for that. I found it the worst reading experiece of my entire life.

Mr. Westlinghouse (as you can see I read Complicated Shadows too!) to answer your question, my name is Kissy Monster and my dream is that a certain goddess in a pants-suit, wearing lots and lots of red red lipstick, will someday say in a brassy voice "I do"; and thus consent to become Mrs. Kissy O'Monster.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:14 am

I think SMM is wrong, you are someone else. I reckon I know who, but I'm not saying.

I'll reread Ulysses in time, it's just that that wasn't the time. I often revisit it, but cover to cover in one burst is hard. These days I take three weeks or more to read a light 250-pager. It's hopeless.

How anyone with a love of literature (assuming that's in your pantry) could describe Ulysses as the worst reading experience of his, sorry, their life is beyond me, though it depends on the angle you're coming from with 'worst'. From a formal/linguistic perspective, it's remarkable, and there is much great comedy and sheer beauty. 'Cult' is an odd word. Would you say there's a cult around Shakespeare or Beethoven or Velazquez or Dylan?

Meadowmeal · Post by **Meadowmeal** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:52 am

bobster wrote:"Ulysses" and "Remembrance of Things Past" and "War and Peace" the great trilogy of "I'll get them one day" books.

War And Peace is not by far as impenetrable as the other two; I'd rather put "The Man Without Qualities" there (I started reading it in German, quite hubristicly)

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 6:34 am

The plot thickens... how appropriate to this thread...

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:53 am

Meadowmeal wrote:
bobster wrote:"Ulysses" and "Remembrance of Things Past" and "War and Peace" the great trilogy of "I'll get them one day" books.
War And Peace is not by far as impenetrable as the other two

Really? I DID read all of "Anna Karenina" and found it a pretty dang good melodrama (okay, with a bit of gratiutious philosophizing). On the difficulty scale, I'd say it's a lot easier than, say, a lot of Henry James.

alexv · Post by **alexv** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 12:42 pm

Alex, El Quinto checking in for literary dueling duty, sir!!

Must admit that when it comes to Tolstoy, I read all of Anna K, even the melodramatic bits, and did not skip a word. This was, admittedly, twenty years ago. Have not yearned for a re-read, but Kissy just may drive me to it. War and Peace, is a book that I divide into two parts: those I read with great interest and joy (twenty years ago) and those I skimmed (the war parts and the history stuff which I found a royal waste of time). Joyce, you know about already.

But I have to say, having tried, repeatedly, to read Ulysses, that I find that book to be more impossible than W&P and even Proust. When you read Ellman's biography of Joyce you get a sense that the man was a genius, whose deep psychological problems (principally an inability to let a perceived slight go by, and a pathological need to use literature as his avenging angel) led him to create perversely difficult books. Tolstoy and Proust, in my humble opinion, did not set out to create impenetrable masterpieces. Their books reflect their quirks, but are not dominated by them. Joyce, I think, intended Ulysses and Finnegans Wake to be books that could be enjoyed/understood only by a limited few. I challenge anyone to read Ulysses, without using a Joyce-penned crib sheet, and figure out exactly what the hell he was trying to do. So what are you left with: an incredibly long book, filled, admittedly, with beatiful passages, amid pages and pages of impenetrable prose and meandering plot lines. End result: a limited number of specialists and literary super fanatics take the time to wade through the whole thing using reserarch aids, and make it through to the end with some degree of satisfaction. The average reader passes, and most literary minded fellows like El Quinto, skim the thing and go on to Dubliners.

But, so far these are all hard great books. How about an incredibly enjoyable great book, the anti-Ulysses, written by a butterfly-loving, russian aristocrat with a penchant for Pushkin: Lo-li-ta. Now there's a book I never tire of. Pretty good movie too.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:33 pm

Not being accessible to the average reader doesn't make it less great as Literature, nor does it enhance it as the same thing, nor does accessibility make for lesser literature. I don't think you need a crib-sheet to get your head around most of it. You don't even need to know about Homer. A reasonable degree of Western education, sure, but that applies to a huge amount of revered art. I love Joyce because of his incredible trajectory from the very controlled realism of Dubliners through to the unbelievable experiment of Finnegan's Wake. I'll never be able to read the latter, nor do I want to (actually, that's not true, I'd love to be able to, but life is too short, for me it's enough to hear Joyce reading the Anna Livia Plurabelle section to get an idea of the magic of it), but it's an amazing experiment in pushing language beyond any imaginable boundaries. I love that it exists. I love that James Joyce was writing it as the follow-up to Ulysses at a time when Europe was being ripped apart. Ulysses is the crossroads between the two camps - a mixture of the accessible and inaccessible. It's a shame that discussion of it always seems to focus on the latter.

alexv · Post by **alexv** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:00 pm

Otis, with all due respect, if you don't know Homer, you miss the essence of the story. The average educated reader (and I mean well-educated) will get lost in this book. Parts of it are incomprehensible (intentionally). Parts of it are sublime. Is it a great book? Yes. Is it an accident that most educated people can't get through it? No. Is it their fault? No. This is a work of art, like many "modern" works of art of the 20th century, which was meant to appeal to a select, and I mean select, few. Greatness limited to a select few? Perverse.