/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1843303]

I bought this novel, cracked it open, and now, one hundred pages in out of one thousand, I feel like a fucking idiot. I've never had trouble reading any sort of book before, but this is by far the most incomprehensible thing I've ever laid eyes on. There's barely any proper punctuation, description of surroundings or setting...anything, really. I don't know when a character begins speaking or stops, or which character is even speaking to begin with, due to that horrific unpunctuated dash-dialogue. On top of all that, some of the sentences run on for paragraphs.
If I'm stupid and uncultured for giving up on this novel, so be it. Better than suffering through more of this incomprehensible garbage.

[Anonymous No.1843311]

I didn't finish it either. People rarely do.

[Anonymous No.1843318]

Joyce's dash dialogue adds nothing to his writing. It was an asshole move of him for using it.
(Also, Cormac McCarthy should get bitchslapped here, too)

[Anonymous No.1843325]

Any other book than this and I'd call you a stupid 12-year-old, but I think everybody struggles through this one. I was forced to in college. The agony.

[Anonymous No.1843332]

It's my favorite book. It takes time to understand what's going on, but it definitely rewards several readings.

[redcom !!+Kgteyi5ULQ No.1843333]

It wasn't that bad. I found the "Circe" chapter silly as shit. On the whole I liked it, even though I didn't understand it forwards, backwards, up, down, sideways and diagonally. And "Penelope" was an 80 page long sentence. What the shit.

[Anonymous No.1843341]

>>1843325
>Ulysses
>forced to read
>agony
>being on /lit/ and not enjoying one of the most enjoyable reads of all time

OP: I don't follow your issue with dialogue. You've clearly realized that dashes indicate dialogue. So yeah, it's that simple.

And how far are you in, chapter wise? My version only had ~640 pages.

As to understanding issues, pick up Gifford's Ulysses Annotated or something, maybe even just follow some guides online. Hell, as long as it's not replacing reading, if you peek at a plot summary here and there it's not so bad.

[Anonymous No.1843342]

>>1843303

Ulysses is easy to read and understand the plot. It's doing the analysis that's rough.

[Anonymous No.1843349]

>>1843340
> needs to be read with a voice in your mind
> I tend not to read with a voice in my mind since it is faster

So what, you just skim books normally?

[Anonymous No.1843356]

>>1843341
I struggled through those hundred pages like an underclothed man with no legs dragging his body across a floor made of sandpaper. I've enjoyed being ill with the flu more than I've enjoyed reading it, so oh well, guess I'm an idiot. I'm off to go read something more dumbed-down for mental deficients like myself.

[Anonymous No.1843363]

Ulysses is nothing compared to this.

[Anonymous No.1843364]

>>1843356

Might be for the best. Ulysses gets pretty crazy, but it's simple enough English.

[Anonymous No.1843369]

>>1843363

Bro, that book is pretty ridiculous. I've never seen so much stream-of-consciousness. It feels like I'm drowning in a lake of consciousness.

[Anonymous No.1843376]

just because it was written in the 20's doesn't mean it's not a pretentious wankfest. there were hipsters then too you know.

joyce was probably shitfaced and clueless

[Anonymous No.1843379]

>Reading books.

[Anonymous No.1843378]

OP, have you ever tried reading this thing?

[Anonymous No.1843383]

>>1843376
He got the same criticism then too, especially on Finnegan's Wake.

How the hell do you write a book about being asleep? The fuck?

It's art brah, too bad its just so DEEP I only wrote a goddamn sentence a day sometimes you just can't appreciate my amazing intellect. I'm the best god damn writer ever.

[Anonymous No.1843386]

>>1843378
I did. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I fail to see how they're anything alike, though.

[Anonymous No.1843389]

>>1843369

More pressingly, each word is going 5 places at once.

[Anonymous No.1843390]

>>1843379
>Being a troll on /lit/

[Anonymous No.1843393]

>>1843386
Odd, i found Moby more confusing than Ulysses. Opinions be crazy.

[Anonymous No.1843395]

>>1843383
Finnegans Wake is so incomprehensibly bad that at the time it was written, a lot of people thought it was a joke.

[Anonymous No.1843398]

I didn't find difficult to understand Ulysses the first time I read it. I mean the plot. I'm planning go clinically page after page in my second reading.

