Reading James Joyce's ULYSSES for the first time

So, where did I last leave off reading?

2007-11-06T15:53:00.000+08:00

Okay, so in Singapore I bought another masterpiece I haven't read, a great thick slab of a book called MOBY DICK.

So, before I start in on that one, I thought that I had better make one more serious, genuine, contrite, purposeful effort to finish ULYSSES.

However, I am not sure where I last left off reading.

Could it be this page?

Or this one?

Or maybe this was the page I last read?

I mean, there are pages and pages and pages of this dense text and, sigh, to be true to my vow (which is already broken, but that's no excuse not to read ULYSSES cover to cover), I suppose I have to start all over again at the beginning of this section, which is like starting Mount Everest again from, say, the Katmandu airport.

My copy of ULYSSES has moved to a different address.

2007-05-13T16:10:00.000+08:00

It used to be by the toilet.

Now it's actually upon (and not beside) a stool in my writing office.

When I get tired of writing, I lay down on the sofa with ULYSSES and...snooze.

Why I couldn't read ULYSSES today

2007-04-21T15:10:00.000+08:00

I honestly had every intention.

As you know, though, from a previous post, I reserve my ULYSSES reading for a certain time and sitting postion.

But look who was there today. There is no way I can read ULYSSES with a cat looking on over my shoulder and reading as well (I am sure that ULYSSES is the one book thats cats are capable of reading--dogs read THE DA VINCI CODE). Yes, I know, I could have removed the cat, but I believe that waking a sleeping cat brings bad luck.

ULYSSES and hepatitis

2007-03-12T17:27:00.000+08:00

I'm slowly recovering from acute hepatitis. I'd rather have malaria, where you get sicker, but better much quicker.

So, with hep, one is often prone in bed, lots of time on one's jaundiced hands to read.

Well,I can tell you, ULYSSES is not a novel for the sickbed. The effort of reading that deathless prose seemed to bring one closer yet to death's door.

(You know, if Dante had written his INFERNO *after* the publication of ULYSSES, he might have included a particularly fiendish torment...)

The Wifeian thought on the Bloomian thought

2007-02-13T20:06:00.000+08:00

This morning, waking up in bed, I quoted to my wife the Bloomian thought, "Always see a man's weakness in his wife." I kissed her and told her, "You have no weakness, so that makes me invincible."

She frowned. "You dolt, that's not what that means. What he is saying is that a man's weakness is evident in how he treats his wife."

I thought about that, hands clasped behind head. "Well, even so, I'm still invincible."

She sat up. "Is that so? Then what day is tomorrow?"

Oh-oh. I thought quickly, flipping through important dates I'd forgotten in the past. Not her birthday, that is September 17, or is it 19? Sort of dyslexic there. and not our anniversary, although which anniversary could be problematic, the one sometime in July when we had the home religious service or the one in September, at the civilian affairs office (actually, I think that one is in August.) But February? Apart from my birthday on the 24th? However, being the invincible husband type, I chuckled and said, "Do you think I'd really forget? You'll just have to wait and see."

So, I'd better go through our files and records of births, deaths, weddings, and maybe even Google.

A Bloomian thought

2007-02-12T18:31:00.000+08:00

This is just after the scene when our Bloom is jollified by young Miss Gerty displaying her knickers, knowing she's being watched by the aforementioned gent. Totally un-PC in this day and age, but that so far has been one of the novel's wonderfully readable scenes.

Afterwards, Bloom gets to his Bloomian musings and tosses out this thought: "Always see a fellow's weak point in his wife."

If that is so, then I'm invincible.

I'm back to reading ULYSSES again!

2007-02-10T15:23:00.000+08:00

Thanks to much encouragement, pats on the back, and weird dreams, I'm back to reading ULYSSES. But only at certain times.

Broken vow pay back

2007-01-29T18:39:00.000+08:00

He With the Glasses and Eyepatch is starting to pay me back for not fulfulling my vow to read ULYSSES in a year.

Publisher's Weekly just gave THE KILLING SEA an enema of a review.

I had a midnight visitor...

2007-01-24T18:19:00.000+08:00

Late last night, something woke me up. Not a sound, for three temples were in full pre-dawn wail, (when I was a child, sometimes at night I would hear a soft and distant gamelan, mysterious and alluring--these days it's all loudspeakers). I lay awake in the warm darkness. And then I smelled it. Something cooking in the kitchen.

