[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 8 KB, 200x256, 200px-UlyssesCover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427733 No.3427733 [Reply] [Original]

Never read it, but why is Ulysses considered the best novel of all time? Don't tell me it's just because its plot parallels the Odyssey...there must be deeper, more complex and almost scientific reasons why, right?

>> No.3427739

>Ulysses considered the best novel of all time?
It isn't

>> No.3427740

It contains a large slew of narrative techniques and writing styles, is fun to read, plays with language constantly, and is tough. Among other things.

>> No.3427743

There is no definitive best novel of all time, asshole.

But it is very good because it plays with language and narrative in surprising and fresh ways.

>> No.3427741

it's fucking great, maybe you should read it

but i don't know if it's necessarily the best novel of all time

>> No.3427744

>>3427739
Alright, how about "best English-language novel of the 20th century"?*

*In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

>> No.3427745

>>3427744
That's a much different claim

>> No.3427755
File: 254 KB, 1024x768, James_Joyce_Tower_and_Museum3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427755

You now realize you live better than James Joyce ever did and yet cannot produce a work of experimental fiction as erudite and magnificent as he did.

>> No.3427760

>>3427755
> Implying living standard correlates to talent and mastery of form.

>> No.3427764

I don't want to start at "Ulysses" with Joyce. "Dubliners" looks like a good start, is it alright?

>> No.3427776
File: 23 KB, 554x486, War-and-peace1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427776

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

>> No.3427779
File: 147 KB, 250x321, ulysses.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427779

>> No.3427785

>>3427760
It doesn't necessarily, that's what James Joyce's room there proves. But better nutrition and less susceptibility to disease should lead to a healthier mind, more able to produce high quality works, yet we have not done so.

>> No.3427789

>>3427779
Is this an accurate summary of Ulysses?

>> No.3427794

Are the non-English bits in Ulysses linguistically accurate?

>> No.3427804

>>3427785

You may have given the point a wide bearth

>> No.3427807 [DELETED] 

>>3427789
No, but there's plenty of kink in Ulysses. That cover's just havin' what's commonly called a giggle.

>> No.3427815

Because it was one of the pioneering modernist works of literature that first developed stream of consciousness and fractured narratives which accurately represented the state of being in the age of modernity.

You take this for granted but, up until relatively recently, moral ambiguity in the ethical treatment of characters in novels was considered obscenity and an affront to public decency...nevermind the undermining of traditional narrative structures as a whole. People were put on trial.

So it's partly historical significance, but it is also a fucking hilarious book. You should just read it - don't be intimidated by its reputation.

>> No.3427819

>>3427807
I never understand why something so lewd can be considered a great work. It's like if 80 years from now people start considering Dead or Alive 2 to be one of the greatest human achievements ever when it has ridiculous boob physics.

>> No.3427829

>>3427819
>I never understand why something so lewd can be considered a great work.

That's because you're an idiot bro. Get the fuck out of here with your fake-ass classicism. What conflict is there between the portrayal of hearty, vulgar, physical reality & great art? There is none. You just have some bad ideas.

>> No.3427834

>>3427829
But people consistently look down at vulgar modern works, so why does a vulgar work from the early 20th century get a pass?

>> No.3427845

>>3427834
Because it's vulgar and good, instead of vulgar and bad. No one (at least no one intelligent; of idiots we can only pass over and ignore) hates vulgar modern things because they're vulgar. That is, as it were, secondary.

>> No.3427849

>>3427834
Because Joyce can do no wrong and even the stinkiest turd he ever shat has more literary value than any novel by anyone else ever.

>> No.3427853
File: 63 KB, 399x382, 1359766212361.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427853

>>3427849
Now you go a bit too far.

>> No.3427855

>>3427845
The two are almost synonymous though. If someone writes a poem about handjobs now, it gets derided as disgusting and classless.

>> No.3427857

>>3427785
Too many other things to do. Too many great novels already written, there's little point in writing anymore.

>> No.3427873

>>3427857
How can all of humanity's good novels already be behind it? Doesn't each generation create its own take on different human situations that leads to unique retellings of the truth great novels inspire?