The Sound and The Fury, to give you an example, it is much more difficult to keep up with the plot and the characters, but it's not as dense as Ulysses.

Both beautiful books.

[Anonymous No.1843399]

Look, I can write stream-of-consciousness too!

OP, a figure that is commonly considered homosexual in and around the surrounding boards of this turgid website, see that he is ailed by similar issues that we have all encountered, yea, and he speaks forward;
-understand this book, I did not
And niether did I.

[Anonymous No.1843405]

>>1843399

Wow, very bad try. Seems like you don't understand the concept of SOC at all.

Please leave.

[Anonymous No.1843417]

>>1843405

[Anonymous No.1843418]

>>1843405

So I'm sitting reading this cunt rail on some little bitch who doesn't know what strem of consciousness is and it's fucking half past five and the sun's come up and I'm wondering whether to have another drink or wait and see if the little bitch will come up with a response and I wonder if there's anything to eat in the fridge?

[FuckYouBased !God7VIHtsc No.1843421]

It's a beautiful book. People attacking it are just acting defensively and feeling threatened, because they've never completed it and don't actually have a valid opinion. Anyone who puts in the time and attention to it will see that it's considered important for a reason. A novel had never inhabited so fully a set of characters' minds until this fucking book - it's a cheap genre trick now, but it was groundbreaking then.

[Anonymous No.1843424]

>>1843418

That's like Stephenie Meyer crap.

Please, inform yourself about Stream of Consciousness before being exposed in such an embarrassing way.

[Anonymous No.1843427]

>>1843405
>telling people to leave /lit/ as if you can write good.

[Anonymous No.1843428]

>>1843427

Then I will not ask. Leave.

[Anonymous No.1843430]

I love all of you. Even the pretentious fuckers that look down upon people like me for not liking a novel that everybody else does.

[Anonymous No.1843433]

>>1843428
Shut up, please, you bloated, smug, arrogant cunt. Nobody on this board is going to leave because some shithead with a superiority complex told them to.

[Anonymous No.1843435]

>>1843428
No.

[Anonymous No.1843437]

>>1843433

Oh, that's ok then, you can stay. But shut up.

[Stradlater !!iwUBihX3yR3 No.1843439]

>>1843303

Do not feel bad that you did not finish the novel. It is a journey. You will pick it up one day and jog through it in a few days and feel all the better man for doing so. You need to be in the right mindset for Joyce to exhibit beauty to you

[Anonymous No.1843447]

Engl 101 would have been so much more interesting of the people from /lit/ were there.

>...So that's why I didn't care for Ulysses
>Shut up!! Everyone loves Ulysses. You are stupid.
>You are a meany poopy head! you should not tell people to shut up.
>Shut up.

Then you all go to another thread and pretend to be serious literary folk until it all falls apart again. I love it.

[Anonymous No.1843453]

>>1843447
That's unbearably true.

[Anonymous No.1843473]

>>1843447
That's because /lit/ is made of normal people and not Harold Blooms.

[Anonymous No.1843476]

>>1843473
Even though they do try sometimes!

[Anonymous No.1843492]

Lets see how long it takes this thread to deteriorate into inanity
>>1843457

[Anonymous No.1843496]

>>1843492
I'm pretty sure it started there.

[Anonymous No.1843532]

>>1843405

Woke up, needed to be at work for five o clock, didn't know what time it was, find that panic's the best alarm clock, it's unfortunate that I can't rely on myself to panic punctually. Found my phone, should have the time, black screen, I looked back at myself on it, eyes like bruised apples, my head beats out the tick of the clock. Looking through the gap in the blinds, the sun's still high in cool blue of the sky, can't be too late. Plug my phone into a charger, rest it on my chest an my head on the pillow, I meant to get up earlier to go and buy my brothers birthday present, I always disappoint him on his birthday, still haven't forgiven myself for missing his eighteenth, I'm such a shitty brother, hopefully when I graduate from university I'll get a decent job and will be able to pay him back for all he's done for me. My phone vibrates on my chest twice, shaking my head like a snowglobe, look at the screen, it's 3.45, Still have plenty of time. Check 4chan, I should delete the app from my phone, I spend far too much time on it, I could be running while I'm browsing all this inconsequential bullshit. Nevermind, I'm skinny for the moment. I read a thread about ulysses, never read it, I've got portrait of a young man on my shelf, haven't even read that. Some faggots moaning about someone's lack of knowledge of stream of consciousness, doesn't even give the guy a decent example to back up his argument, what a fucking dick.

