Blogging Ulysses

Ulysses for the Rest of Us
Blogging Ulysses

According to an August 2010 article by Ben Parr Google has determined that there are nearly 130 billion books in the world. Just to be clear, that's individual titles. With so many books to choose from why in the world would anyone decide to read James Joyce's Ulysses? After all, one could instead simply pick up a conventional novel and wile away the hours, undisturbed by Joyce's abstrusiousities (such as tripping over words like abstrusiousities, which, by the way, isn't even a real word). And many, many people do exactly that. The sad truth is that not many people read Ulysses.

But instead of asking why anyone would choose to read Ulysses, I would ask why does anyone choose to read a novel at all? (I mean, we have TV, right? What do we need with novels?) Curious, I googled the question hoping to find some objective data via a poll or survey that could answer the question, but apparently none exists. You would think that someone would have tackled this question already. (A future project for me I suppose...). Instead I found the next best thing, real people like you and me giving honest (if lean and unlovely) answers to the question.

My own assumption is that most people read novels for pleasure or escape. In short, they want to be entertained, and if this is true then this would likely eliminate Ulysses from the reading list of most people. Fairly or unfairly Ulysses has a reputation for being a book that requires work, and wouldn't you know it, most people don't find work entertaining*. Go figure. And yet there are an intrepid few who still grab the greatest novel ever written off of the shelf and give it the old college try.

*mp X w < e: (where mp is most people; w is work; and e is entertainment)

I suppose one undertakes the task of reading Ulysses when one has gotten bored with the conventional novel and is looking for a challenge, or when one is in the mood for an intellectual flogging. There is, I think, a little bit of literary S&M involved in reading Ulysses (heavy on the M)*. Apart from those who have read Ulysses because they were forced to, e.g. for a class or for their graduate thesis or doctoral dissertation, or as part of some enhanced interrogation technique -- oh wait... that's Finnegans Wake -- many people read the book out of curiosity, to find out firsthand what all the fuss is about. Others do it because they are dedicated to classic literature or modernist literature and feel that it is a must to round out their reading experience. And for others still, it represents a feather in their thinking cap -- there's a bit of intellectual cache that comes with reading Ulysses. People look at you differently. Honestly, they do!

*you might notice a lot of gallows humor directed at Ulysses, it's difficulty or how painful it is to get through. Keep in mind that these are just jokes (mostly) meant to lighten the mood and mentally prepare you for a rough but fun ride. Think whitewater kayaking on a stormy day, or skydiving with an ACME parachute.


There are lots of different reasons to read Joyce's seminal work, and I suppose that for as many reasons as one might read Ulysses, there are equally as many reasons to write a blog about it.

My primary reason for blogging Ulysses is to create a navigation tool that first time readers and nonspecialists can reference to make the reading experience slightly less painful. Of course, pain free Ulysses wouldn't be Ulysses at all, so my goal is only to alleviate the desire to abandon the book after the first three episodes (or for some the first three pages). The hope is that Ulysses for the Rest of Us can serves less as a guide than a compass for those having trouble making sense of the text. One of the challenges of discussing Ulysses in any fashion, blog, discussion group, class etc is to resist the urge to interpret the text for the reader, as though you have the answers to the myriad mysteries Joyce has crafted in this tome. There are a mountain of guides out there that serve the purpose of interpreting Ulysses for the reader, written by folks infinitely more studied on the subject of James Joyce and Ulysses than I am. But if you're looking for some tips that'll point you in the right direction, or some observations that might make things a little clearer, then this blog should be able to help you.


I have read Ulysses enough times to feel comfortable with the text, and I have a good idea of what's going on in the story, but I hold no absolute truths regarding what Joyce was ultimately trying to say. In other words don't look to this blog to tell you what all this mumbo jumbo means (though I do have my theories). Having said that , if it seems absolutely necessary, I might break my general rule of noninterference -- my prime directive as it were -- and offer a hint on the interpretation of some particular abstrusiosity. Maybe. (Let's hope it doesn't come to that).

While we're on the subject of what I know, or don't know, or like to think that I know about Ulysses, let me give you my (admittedly) modest Ulysses bona fides. I have read the book, start to finish, about a half dozen times; taken one graduate level class on the book; and led one and a half book groups for new readers of Ulysses. Otherwise I revisit individual episodes with regularity and have researched the book off and on these last nine years. I also wrote a trio of articles about Ulysses in 2008.

So, any questions? No? Okay then, tally ho and away we go. And oh yeah, Happy Bloomsday!

cg
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