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/lit/ - Literature

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506056 No.506056 [Reply] [Original]

This was certainly good, but nowhere near the 20th century's greatest work, in my opinion.

>> No.506061

You're right. That title belongs to Finnegans Wake.

>> No.506060

You're right.

>> No.506065

I wonder why people thought it the absolute best, myself.

>> No.506062

OK, so you thought the sound and the fury was?

i'll bite

why? just curious.

>> No.506069

>>506062
The Sound and the Fury is my tripcode. I certainly think it's better than Ulysses, personally, as a story. As to the most endearing work of the twentieth century I'd have to say One Hundred Years of Solitude probably ranks up there.

>> No.506072

people just want to be coolshit and all but when they actually read it they also wonder why it's even at the top

so what if you jack off and write about jacking off

>> No.506077

>>506069
Haha yes, I also think that this book where things happen that could never happen in reality is the best of the 20th century

>> No.506083

Are you kidding? Ulysses wasn't good. James Joyce even said so. It was a test in how much literary pontification a modernist writer could cram into a single cover.

>> No.506087

>>506083
Yeah nobody cares how a writer feels about his own work

>> No.506125

>>506056
I agree with your blog post. Really pretty well-written stuff there. Read your stuff from /a/, and liked the fact that you didn't overanalyze this time.

>> No.506129

>>506125
?

>> No.506134

>>506129
Guy writes a blog. Wrote about Ulysses there. Probably didn't like to share it with 4chan because he didn't want the burden of shit. IMO good stuff. Certainly better writing than that shit story of his.

>> No.506136

>>506134
ok w/e

>> No.506138

>>506134
Well, it's not like I'm hiding anything, but I thought no one would be interested at reading my spiel anyway.

http://animeotaku.animeblogger.net/2010/04/intermission-overthrowing-the-colossus-of-time/

I was afraid to post about it because - ah, nevermind, just ignore the introductory paragraph (in italics).

Thanks.

>> No.506144

>>506138
ugh you watch shitty anime

>> No.506147

>>506144
Cross Game is NOT shitty.

It's really good.

>> No.506151

>>506138
stick to essays instead of writing short stories

>> No.506154

>>506151
I would stick to writing about shitty anime

>> No.506193

I agree, Joyce's best work was Portrait of an Artist.

>> No.506287

Dubliners, man, those short stories were awesome especially The Dead.

Ulysses was OK and Finnegans Wake was utter shit.

>> No.506314

The Dead was something magical. Then it was downhill from there.

>> No.506331

Got Dubliners sitting right here...

Should I read?

>> No.506363 [DELETED] 
File: 11 KB, 251x232, 1246000204833.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
506363

>The last few pages of The Dead
>My face

>> No.506370

>>506331

Read The Dead, at least.

>> No.506374

>>506370
Seconding this. Araby is very cash, too.

>> No.506669

>>506331
>>506363
Jesus Christ I hated the fact that I even cared to read Ulysses after reading The Dead.

I mean ... by fucking God THAT was his best work.

>> No.506715

FUCK THE DEAD WAS THE SHIT FUCK FUCK

>> No.506742

The people who still think Ulysses is the greatest novel of the 20th century should take a good hard look at themselves ... I mean ... what?

>> No.506746

>>506742
Exactly. It's Finnegans Wake.

>> No.506748

>>506746
oh u double nigger

>> No.506749

>>506331
Shit yes.

Joyce's best work, by far.

>> No.506759

>>506331
The Dead alone is already awesome.

>> No.506764

>>506138
i wholeheartedly agree with your post

seems you do write well

just that your story sucked

>> No.506767

>>506764
no
no
yes

>> No.506788

My professors were luckily among the smartest people I've talked to regarding Ulysses, but I read the novel anyway to try to evaluate it for myself. I found out that while it was good - it was funny at times and certainly inventive, it was nothing really special.

I've finally read all five major works by Joyce and I can say that Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is probably the best among them. The Dead was especially good and I've read it about three times in the past three years. It's still really great.

>> No.506802

most people nowadays don't really give a damn ... they just want a good story. ulysses fails there, i agree.

>> No.506818

>>506802
Maybe Joyce was simply smart enough to realize the futility of storytelling

>> No.506917

>>506818
how can storytelling be futile?'

it;s been successful since time immemorial. no experimentation can change that.