[Anonymous No.1843545]

>>1843424
"Take out the trash" said mother. Even though the garbage can was less than half full, I took it down to the street, knowing that if I didn't she would bring whip me with my father's belt. My father had never been the disciplinarian in the house, as his father had abused him and his three brothers, which forced him to run away when he turned sixteen. He didn't let this prevent him from getting a college education, though, and it was there that he met my mother. They didn't fall in love immediately, and in fact they each got married during college, my mother to a man twenty years her senior, and my father to some woman who cheated on him and stole his money. I had precious few details about this woman, in fact the only reason I know anything about her at all is because my father insulted my mother when she was telling me about her first husband by claiming that he was a drug addict, which I later discovered to be a rather ironic lie, as her first husband had been an alcoholic who successfully stayed sober after joining alcoholics anonymous, and my father died of alcohol poisoning after "getting back on the wagon", as they say, after discovering that he had terminal cancer. I can't blame him, even though he was an incredibly vile man who got in fist fights with mother before I even reached grade school, as I myself have developed a secret love for alcohol, mostly due to mother's frequent beatings, and I too plan to run away in a few weeks time, just as he did when he turned sixteen.


That would be a better example of SOC, right? (Though I'd imagine it sucks as far as quality goes, since I have never really written anything before and came up with this off the top of my head)

[Anonymous No.1843548]

>>1843545
Disregard any obvious errors please, like "bring whip", since I did absolutely no proof reading.

[Anonymous No.1843550]

>>1843532
>>1843545
Actually that's not quite it either. SOC has flights of fancy and moments where a deeper self is made self evident in what has been said and what has been implied. You both really just made a detailed description of an action.

[Anonymous No.1843561]

>>1843550

Eat shit, 'flights of fancy' are not a necessary component of soc, it just needs to be a stream of conscious thought.

If that isn't soc please tell what it is defineable as. (inb4 bad writing)

[Anonymous No.1843570]

>>1843561
You know, he has a point. Why don't you show us what SOC is in your own writing? It would certainly be helpful to everyone here.

Second person you quoted here, btw.

[Woland !!yvm0QrHZZJQ No.1843574]

>>1843550
yeah oright then guvna.
spot of tea? lovely that is.

[Anonymous No.1843579]

>>1843574

[Anonymous No.1843585]

>>1843570
A story i wrote back in high school about kids getting high.

“Gentlemen.” announced Dewy unexpectedly, Mozart politely playing softer, and Pete looking at his eyes intently. “I propose that we, out of sheer boredom, smoke some more. Here, Pete, I got a moist vagina, and I’m sure someone single as yourself would want this.” he hands the joint he had to Pete, who out of insult, glared. He stood up, and headed toward the window, which caused Dewy to shout, “Peter! What are you doing you righteous bastard? This smoke is not hurting anyone, in fact I think it has helped Mozart exceptionally well.” he said as Mozart stumbled to his feet. “If you choose to continue and open the window, I will be forced to bitch and complain the entirety of it being open, save yourself the headache and please, let us hot box in peace.” Pete looked at him, weighed the option, and left the window still. “Thank you sir, thank you. And now my friends, I have a surprise for you,” he grabbed the bag of weed laying on the table beside him, and held it up. “We have some miracle-wana” he announced, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the house smelled of it, and Mozart and himself had smoked a lot of it already. In the bag were four large buds, each green but with a white glaze on it. “This my dear Pete, my dear Stone, is called ‘The White Widow’.”

[Noland !!T2UdrWkLSWB No.1843584]

>>1843574
cup o' chai bruv?
nah m8. I'd rather have a pint like.