I padded down the stairs. There before the stove stood a spry old gentleman, peering through round glasses at a pan on the flame. "I do love a good kidney," he said. He had an accent soft as imported soap. "The faint tang of urine makes me particularly peckish. Have you any bread?"

I wordlessly brought out the loaf and butter. He lavishly spread a slice and then pointed the knife at me. "You vowed to read ULYSSES in a year, did you not?"

I nodded. He cackled. "The more fool you. Nonetheless, vows broken are the devil's delight. I've managed to secure an extension for you."

At last I found my voice. "For how long?"

A cut of kidney on the bread, a relish of bite. He chewed with reverence and then spoke. "As long as you wish. However, all your novels will be remaindered unless you fulfill your vow."

And then I woke up. It had all been a dream.

Except when I went down at dawn for my coffee, a pan was upon the stove, rimmed with oil, and emitting a faint stench of kidney and urine...

I'll save it for my New Year's Resolution

2006-11-18T09:30:00.000+08:00

I'm off to Germany in a few hours to attend an academic conference.

This will be the closest I've ever gotten to James Joyce territory.

I trust this will inspire me to continue reading. I honestly have every intention to do so.

But maybe I'll save that for my New Year's Resolution.

In the meantime, THE KILLING SEA: A Novel of the Tsunami that Stunned the World" got a favorable review from Kirkus, which you can read about here.

Egads! I have to START ALL OVER AGAIN

2006-10-19T14:59:00.000+08:00

I broke my vow to read ULYSSES in a year.

I have to start all over again, else cannibals will hunt me down and eat with Bloomian relish my grilled testicles.

Haven't read a word of ULYSSES in months

2006-09-16T09:43:00.000+08:00

Life, you know.

It's short.

Plus lately it's been filled up with things like Las Vegas. (My wife attended a trade show and I tagged along).

Too bad Joyce didn't live long enough to send Leopold Bloom on a trip to Vegas. It's the most stream-of-conciousness place I've ever been too.

The ULYSSES Code

2006-07-23T14:35:00.000+08:00

I'm starting to get this sense, as I plow on through the pages of ULYSSES, that thre's something else to this novel, that there's another, hidden message.

I'm even starting to have my doubts that James Joyce, or any mortal man, could have written this tome.

Consider the clues to be found in "ULYSSES James Joyce":

MESCAL JESUS YES JOY

JESUS SLY SAME JOYCE

Very suggestive, these clues.

Synopsis of ULYSSES

2006-07-13T15:24:00.000+08:00

Leopold Bloom: Blazes Boylan. He. My wife he. This very afternoon, he. My house, he. She. As I cruise around town. Must remember that soap. Kidneys taste of urine. Not a damn thing can I do about it. Yet her, my love still. You know.

Stephen Dedalus: My father is the meanest old man who ever lived, the meanest old man and oh my beloved mother died so tragic and oh curse the Church. Oh, hello, Leopold, how's it going and aren't I the most precious young man you ever did meet while strolling the streets of Dublin.

Molly Bloom: Yes, yes, oh yes.

(Note, I'm only on page 387 out of 783, so the above is adapted from a discussion in Jane Smiley's 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A NOVEL and wearing your eyeballs out if said novel happens to be ULYSSES)

The best time to read ULYSSES

2006-07-13T11:53:00.000+08:00

Apart from when athwart the feckle throne and voiding alimentary products, that is.

When waiting for loooong Internet downloads to finish. Such as graphic novels. You know, easy to read stuff.

A momentous moment

2006-06-18T15:01:00.000+08:00

Folks, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for…after weeks of anticipation…the morning's agonizing wait...I've just received word Richard Lewis will any moment now enter...yes, the door opens and it's Richard, it's definitely Richard this time. He idles towards the desk...wait, is he going to the bathroom? Don't tell me he's going to...no, no he's definitely approaching the desk, he stops and looks down at the book, and he’s…and he’s, he’s picking it up, he’s definitely picking it up. Not only that he’s actually flipping the pages! He’s flipping the pages, folks! Oh the tension is nearly unbearable and yes yes! he’s doing it, folks, he’s actually doing it, HE’S READING ULYSSES!!! HE’S READING ULYSSES!!!!!

