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/lit/ - Literature

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14751192 No.14751192 [Reply] [Original]

>tfw slowly starting to come around to the idea that Joyce is overrated

I have read Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses. I'm in grad school and am actually writing my exit thesis on Ulysses. But I'm starting to think that Joyce just isn't as great a writer as he's made out to be. He's a very intricate, very crafty, very careful writer. He's very good at tinkering and constructing with writing. But I'm not sure he's as great a writer as everyone makes him out to be. I think Faulkner is better, and so is Borges, and that's just in the 20th Century. Joyce doesn't awe me. He doesn't spellbind me. There's something muddy and gummy about his works, if that makes any sense. They don't soar. They don't tower. I realize this is imprecise but this is how it feels to me. I read Moby-Dick and I'm awed. I read Absalom, Absalom! and I'm awed. I don't feel awe reading Ulysses.

>> No.14751198

>>14751192
Do you have any more substantial criticisms than "it doesn't give me stronk feefee"

>> No.14751206

>>14751198
Honestly. This was pathetic lol

>> No.14751207

>>14751192
ok

>> No.14751216

>>14751192
Joyce wasn't going for highfalutin awe (except maybe in the more "spiritual" sections of "A Portrait"). He was very much a writer of the gritty, material world as it is. When a famous painter was painting his portrait, and going on about capturing a person's soul through painting them, Joyce said: "Never mind my soul, just make sure you get my tie right." That's peak Joyce. Or, as he wrote about the Irish Revivalist poets, who were mystics and idealists, while "they may dream their dreamy dreams, I carry off their filthy streams." Joyce always positioned himself as a writer in the muck, in the grit, in the gutter.

Faulkner and Melville were very different kinds of writers. And Borges also different from them.

>> No.14751228

>>14751216
>Joyce wasn't going for highfalutin awe
You could have just said "I haven't read finnegans wake" and saved yourself the typing

>> No.14751247

>>14751228
You haven’t either.

>> No.14751250
File: 90 KB, 640x482, qjrE4yyfw5pEPvDbJDzhdNXM7mjt1tbr2kM3X28F6SraZkoqgfDfBMqFxtPvTSvTwdJadxgsh389KtHGXGAmyC9CAhb9jARdET2NLwxvmmYrX2Mw2Mmki4Sz.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14751250

>>14751192
>overrated
Reddit buzzword.
>awed
What are you a fucking bugman? You colossal faggot.

>> No.14751261

>>14751247
I've literally read it a total of two times over the past seven years dipshit

>> No.14751266

>>14751261
Yeah but you didn’t actually read it, you read what you wanted to in it, illiterate stooge

>> No.14751280

>>14751266
Even if that were true I would STILL have a better understanding of the book than you because you haven't fucking read it
Finnegans Wake is arguably the grandest narrative told in the entire 20th century and you are arguably the grandest retard to live in the 21st

>> No.14751288

>>14751280
You don’t ‘understand’ books you experience them. It’s not a giant puzzle for you to figure out you ‘grand retard.’

>> No.14751297

>>14751192
I think he perfectly accomplishes what he sets out to do, and his writing style reflects his themes of a grimy dublin

That being said, he made me realize I don't personally enjoy that kind of writing compared to more ornate writing. His carefully selected word choice is very interesting though

I feel like he crams so many references in that at some point I just stop caring

>> No.14751301

>>14751288
>You don’t ‘understand’ books you experience them.
Interesting idea, perhaps then you should try experiencing the very book that I've experienced twice before you embarrass yourself any further trying to tell me what is and isn't true about it
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, anon!

>> No.14751312

>>14751301
I wasn’t the original anon, I was a random that chimed in because I assumed nobody actually read the book let alone on /lit. I’m reading Ulysses now but probably won’t attempt to read finnegans for a few more years.

>> No.14751313

>>14751288
I personally hate puzzles, but I don't see why other people can't prefer that kind of book

>> No.14751318

>>14751313
Sort of like Life a user's manual?

>> No.14751320

>>14751313
If it’s like a mystery sure, but like these thematic puzzles that people reduce to one line I meant. My friend used to watch movies, and viewed them as puzzles to be broken down to a given platitude and that is not good lol, but even somebody wants to then I guess they could as long as they don’t feel they are missing out on the experience.

>> No.14751357

>>14751228
I have read the Wake. He still wasn't going for awe in the mysterious, religious sense that Faulkner and Melville were aiming at. Joyce was a Catholic by training but a materialist in spirit.

>> No.14751369

I can tell you immediately that you're
not writing a grad school "exit thesis" if you are that bad at articulating your opinions on literature. Fuck off LARPfag

>> No.14751374

>>14751357
He was a lapsed Catholic. Essentially an atheist.

>> No.14751376

>>14751250
have you considered the fact that you are equally incapable of thinking without buzzwords (which is just to say incapable of thinking)

>> No.14751494

>>14751192
I grew up in Orange County and somehow perfectly identified with Joyce’s writings, Dubliners and A Portrait especially. Ulysses was a journey, certainly, but it is still one of the most lyrical and daunting books I’ve ever read. I’ve delved into Finnegans Wake, I think I even wrote a short novella aping its style in my younger years, but it remains a mystery to me.

>> No.14751516

>>14751494
>I think I even wrote a short novella aping its style in my younger years
Post it
I want to compare it to mine

>> No.14751528

>>14751192
why does it matter who's the better writer? is it a contest?

>> No.14751532

>>14751528
>he doesn't know about the contest

>> No.14751537

>>14751494
You remind me of the main character from the movie Orange County

>> No.14751587

>>14751297
Whats the point of reading his work if its all references to the obscure culture he found himself in?

>> No.14751594

>>14751587
to help you realize that the culture you find yourself in is also obscure, Anon

>> No.14751619

>>14751192
>not realizing that the humdrum in-the-muck is in fact the purest realization of the divine, as represented by God Himself condescending to be made flesh and walk the dusty roads of Galilee
You don’t understand the first thing of Catholicism or Christianity generally, so of course you’re blind to Joyce.

>> No.14751635

>>14751192
cringe

>> No.14751666

>>14751516
I was just thinking about it today, ten years removed from the boy I used to be. I had just read Ovid’s Metamorphosis and the Art of Love, the opening pages described a Modern Phaeton stand-in searching for a father, with sun imagery. I’d suppress everything I wrote as puerile scribbles if I could, I don’t even remember where I left that stuff.
>>14751537
I spent a few years after college thinking the same thing.

>> No.14752262

>>14751376
>he doesn't know where he is

>> No.14753148

>>14751192
Of course he's overrated, he's an anglo

>> No.14753194

You and Austenposter from a few years ago would get along. He came to the same conclusion about jimmy via jane.

>> No.14753553

>>14751192
Read FW, it’s his best and most important work