The Ongoing Trials of Ulysses

Refuting Slate Magazine's Anti-Ulysses Column: "Is Ulysses Overrated? All but one chapter—and not the one you think.". By Ron Rosenbaum for Slate Magazine - Posted Thursday, April 7, 2011

Dear Reader,
Let me take a moment away from our investigation of James Joyce’s Ulysses to address something that has been stuck in my craw for a while.

In publishing the Thursday, April 7, 2011 article "Is Ulysses Overrated? All but one chapter—and not the one you think." By Ron Rosenbaum, Slate magazine committed the sin of taking an axe to one of literature’s sacred cows. In Homer's Odyssey, when the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios are slaughtered, death is the sentence levied on the perpetrators. But we live in less unsparing times, and this is of course a sacrilege of words, not carnage, so I suppose a polite textual rebuff is appropriate in this instance. In that spirit I would like to take this opportunity to address some of Mr. Rosenbaum's claims and to make a case for why James Joyce's Ulysses is worth reading... in its entirety.

Mr. Rosenbaum's general claim is that save for one episode, "Ithaca", one need not bother reading Ulysses. This suggestion is unacceptable for a couple of reasons. First off, the proposition that reading any single excerpt from any great book is a sufficient alternative to reading the entire text strikes me as irresponsible coming from someone who has devoted his life to literature. Secondly, while I am fully onboard with Mr. Rosenbaum's appreciation of the "Ithaca" episode, I must confess it took me three tries to get there. "Ithaca" is a dry read out of context, and it only comes alive within the broader context of the story. If a reader can appreciate "Ithaca" on the strength of its creativity and the style of its prose alone, I am confident that that same reader will appreciate the entire book with all of it's quirks and difficulties.

One of Mr. Rosenbaum's particular criticisms seems to be that Ulysses isn't Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, another of Joyce's masterpieces. In his words, "Portrait of the Artist... didn't need [to be] blown up to Death-Star size and overinfused with deadly portentousness." With all due respect to Mr. Rosenbaum, yes it did. What has apparently escaped Mr. Rosenbaum is the fact that Portrait and Ulysses are of a piece, the latter text written as the fulfillment of the former. The two books are best understood in relation to one another. (For a more thorough explication of this connection he might consult Charles Peake's James Joyce, the Citizen and the Artist.)

The continuation of Stephen Dedalus' story from the end of Portrait transitioning into Ulysses isn't simply a neat literary device, nor is it a vehicle of convenience, it is an absolute necessity. Stephen's is the voice which Joyce chooses to advance his own real life ambitions, dreams and aesthetic agendas. Joyce's objective was to author Ireland's national epic in order, not to recapture the past glories of Erin, but to forge its future. Ulysses is both the story of how that national epic was shaped, and the national epic itself. It is the book that authors its own existence.

The presumption made by many readers (and wannabe readers) of Ulysses is that it's a book full of literary parlor tricks, arcane allusions and complicated symbolism to no end. The belief is that Joyce was engaged in literary snobbery and smartypantism for the sake of showing everyone how superior he was to the rest of us. This is certainly what Rosenbaum would have us believe when he decries Ulysses as:

...an overwrought, overwritten epic of gratingly obvious, self-congratulatory, show-off erudition that, with its overstuffed symbolism and leaden attempts at humor... bearable only by terminal graduate students who demand we validate the time they've wasted reading it.

Well, I was not an English major, nor did my graduate studies require me to read Ulysses, yet I managed the book just fine. And so have many other readers of Ulysses. I can also tell you with certainty that the validation I received from reading Ulysses has come entirely from the revelations of the text itself, and not through the acknowledgment of others. Of course, I suppose that Mr. Rosenbaum and others of his ilk would probably say that people just pretend to enjoy the book in order to seem intelligent or well read. It is this attitude that galls me. It's quite fair to read Ulysses and hate it. I know people who have done just that. But it is arrogant to presume that just because he didn't understand the book or enjoy the reading that no else could possibly understand or enjoy it either.

But I am not here to bury Mr. Rosenbaum, but to praise Ulysses. So I should get on with the business of offering my defense and explaining why the book is actually worth reading.

Contrary to the views of Mr. Rosenbaum, there are many things about about Ulysses that makes it worthy of the effort. If you like beautifully written prose look no further. Even Mr. Rosenbaum must acknowledge that Joyce was a fantastic craftsman of the written word and he himself attests to the virtuosity to be found in Ulysses. But for me this is the least valuable aspect ofUlysses.

