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/lit/ - Literature

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17361884 No.17361884 [Reply] [Original]

Just read part 3 of this (the description of hell & Stephen's confession), what an absolute slog. I get it's supposed to be agonizing, but it goes on and on for page after page to the point that I lost the will to visualize it, and instead the act of reading itself is what became agonizing. Not only is it hard to take seriously, but the time Joyce spends covering Stephen's sins is infinitesimal compared to it so it didn't really feel earned.
Am I missing something, or am I just too secular for it to have made an impact on me? I can't be the only one who hated this. For what it's worth, I loved everything that came before it.

>> No.17362144

>>17361884
You were not supposed to visualize hell, you were supposed to visualize the character's state of mind.

>> No.17362757

>>17361884
>it didn't feel earned
Why should it? The grossly exaggerated reaction to a deed that seems like a trifle to us is half the point, I think.

>> No.17362897

Now that I don't feel the need to try so hard to appear effortlessly intellectual, as I did when I was a pretentious, insufferable teenager, I think that Joyce's body of work is more one to be admired rather than enjoyed. I get it, I got really into it. Looking back I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I was telling myself. I guess, in short: don't get so hung up on it.

>> No.17362936

>>17362144
Well of course, but you're just splitting hairs here
>>17362757
That's what I'm suspecting, but I feel like the same effect could still have been achieved even if 75% of it was cut out. Thirty pages of the same thing was so mind-numbing that any intended effect was lost on me

>> No.17362967

>>17362897
Well I really did enjoy everything that came before it, and I imagine I'll enjoy the rest of it, so I guess that's why I'm hung up on feeling like I missed out on this part of the book

>> No.17363721

>>17361884
It's only gonna get more melodramatic from here on out, OP. The book peaked when he was a lil kid getting punished by the schoolmaster. After that there were some nice scenes, but most feel overwritten and unearned like you said.

>> No.17363883

NO its not okay that you feel this way. You're just a pseud who doesn't care about style

HOWEVER i will say that I don't think Nabokov much cared for portrait of the artist... However he LOVED ulysses. So if you don't like this one, don't rule out ULYSSES right away!

Cheers!

>> No.17364272

>>17363721
I found his university bits the least interesting. Just a bunch of young men making jokes using fragments of what they learned in class. It was also the least emotionally involved.