Ulysses (Gabler Edition)

fantastically written, but astonishingly pretentious.

Health warning! You will find yourself quoting bits to yourself forever more.

It will change your life and blow you away.

Confusing, but great book. Joyce is a talented writer (duh.)

So hard to read!!!

More beautiful quotables than any other book."Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak." "A corpse of meat gone bad. Well and what is cheese? Corpse of milk..""Language of flowers. They like it because no-one can hear."

James Joyce spent seven years writing this novel and claimed that the critics would be arguing about it for decades to come. How right he was! The novel follows two characters, Stephen Dedalus (from Joyce’s earlier novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, in their perambulations around Dublin on one June day in 1904. The two unwittingly reenact episodes from...more

James Joyce spent seven years writing this novel and claimed that the critics would be arguing about it for decades to come. How right he was! The novel follows two characters, Stephen Dedalus (from Joyce’s earlier novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, in their perambulations around Dublin on one June day in 1904. The two unwittingly reenact episodes from Homer’s Odyssey in their travels and interactions with other Dubliners. The book is divided into eighteen chapters, the first ten (or so) of which are written in what critics call “free, indirect discourse,” meaning a seamless combination of stream-of-consciousness, direct dialogue, and third-person narration. The last eight chapters are each written in a completely different style, including naturalistic description, impressionist psychological drama, and a catechism. The book is woven with many themes, including the nature of consciousness, nationalism, sexuality, family, fiction-writing, and intertextuality. It’s a tough read and a stylistic tour-de-force, but it’s worth it. Ulysses is not a book you read; it is a book you reread. By the way, this edition, the corrected text edited by Hans Walter Gabler, is currently the definitive text.   hide

Worth the slog. I wouldn't have slogged if I didn't have to for class but I was well rewarded. Your brain will never shut down.

James Joyce is my favorite author, and this is my favorite book by him. I have yet to read Finnegan's Wake.