[Anonymous No.1843586]

>>1843585
he paused for effect, “This is the shit our normal shit wants to be, this is a man’s weed. Do you see that white junk on there? It’s straight up THC, crystallized. This shit is the skunkiest, nastiest, most vial stuff to smoke. It tastes like soap, but the high- Pete have you ever wondered how it would be to walk on the moon? Come here, Mr. Armstrong, and board our Apollo. Take one small hit for man, one giant hit for mankind.” hoping someone would laugh at his attempt of humor, Dewy reached over and brought out a bong. “This is Alexander the Great.” he said looking over his shoulder, readying the bowl piece, “Ole Al will make sure that you have conquered Asia before we munch.” His experienced hands quickly took the bit of bud and placed it rudely in the grinder, twisting it until there was no resistance. He then packed the bowl to his satisfaction and looked at Pete, “Well? Don’t be a coward all your life, just hit the dam thing.” He passed it to Pete, who had sat down beside him. Mozart glanced over curiously. Seeing that the Great Alexander was in motion he respectfully stopped the music, and sat on the left side of Pete, with Dewy guarding the right. Pete was caught by a divine notion, to see if he could handle all this smoke in one hit. He bent his head over Alexander, and sparked the lighter Mozart had lent him. Igniting the leaves, he breathed in deeply, feeling the sting and bitter taste. Cannabis Sativa. he thought to himself, breathing deeply, the ember glowing more with more breath he drew. The clear colored bong, full of the dull gray cloud, was dissipating into the lungs of Pete, who refused to stop until the bowl was empty and nothing but ash remained.

[Anonymous No.1843590]

>>1843585

i don't think that's what people talk like

[Anonymous No.1843592]

>>1843590

lol'd

[Anonymous No.1843600]

>>1843586
>Come here, Mr. Armstrong, and board our Apollo. Take one small hit for man, one giant hit for mankind.
Stopped reading there.
It was bad enough you decided to include the music as a character, but this is just boring now. Don't' tell others to not try and write soc when you aren't particularly good at it yourself.

And guys, it's okay to not be good SOC writers. Look at fucking James Joyce when he DOES do it well in Finnegan's Wake - it's fucking difficult and confusing. Stop trying to outdo each other and enjoy literature for what it is.

[Anonymous No.1843607]

>>1843600

>Stop trying to outdo each other

>And enjoy literature...

Can't do both bro. It's like telling me to only enjoy sports by only watching them and not playing them

[Anonymous No.1843608]

>>1843586
>>1843585
This is truly awful.

[Anonymous No.1843612]

>>1843532
Woke up, needed to be at work for five o clock, didn't know what time it was, find that panic's the best alarm clock, it's unfortunate that I can't rely on myself to panic punctually. Found my phone, should have the time, black screen, I looked back at myself on it, eyes like bruised apples, >my head beats out the tick of the clock.

well!? what clock!? wtf time was it?

[Anonymous No.1843653]

>>1843612

As in...I was hungover and my head was beating with a headache, mirroring the ticking of the absent clock that I was rushing to find in case I was late for work.

2deep4u?

[Anonymous No.1843665]

This is stream of consciousness:

"The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike. A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. Un cache ensable, Louis Veuillot called Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here. And there the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones . Heavy of the past. Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one bang on the ear. I'm the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well boulders, bones for my steppingstones . Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman.

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. Lord, is he going to attack me ? Respect his liberty. You will not be master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe among the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?"

From the Proteus chapter of Ulysses.

You see how a thought sparks into another and the words merge and blend, like a fugue, like dominoes: one thought naturally gives birth to another, like raw, free exploring through the brain. Is being inside one character's head, without filtering or processing the ideas for speech.

[Anonymous No.1843669]

>>1843665

Holy shit is it all like that? I've have to read that soon, that's fucking awesome.

[Anonymous No.1843673]

>>1843653
beats out

the tick

of

THE CLOCK

Englishyoursecondlanguagequestionmark.bmp

[Anonymous No.1843676]

OP can't understand book --> OP thinks he has to 'understand' book to enjoy it....

Insert in relevant 'laughing at OP' picture

[Anonymous No.1843678]

Well this thread got derailed, what a shocker.