Ulysses is also a book that makes learners of its readers. If you take an interest in trying to make sense of Joyce's thicket of references, symbols, and allusions you will naturally progress from becoming a passive recipient of information to an active seeker of knowledge. From personal experience I can say that my knowledge of Shakespeare has improved immensely after reading Ulysses. As a Shakespearean scholar Mr. Rosenbaum should appreciate that. Plus, owing to Ulysses, I have delved into readings on the occult to unravel the Eastern philosophical mysteries that populate the text and shape the story, discovered the poetry and art of William Blake, become better versed in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (and thereby Greek mythology in general), revisited Dante's Inferno, and discovered the intricate historical evolution of the Christian Trinitarian doctrine adding the names Arius, Sabellieus, and Photius to my lexicon of random knowledge.

These are only a few of the intellectual gains I have received by reading Ulysses. As a graduate of an advanced degree program in Liberal Studies, the multidisciplinary approach of Joyce's Ulysses embodies everything in learning that I hold dear. If I had my way, every Liberal Studies program would be required to teach a course on Ulysses.
But as much as I value the learning aspect of Ulysses, there is another aspect of the book which holds even higher value for the reader, and it is on this basis above all others that I endorse Ulysses.

Ulysses is not just a learner's book but also a thinker's book. It is reading for diligent, curious people who want more than mere entertainment for their reading experience. One needn't be a "terminal graduate student", literary scholar, or bonafide genius to enjoy Ulysses. What you absolutely must be is an advanced reader (in the John Mortimer sense of the word). Ulysses isn't simply about reading, it is about using your brain. To understand Ulysses is to conjecture, ask questions, and hypothesize. In short it is an exercise in critical thinking, and this is the supreme value of the book.

Ulysses is Modern Art in the truest sense. Concerned about the relationship between art and society, it is the story of the redemptive powers of aesthetics, and the belief that art can change the world for the better. "To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated consciousness of my race" is not just a sweet literary catchphrase, it is a mission statement. When Joyce wrote Ulysses he was on a mission to fix a broken country and to give it voice and legitimacy in the world. He believed that his means were much more efficacious (and humane) than the political bluster or military might chosen by his peers and elders. When Stephen Dedalus chooses "silence, exile, and cunning" as his only weapons, he is speaking on behalf of Joyce himself. These are the means which Joyce employed to realize his goals, and Ulysses is the tangible fulfillment of his lifelong objective of employing art as savior. With Ulysses Joyce became Ireland's national voice, and gave the world a work of art that is, nearly a century later, still considered to sit among the greatest writing ever produced.

For us as readers the value of this modernist masterpiece is in the work that it requires of us. What makes Ulysses worth reading is that we learn a great deal through the process of trying to come to terms with what the text might mean. I have spent time and effort to cobble together my own ideas and theories about what this book is about. I have done this with Ulysses as opposed to other texts because few other texts have demanded this of me. This is not to say that other books cannot be probed for deeper meaning. There are any number of great works of literature from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to Morrison's Beloved that can provide the hungry reader with a bounty of literary nutrition. But the style of the writing of these texts don't demand it. You can just as easily read them once, enjoy them sufficiently, understand them on a superficial level, and move on satisfied with your yield. Ulysses does not afford this luxury, because you're either in or you’re out with Ulysses. Joyce gives the reader nothing for free, save for beautiful prose. Everything else must be earned.

The fact that Ulysses is not an effortless read, the fact that it is obscure, the fact that it's erudite are all of the things that make it so incredibly worthwhile. This book isn't for everyone. There are even those who might go so far as to argue that it is only for the very few. But, just because Ulysses isn't for everyone doesn't mean that it isn't for anyone. And it doesn't mean it isn't worth reading.

At this point you might be wondering if I have come to bury Ulysses or praise it? Time? Effort? Work!? This doesn't sound like a picnic in the park. I assure you that I consider these requirements selling points, with a caveat: Ulysses may not be for you. My goal here is not to convince you that Ulysses is a 'must read before you die' book. It's not. And I don't want to give the impression it is a good book for everyone to read. It isn't. I am simply making the case that Ulysses is worth reading, and that despite the cheap shots that it sometimes takes from its detractors, there is plenty to redeem this masterpiece. You don't have to agree that it is the greatest novel of the twentieth-century, but it's hard to imagine a reasonable person categorically dismissing Ulysses as not worthy of being read.

The bottom line: if you like challenges, if you like mysteries, if you like great prose writing, if you don't mind learning something, and if your ego can handle the idea that you don't know everything, then Ulysses is definitely worth your time and effort. If the above criteria do not apply to you and you simply want entertainment and excitement in your reading, then grab a copy of The Da Vinci Code and godspeed.