I've tried at least three times but never gotten further than page 200 or so. If you have, was it worth it? Any other 'classics' that you've wanted to read but never quite finished??!!
Anyone ever finished Ulysses?
- Thread starter Shawswood
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I've got about 60 minutes into it altogether on two sittings, before giving up. I read so briskly these days that I scan sentences rather than read the individual words, and it seems impossible to do this with Ulysses - you understand each sentence individually, but just can't piece them together to figure out what is going on as a story.
I tried downloading the audiobook a few weeks ago to see if different voices from each character would make it easier to follow, but I've barely got 30 mins into that; it's just so boring
I tried downloading the audiobook a few weeks ago to see if different voices from each character would make it easier to follow, but I've barely got 30 mins into that; it's just so boring
You did well,have tried but no and Bloomsday yesterday. I didn't have any problem with Dubliners so maybe give that a go just to ease in!
Loved Dubliners, which is why I wanted to read Ulysses; my plan was that if I finished that I was gonna try Finnegans Wake for dessert, but I'm on a diet!
Loved Dubliners, which is why I wanted to read Ulysses; my plan was that if I finished that I was gonna try Finnegans Wake for dessert, but I'm on a diet!
Apparently no one has read Finnegans Wake in its entirety. It took Joyce, who is said to have had the greatest English vocabulary which has ever existed, almost 20 years to write a book which he deliberately made abstruse to the point of pretty much inventing his own dialect of English. Unless you have some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder (as Joyce probably did) which drives you to spend a decade or so of your life trying to decrypt it, is there any point in trying to read it?
Have to agree with you there, Ulysses would be more worth the effort. Joyce himself didn't want it to be taken so stiffly and seriously. Maybe we're not meant to unpick every reference to get the full picture.