Ulysses reminds me of this time in a psychology class when the professor read writings by schizophrenics and writings by famous authors and we were supposed to guess who wrote what. By and large, the crazy shit was by the famous authors. I have no argument with stream-of-consciousness writing and I don’t even mind difficult literature that makes me work hard, but I’m beginning to form an anti-Joyce argument, which I’m not sure I can quite articulate just yet. The basis of it is something along the lines of whythefuck, though. I’m okay with the story, but I am getting increasingly irritated with the writing itself. While I’m still reserving judgment until I’m finished, and there are moments when I kind of like the book, for the most part I can’t help but think that it’s not as brilliant as people keep telling me it is.
Yeah… never read it. Never tried. I’ve been curious about it for some time, but your efforts might very well be saving poor souls like me from going down that path. You are saintly. (But keep plugging!)
Posted by patrick | November 16, 2008, 9:28 pmyeah, what he said. (re: saintliness)
the more we’re told we have to read ‘Ulysses’, the more people like me leave the country.
Posted by judih | November 16, 2008, 11:00 pmNote to self: don’t read Ulysses. Thanks for taking the hit on this one.
Posted by SA | November 17, 2008, 12:25 amThen I’m waiting impatiently for the moment when you’re done with the book and ready to share your anti-Joyce argument.
Posted by fabulitas | November 17, 2008, 8:54 amWell you have inspired me at the very least to take the step of downloading the book. Yes, you can download the book for free. You can also listen to it if you so choose as they have streaming audio of the entire book being read.
In the meantime I was thinking of maybe just stealing your words? Would that be okay with you? Maybe just starting a blog of some kind where I didn’t have to write anything at all – just the epitome of laziness. I mean, why write, when I can just steal? Who knew? (LOL)
Posted by mister_pj | November 17, 2008, 10:51 am