>> No.3427875

>>3427873
Yes but this generation decided to go on the yolo trip.

>> No.3427882

>>3427733
If you want to get into Joyce you should some of his more introductory work to get a good grasp on something that is commonly considered to be his magnum opus like Ulysses.

Finnegan's Wake should give you some insight on how his writing works. You can read it here:

http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1024finn1.htm

If you can't into Finnegan's Wake don't even bother with Ulysses.

>> No.3427889

>>3427882
0/10

>> No.3427907 [DELETED] 

>>3427815
>>3427819
Also, something not mentioned is that 'Ulysses' was banned in the USA for obscenity (along with a lot of other famous books of literature, like Henry Miller's books) and the trial on 'Ulysses' was a landmark triumph for free speech and artistic expression, since Judge Woolsey had decided the book was not 'obscene':

"But in “Ulysses”, in spite of its unusual frankness, I do not detect anywhere the leer of the sensualist. I hold, therefore, that it is not pornographic."

The best line of his ruling:

" In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring."

So, 'Ulysses' is not just a groundbreaking novel in terms of technique, it's also one in a cultural and judicial sense.

>> No.3427919

>>3427794
yep

>> No.3427924

>>3427907
whatever. for the sake of reading i'm pretty sure we're more interested in its literary significance rather than its impact on US politics and culture

>> No.3427926

>>3427882
Looks like something my 1st grade english teacher would've beaten me over the head for writing

>> No.3427933

>>3427926
3deep5you

>> No.3427934 [DELETED] 

>>3427924
You're a rockstar, man. The way you don't care about cultural upheaval due to a mere work of literature. God damn, you're just so cool.

MS Paint your autograph for me?

>> No.3427942

>>3427907
Yeah but that's just kind of like giving SMB1 brownie points for starting the platformer craze. I don't really count that as making the work any better, it's just its historical effects which the author/creator did not really intend

>> No.3427944

Novel A:
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.

The visible signs of postsatisfaction?

A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.

Novel B:
She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.

Clearly, one of these novels is a stylistic masterpiece, and the other is trash. The fighting is over which is which.

Novel A is James Joyce's Ulysses, named best by a panel of "experts" at the Modern Library division of Random House.

Novel B is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, named best by the "unenlightened masses" who voted online in an Internet poll also conducted by Modern Library. Atlas Shrugged is leading by an even wider margin.)

The culture wars, correctly conceived, actually reflects the clash between the intellectual establishment and the American people.

>> No.3427951
File: 343 KB, 1600x1200, Carlingford Ireland.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3427951

This is by far one of the most tiring pieces of rubbish your eyes hath ever gandered upon: it being set of all of the literatures and some of the Philosophies being contradicted in the tale of the tub of Ireland's Love for the world and of its maiden.

>> No.3427949

>>3427933
2deep4everyone

>> No.3427953 [DELETED] 

>>3427944
Cherrypicked excerpts.

>> No.3427964

>>3427949
This.

>> No.3427967

>>3427944
This is the greatest troll post I've ever read. Is it copy pasta? If not it should be.

>> No.3427971

>>3427951
The works of word cannot match the works of sight
Beauty and delight
The Irish countryside

>> No.3428033

>>3427873
Not really. There's a reason why when people read ancient texts they go on about how surprising it is that their are parallels between ancient life and modern life.

Literary movements are just complicated ways of making the same points.

>> No.3428039

How understand Ulysses

Read major greek works
Read major biblical works
Read shakespeare
Work your way up to modernism
Understand modernism
Perhaps post-modernism a little bit
Read Ulysses

After that, you still might think that Ulysses is shit.

>> No.3428051
File: 188 KB, 600x450, Sunny Delight is not light of Lies tis be Truth.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3428051

>>3427971
The lies of sight cannot match the truth of hearing
Sunny Delight
The Idyllic fright
My Suit Covets,

>> No.3428065

>>3428039
Why does one have to know about classifications of works to appreciate a novel? Shouldn't a work be able to stand on its own outside its historical context?

