Yes. (1 Viewer)

[Gregor Samsa]

A merry Bloomsday to all. This thread is a place to discuss Ulysses.

I loved it myself, being a brilliantly 'open' work with much wit, emotion, insight, commentary, and experimentation. Don't believe the counter-hype that its 'too difficult' to read, honestly.

Also has a plethora of memorable quotes, including;

--My twelth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the uebermensch. [...]
Buck Mulligan, errect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly;
--He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord.
Thus spake Zarathustra.-p.27.

'History', said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake'-p.42.

--But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life.
--What? says Alf.
--Love, says Bloom. I mean, the opposite of hatred.-p.432.

Thoughts on Ulysses?

 

[anna's ghost]

watching 'imagining ulysses' tonight then? SBS, ten o'clock
oh and couldn't've described it better

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by anna's ghost
watching 'imagining ulysses' tonight then? SBS, ten o'clock
oh and couldn't've described it better

Sure am. Am also taping it, so that with that 'Trials of Ulysses' show on Saturday, I have my own Bloomstape.

Anyone else care to join in in the festivities?

 

[anna's ghost]

Originally posted by Gregor Samsa
Sure am. Am also taping it, so that with that 'Trials of Ulysses' show on Saturday, I have my own Bloomstape.

Anyone else care to join in in the festivities?

thanks for the heads up on the saturday one...but if i miss it, i'm stealing your bloomstape off you

i'm soo there

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by anna's ghost
thanks for the heads up on the saturday one...but if i miss it, i'm stealing your bloomstape off you

i'm soo there

Ooops.. I mean, it was on Saturday. Sorry.

*glances nervously at Bloomstape*.

 

[anna's ghost]

Originally posted by Gregor Samsa
Ooops.. I mean, it was on Saturday. Sorry.

*glances nervously at Bloomstape*.

:O
I want my Bloomstape!

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by anna's ghost
:O
I want my Bloomstape!

*Awkwardly changes topic*

So, how about that unorthodox Inventing Ulysses program? Those television parodies were kooky, although I was amused by Samuel Beckett discussing Joyce's intentions in Finnegans Wake in that context.

Hope it doesn't date too badly. (The doco, that is.)

No-one else has anything to say? Oh ineluctable modality of the visible...

 

[Lexicographer]

I actually heard Margaret Throsby interviewing someone or other (on ABC Classic FM, 92.90) the yesterday and she spoke of Joyce's writing in such a way that I knew I had to read it. Apparently he (and she, and I) think in a way that follows puns, a pattern of thought that constantly plays with the meanings of words. That's my brain right there, so I decided that as soon as exams are done I'm going out and buying the book.

 

[Zarathustra]

Gregor Samsa could you explain the relationship between Joyce and Nietzsche. I never knew that Joyce was so heavily influenced by Nietzsche (admittedly, I know nothing about Joyce) as to directly quote him - or did I misinterpret what you wrote????

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by Zarathustra
Gregor Samsa could you explain the relationship between Joyce and Nietzsche. I never knew that Joyce was so heavily influenced by Nietzsche (admittedly, I know nothing about Joyce) as to directly quote him - or did I misinterpret what you wrote????

Ok. The relation between Nietzsche and Joyce isn't particularly close, in a direct sense. Of course, they can be read comparatively in terms of thought.

An important similarity is that both authors question the authority and function of language in their works (Which in Joyce also acquires something of a postcolonial character.) More notable however, are their differences. The philosophy of Ulysses is opposed to that of Nietzsche, celebrating the existence of the 'everyman' (represented by Leopold Bloom) as opposed to those few willing to transcend ordinary bourgious morality. [A simplification granted, but still, this aspect is present in Nietzsche.]

As for the excerpt I quoted, Ulysses is a text rife with thousands of allusions, and the above is one of my favourite examples... Just think of it as a funny joke than a profound insight into the human condition. Its also a handy way of thinking about the text in general. While yes, it indeed has commentary and deep insights , its worth reading simply for the entertainment value. [And then for everything else on top of that.]

Just don't go into it expecting a conventionally narrative-driven novel. That approach is bound to lead to disappointment.