105 years ago today.....
"STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned..."
Wiki has a decent capsule study of the whole thing.
Tune into Radio Woodshed starting a noon EDT to hear the whole novel read aloud, unabridged, all 27+ hours of it.
And if you think Ulysses was hard to read or listen to, imagine writing a 265,000-word novel with a vocabulary of about 30,000 words that all takes place in a single day - it only took
Joyce seven years to write it, but has taken most people much more time to read and develop an understanding of it.
Culture, beeyoches, come get some!
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5 comments:
Tried twice to read it.
Head exploded both times.
Ick.
I love "Ulysses" and re-read every few years.
Womb? Weary?
He rests. He has travelled.
Weird thing was, I struggled mightly to get through it. When I put it down I wanted to read it again.
"god is a shout in the street"
Constant - I had the same experience. It took me more than a year to read and I can plow through your average thriller in an hour or two. Dense, dense, dense text. Same thing happens to me Thomas Pynchon.
I think I discovered an alternative to the old wake and bake trick. Listen to a chapter of Ulysses in the morning before coffee - it isn't quite the same thing, but I can almost guarantee nothing more confusing, enlightening or mentally challenging will happen to you all day. It certainly put you in a different frame of mind during the morning commute.
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