Back to the main point, there's no need to feel like an idiot OP. It's not exactly the simplest book to pick up and fly through, but it's not "incomprehensible". The punctuation is mostly proper until Molly's soliloquy, so you're a bit off on that. The dash-dialogue is tops and is not just to be different as somebody else suggested. The point of this whole style of writing is that you're dropped into the narrative as if watching a movie. The dashes mirror how we experience a conversation rather than some drawn out "he said/she said". The voices of the characters are distinct enough that you'll know who said what simply by what they said and how they said it, much like you know which of your friends is speaking because you recognize their voice. This is of course more rewarding the later in the book you go, as you get to know the characters, or upon a rereading. Also, there is tons, pages upon pages, of description of setting. I'm not sure how you missed that at all. If your problem with Ulysses was the lack of plot and traditional story arc, that would be a valid sort of complaint; it doesn't have much of one and the conflicts are mostly psychological. The stuff you're complaining about is very superficial. The only reason you find it incomprehensible is because you're used to reading books that are formatted differently. I'd recommend relaxing, not worrying about what you don't get, forget about trying to find the story, and just read it sentence-by-sentence. There's not very much "hidden"; it's just revealed at the natural pace of living.

[Anonymous No.1843690]

>>1843673

>2011
>Not knowing what figurative language is

[Anonymous No.1843692]

>>1843669

Every chapter uses a different writing style. Pretty impressive, actually. But the general mood is like that.

[Anonymous No.1843693]

>>1843678

Pretty much this - I think if you are, as Forster puts it, one of those people who reckon "[a novel] tells a story of course, and I've had no use for it if it didn't. I like a story... And i like a story to be a story mind" then you should really go back to TV.

[Anonymous No.1843695]

>>1843692

# of chapters?

[Anonymous No.1843696]

>>1843695

18

[Anonymous No.1843700]

>>1843695
Really important hard-to-find info (?)

[Anonymous No.1843701]

>>1843696

Wowza.

Things to buy today: L.a noire, blender, shorts, Ulysses.

[None !.BoxxyVi3k No.1843709]

I uploaded the Teaching Company's course on Joyce's Ulysses.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VDLVDVV9

[Anonymous No.1843713]

>>1843709

Who's the lecturer?

And thank you, ttc lectures are mostly great

[Anonymous No.1843717]

>>1843709

Thank you. I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.1843718]

>>1843690
finally found that clock?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/the

[Anonymous No.1843723]

>>1843713
The lecturer is James A. W. Heffernan.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=237

[Anonymous No.1843725]

>>1843718

The absent clock that was very much on my mind, how fucking dumb are you?

Also dictionaries don't mean shit in literature buddy, usage rules. I can say what the fuck I want. It's my artistic vision.

[Anonymous No.1843729]

>>1843725
syntax keels cant

[Anonymous No.1843732]

>>1843729

[Anonymous No.1843740]

Which edition is the best. I'm tempted to get a Facsimile of the first edition. There is controversy over the Gabler edition but professors still assign it. However, Random House use the 1960 edition and Everyman's Library uses the 1961 edition.

[Anonymous No.1843744]

>>1843740

I read Gabler. It was nice.

Also:
>I can say what the fuck I want. It's my artistic vision.
Dohohoh. 10/10 excuse for not learning how to write.

[Anonymous No.1843764]

>>1843744

Of course, i was jus trollan.

But that sentence with the beating of the ticks of the clock works.

[Anonymous No.1843775]

>>1843764
beats out the tick of a clock

[Anonymous No.1843794]

If a book is hard to comprehend is it bad?
maybe read Homer's Odyssey for story parallels

[Anonymous No.1843796]

>>1843775

Let me try and put it in terms you understand

>wake up
>head is beating with a hang over
>realise I might be running late for work, try to find a clock
>The clock is playing on my mind so much that the beating of the headache of my hangover is thought of by mind as ticking - akin to that if the absent clock

HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU?

[Anonymous No.1843800]

>>1843796

How fucking stupid are you? Where is the clock?

inb4
>hurr absent clock

Then it's "a clock" since there's no clock to be the clock.

[Anonymous No.1843808]

>>1843800

The clock is the concept/idea of a clock and time in general, which is singular, rather than the object of a single clock. Dropped on your head as a child or something?

[CameronJerome !4JRO42v1KU No.1843819]

>>1843800

[Anonymous No.1843827]

stop talkin about fuckin clocks you gay fags

[Anonymous No.1843841]

>>1843827
CLOCK CLOCK

[Anonymous No.1843844]

>>1843841
FUCKING GODAMN
GO JUMP OFF A CLIFF INTO A FRYING PAN YOU MOTHERFUCKER

[Anonymous No.1843886]

The /lit/ fags all suck at writing that's evident throughout this fuckin thread.