/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10990263]

What would be more appropriate:

1. Reading Ulysses first
2. Reading numerous novels influenced by Ulysses first that are 'easier' reads

[Anonymous No.10990302]

>>10990263
If you don't struggle with Shakespeare Joyce isn't hard. Without some sort of reference or companion book though some shit seems random as fuck but it's actually insanely specific and exacting. Dude is a muralist with words.

[Anonymous No.10990311]

>>10990302
I find that Shakespeare is leagues harder than Joyce desu

[Anonymous No.10990334]

>>10990263
Just bought this book today
Never read him, and haven't read anything to difficult, how hard will this be? Im on like page 8 atm

[Anonymous No.10990373]

>>10990334
If you haven't read much of modernist authors you might have a pretty hard time understanding that point of a lot of what he write , and his style might seem somewhat absurd sometimes.

Its not going to seem structured in any classical sense you're used to

[Anonymous No.10990390]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He
held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced
about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the
awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent
towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and
shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms
on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face
that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair,
grained and hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the
bowl smartly.
—Back to barracks! he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and
blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment.
A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
Ulysses James Joyce
2
He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused
awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with
gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through
the calm.
—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the
current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering
about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A
pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he
propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
lathered cheeks and neck.

[Anonymous No.10990398]

>>10990390
>He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
God this brings me back

[Anonymous No.10990420]

>>10990390
>Buck has an equine face he is horse faced / buck toothed its a pun
>Mulligan is a golf/gaming term which means to get a second chance after a mistake
>Dedalus is named after Daedalus who is the father of Icarus and greatest artisan in Greek mythology he built the labyrinth for the Minotaur
>tonsured is a type of haircut medieval monks wore (where they shaved the top of their heads)
>white corpuscles is both referencing Descates 17th century corpuscular theory of light and in modern usage it means white blood cells, since blood is mentioned just before.
>Chrysostomos was a common epithet for orators


You can definitely read Joyce without knowing any of this, but if you do know they it becomes a little more amusing (but really is it? he's just showing off all the tidbits of world history he has collected and crammed into unrelated passages). The scene itself is funny without any context, a chubby man in some kind of robe has climbed a tower for his daily shave and he puts on his usual airs with a bored nightwatchman there as his captive audience.

Joyce's writing is poetic, so you should read it with some tempo and just gloss over most of the sentences because he uses way too many words just to impress what we would consider a pseud audience (because we have the internet and can search for anything immediately) back then people like Joyce were considered very intelligent because of the countless facts they could recall on a moment's notice.

[Anonymous No.10990428]

>>10990311
How? Almost everything Shakespeare is accompanied by footnotes that explain some of the more archaic language used in the plays. Shakespeare is a more straight-forward writer, but the depth of his work really starts coming alive in comedies like "As You Like It," along with the histories and tragedies.

[Anonymous No.10990480]

>>10990428
>Shakespeare is a more straight-forward writer
I'd probably have to disagree. His writing is lot more structured in what we now percieve to be normal but what makes Shakespeare more difficult for me than Joyce is that while both tend to combine archaic slang and (for their time) extremely contemporary references mixed in with the classical, Shakespeare's works mainly come in the form of plays.

Trying to imagine the stage directions combined with the extremely archaic language cues you're meant to pick up on (that even dedicated Shakespearean scholars have issues with) while trying to identify subtext and author intent is extremely obsucure. Not to say that Joyce is by any means easy but Shakespeare, at least for me, is far more in depth because of these factors.

[Anonymous No.10990533]

>>10990480
I get what you mean. I think that what makes him so great is that he is a straight-forward writer, at least in the sense that one can follow his plays without much trouble, yet the subtext, depth, and authorial intent are fucking loaded. After reading some of his work back-to-back, it is not hard to envision the play in your mind, especially when you know the archetype (albeit very round character archetypes) Shakespeare tries to portray with any given character. Yes, scholars will argue endlessly about subtext and authorial intent, hell even about Shakespeare's identity, and this can make it feel daunting to try and parse his work. But some theories on him and his work are silly. Shakespeare is very-well documented, so it isn't really hard to find a camp that interprets any given play or character in the way that you do.

I find Joyce much more complicated because he hasn't been study as extensively, because although his work tends to be very specific, the number of things one must be familiar with borders on ridiculous, and because I just really hate his fucking pretentious "let me play with the language" shit he has going on in Ulysses and Finnegans.

[Anonymous No.10990542]

>2018
>he STILL hasn't read Ulysses

[Anonymous No.10990644]

>>10990542
christ, i didn't think this shitpost would kill a thread like it did, but it's really true, you guys really are ashamed that you haven't yet read Ulysses
It's really not that hard guys
Just pick up the god damn book and read it
You don'nt """NEED""" to read anything before Ulysses, you don't have to read anything before reading it. it's just a bunch of god damn bullshit from a drunken Irish shitlord
seriously just read the book, really, just read it
Take your time
If you get confused, don't skip, just go back and reread
just read the god damn book
christ almighty, this generation is scary

[Anonymous No.10990648]

>>10990644
>dude, just read Shakespeare, like, just read it man, just read it, who cares if you can't make sense of his archaic and specific language, God, just read the fucking thing bro

[Anonymous No.10990652]

>>10990648
exactly

[Anonymous No.10990663]

>>10990533
>Shakespeare is very-well documented, so it isn't really hard to find a camp that interprets any given play or character in the way that you do.

Yes it can be frustrating can it? It seems every generation's zeitgeist has a new way of interpretting Shakespeare , but I guess that's what makes him so intriguing I mean his insight into the inner workings of society and the psychology of the individual are so in depth that no matter what the trendy thought is he still can't be ignored lol. I'll admit I'm not as well read of Joyce as I am of Shakespeare so there might just be some bias on my partso you might be correct in saying that to understand him in fullness requires more in depth understanding of Joyce's contemporaries than of Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.10990664]

>>10990542
Honestly this
>Not taking AP English for ez credits

[Anonymous No.10990686]

>>10990664
>needing to be instructed by Debtlege to read good books
man fuck

[Anonymous No.10990707]

>>10990686
I mean I didn't I just used the class as excuse to read shit I already wanted to
>Tfw didn't study at all for any of the tests and still scored 5's on both the main an supplementary tests

Ez. EZ

[Anonymous No.10990838]

>Started listening to Re Joyce by Frank Delaney
>Only get up to episode 40 or so which is the 10th page
>He passed last year
I promise I'll listen to it all by the end of the year

[Anonymous No.10991101]

>>10990263
I read Ulysses without having read either Portrait of the Artist, The Odyssey, or any Dante. I had read Hamlet, though.

It's incredibly enjoyable on its own merits, but having listened to a bunch of Re: Joyce, it brings a whole new level of understanding just how smart Joyce (and his writing) was. I plan to re-read it again once I've read all of the above things, plus I think there's a lot of Aquinas and Plato/Aristotle/Greek philosophy he references heavily.

[Anonymous No.10991186]

>>10990390
I just realised I need to read Joyce, goddamn.