>> No.3428172
File: 148 KB, 900x641, Co Clare Irish Angling.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3428172

>>3428065
But they can get so much less from it and make it so much more difficult to read such snotty green seas of yer favorite pub.

>> No.3430203

>>3427764
Yes, start with Dubliners, then Portrait, and then, if you think you are ready, and have proper understanding of major works in literature, start Ulysses.

>> No.3430236

People like being better than other people. If something is hard to read then people will read it and say its the best thing ever because they like being above the people who can't understand it.

>> No.3430260

One question: do you think that a translated version might do justice to the original? It think it'd be pretty hard for me to read it in english, but I don't want to miss all the puns and playing with the language and stuff.

>> No.3430386

>>3427764
Dubliners is fucking great, prepare yourself for Little Cloud and The Dead, the two best stories in the collection IMO.

>> No.3430419

>>3430386
>The Dead
One of the best short stories ever written.

>> No.3430432

>>3430260
wow
that's a good question
i normally shit on people who say translations are a waste of time, but i'm almost there with this one.

>> No.3430461

>>3430260
>>3430432
>translated version

It's in English. If you want a "translation", go read Sparknotes and pretend that you've read it like the average /lit/ poster.

>> No.3430464

>>3430236
It's not a hard read, you just have to put effort into reading it. Only lazy people can't read Joyce.

>> No.3430472

>>3430461
read >>3430260 again

>> No.3430498

>>3430464
I just spent about an hour trying to understand the first page of Finnegan's Wake. I read all of the links/definitions in http://www.finwake.com/1024chapter1024finn1.htm

I really don't know what I was supposed to get out of it. I found no setting or character or anything of substance. What am I supposed to pay attention to?

>> No.3430499

>>3430498
>Finnegan's Wake
Spend an hour looking at the title again. It's actually pretty important, but you seem to have missed it.
Is Finnegan plural? Is wake a verb?

>> No.3430501

>>3430499
It's a dream, right?

>> No.3430503

>>3430501
Could be. Some of it. Or its opposite. Or not. Or all the above.

>> No.3430508

>>3430503
Obviously that ambiguity is interesting, but what of the actual content? What makes this maybe-dream interesting or something that a person would want to read?

>> No.3430517

>>3430508
It's not ambiguity, it's full on plurality. Everything has ambiguity, it's not something you can get away from.

>What makes this maybe-dream interesting or something that a person would want to read?
This is more a question of "Why does one read" isn't it? I'll say that it's a text you can get a lot out of, it's a very deep text which is what you're contending with atm, and that it's an interesting take on a kind of high art meets low culture project of the history of the world. A world history isn't the only interpretation, but if you look at the older drafts it seems to be where it comes from, and that it ended up being an ode to a musical hall folk song I find intriguing.

>> No.3430559

>implying its not his dying thoughts and the fact that you're reading them is his 'wake'.
A wake is where you go after a funeral to get drunk, I don't know if they have them in America but its pretty damn common in British and Irish culture.

>> No.3430561

>>3430559
>A wake is where you go after a funeral to get drunk
No it isn't. It's where you have the open casket before a funeral.

>> No.3430568

Read the first page in the link somebody posted earlier, and I'd like to know: is it possible to read this book without the extensive footnotes that (try to) explain the more nonsensical words? It seems like it would be completely impossible to understand anything without them. And is it worth reading a book that you could never independently understand?

>> No.3430585

>>3430559

Must we really reduce everything in our society to an excuse for geting drunk?

>> No.3430599

>>3430568
I enjoyed reading it blind. I didn't understand anything, but it kept me amused throughout.

>> No.3430931

>>3430561
No, its where you go after the funeral to drink to the memories of the dead.

>> No.3430935

>almost scientific reasons
lel

>> No.3431801

Meh

not as good as Proust or Faulkner.

Yeah, there, I said it.

Cool, Joyce and Bloom have a cuckold fetish. Great. Moving on now.

>> No.3431830

>>3427733
>almost scientific reasons

Holy fucking lol'd.