2006-06-18T10:56:00.000+08:00

My new novel. I promise you there isn't a single word in the text to confuse anybody, unless inadvertently. After all, I'm no genius like JJ.

Long time no post

2006-06-08T14:59:00.000+08:00

Long time no read, either.

Me forgot how.

What, word?

Nay.

urk

(ping)!

((gone))

†

This morning's meditational

2006-05-30T15:03:00.000+08:00

In addition to ULYSSES, am also reading the Bible through in a year. I usually read my Bible quota first thing in the morning as I sip my first cup of wake-up coffee.

Yesterday I had searched for my copy for ULYSSES, which I found and bookmarked to my last read page and put by my reading chair.

This morning, after a bad night's sleep, I open my Bible and start reading through my yawns and steaming coffee. It took me a page to realize I was actually reading ULYSSES.

In another universe...

2006-05-29T19:12:00.000+08:00

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says there's an infinity of alternate universes.

Which means there are an infinite number of Richard Lewis's who have actually finished ULYSSES by this time.

Infinity is both a simple and subtle concept--out of those infinite number of Richard Lewis's who finished the novel, there's also a subset of infinite Richard Lewis's who actually *understood* ULYSSES from the get-go.

Which disproves the many worlds interpretation.

What others say about ULYSSES

2006-04-15T15:28:00.000+08:00

Snippets taken mostly from

reason.com:

"The paradox is that the book is a giant fart joke," says Diana Wynne.

"Ulysses could have done with a good editor," the acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle recently told an audience of crestfallen Joyce fans. "You know, people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written, but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it."

Writer Stefan Sullivan in a recent Washington Times appreciation: "Ulysses is a pretty awful novel."

In the customer comments at Amazon.com: "This is one of those classic novels that gives classic novels a bad name," writes Eric L. Sparling.

"Joyce is blind in one eye because he read Ulysses and then the eye hung itself," writes nebber1214. "For Ulysses to be any worse of a book, it would have to break into your house and defecate on your bed."

Writer, surfer and adventurer extraordinaire Richard Lewis says, "In ULYSSES, James Joyce has a way with words in the same manner that e. coli has a way with bowels."

(Actually, I'm sort of enjoying the verbal diarrhea of the bar section that follows the Siren singing. And I didn't know, as Joyce makes clear, that men executed by hangings often get an posthumous erection)

Im a baaad boy

2006-04-10T10:28:00.000+08:00

I haven't read a word of ULYSSES in weeks.

I'm in good company, though.

I mean, have *you* read a word of ULYSSES in the past few weeks?

ULYSSES on tape

2006-03-22T18:58:00.000+08:00

I think I'm going to switch to an audio tape of ULYSSES. I'll start from scratch if I do.

The audio version I'm thinking of getting has Michael Jackson reading most of Stephen Dedalus's sections, Bill Murray for Leopold Bloom, Steve Woodmore for big boring chunks (he's the world's fastest talker, clocked at 637 words a minute), and Paris Hilton for Molly Bloom.

ULYSSES has inspired me!

2006-03-21T15:50:00.000+08:00

To write a thriller, that is. One that uses ULYSSES as its template. My hero and villains will dash around Dublin with the same itinerary of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom et al. The fate of the world is at stake.

Here’s the opening:

Plump, panting Tuck Corrigan trotted up the tower stairs, bearing a Glock 9 mm in his sweaty palms. If he had spare breath, he would have cursed the Father. Why the hell did the jejune Jesuit insist on saying his morning office up here in the heavens?

Tuck found Father Stephen Father leaning against the parapet, his moody gaze on the distant sullen sea.

Father Stephen's cassock rustled as he straightened and turned. “Do you remember the day, Tuck, when I pulled you out of the gutter?”

Tuck took several deep breaths and shoved the Glock into the Father’s hand. “Listen, you frightful Jesuit, stop counting your spiritual notches. There are milkmen downstairs, and they aren’t delivering cream. Go and shoot them, would you?”

By the way, I've copyrighted this idea. Anybody steals it, I'll Holy Blood & Grail you in court.

What my mind looks like now

2006-03-18T16:00:00.000+08:00

I've reread the Sirens section, and this depicts my understanding:

Actually, I can see more of the hints that Seguro kindly pointed out to me in his comments, but I have to wonder about the first casual reader to read ULYSSES. How was he (or she) able to figure out what the heck was going on without having any guide books or helping experts?