>> No.506955

>>506138
nice work

>> No.508900

shit

>> No.508908

Joyce must have left notes on what he intended to do with this novel, right? Does anyone know what he was aiming for?

>> No.508923

The Dead was really good. So was Portrait.

Ulysses, it was meh, but I read it and I just couldn't bear Finnegans Wake - what the fuck was that shit?

So I agree with you, yeah. Overrated.

>>506138
Pretty much, yeah. The everyman isn't Leo Bloom now, it's faggots who like Twilight. I think most people are dumber than Molly rofl.

>> No.508933

>http://animeotaku.animeblogger.net/2010/04/intermission-overthrowing-the-colossus-of-time/

Just noticed this. I think he was trying to push the boundaries of literature but it's not timely, really. Overall good post. It's not an academic essay anyway.

>> No.508939

>>508908
all he really wrote about was that if dublin were destroyed everything could be rebuilt from the pages of this novel

really overrated imo. certainly not the best of the 20th century.

>> No.508945

>>508908
He wanted to write something that would keep people discussing and analyzing a hundred years later.

>> No.508946

>>506083
That's what was great about it. In the usual framework of what makes a novel good Ulysses doesn't come very close to great, but as a grand experiment of form and storytelling it was up there. The downside to that is it's a pain to read.

>> No.508968

>>508933

>Just noticed this. I think he was trying to push the boundaries of literature but it's not timely, really. Overall good post. It's not an academic essay anyway.
>Overall good post.
>Link is shitpost.

Holy fuck you are dumb /lit/.

>> No.508969

Want to know if you're going to like Ulysses? If you're looking for a great story, then you'll hate this book. If you love seeing what a writer can do with different styles, allusions, play on words, techniques, et cetera, then you'll love this book because that's what makes Joyce one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

>Read "Oxen of the Sun"
>It's about Bloom visiting someone who's giving birth to a child
>The chapter's style starts out at the very beginning of English and, in 9 sections, moves towards modern English
>Chapter 15 written in the format of a play
>Chapter 17 written entirely in question+answer format
>GLORIOUS.jpg

Nothing wrong with just wanting a great storyline out of a book. I can safely say that I love TSATF as much as the OP does and TSATF does offer a great storyline: the tragedy of a Southern dynasty and how Caddy's promiscuity profoundly affected her three brothers.

>> No.508977

It was not "good" but it was certainly necessary for the art. Even Woolf said it was shit.

>> No.508986 [DELETED] 

>>508977
When did Woolf say it was shit? My preface to Mrs. Dalloway says she thought Joyce was flashy and the idea of using The Odyssey as the basis for the story of a middle-aged Jew was an affront to her.

>> No.509000

So what you guys are saying is that Ulysses is the Twilight of Irish fiction?

>> No.509031

>>509000
Hardly.

>> No.509063

>>509000
No, but anyone who thinks that it was anything more than a simple artistic exercise is a moron.

>> No.509240

>>508969
Exactly that. Despite the techniques implemented in TSATF, it was a really good story as well.

>>508933
Thanks.

>>509000
It allowed the progression of literature despite everything, so no.

>> No.509296

ITT people don't stop to think that maybe they're not as intelligent as the authors and academics who have formed the literary canon.

>> No.509320

>>509296
>missed the point of Ulysees entirely

It's a shitty book that was meant to be that way. Joyce would laugh so hard at you fags who think that it is totally fuckawesome.

>> No.509336

>>509296
yeah because it's smart not to have an opinion for yourself

ITT: idiot

>> No.509354

I think it was good because it brought a lot into ways of telling a story. It brought something most definitely novel into literature. But I just can't think of it as the greatest when it doesn't have a decent story in the first place. Ultimately, a novel has to tell a story and for the most part what makes it endearing is that story.

>> No.509362

>>509000
no, but anyone who thinks it's the greatest of novels is an idiot

>> No.509363

>>509354
Wow. That's...
You're in high school aren't you?

>> No.509366

>>509354

>It brought something most definitely novel into literature.

>novel into literature

i c what u did thar

>> No.509383

>>509354
ahahaha nice

>> No.509395

>http://animeotaku.animeblogger.net/2010/04
/intermission-overthrowing-the-colossus-of-time/

I liked it where you said that Ulysses was one big fart joke. It is one huge fart.

>> No.509772

BUT I THOUGHT ULYSSES WAS HIGH-BROW LITERATURE

/sarcasm

>> No.509866

Ulysses has three of the most human characters in all of literature.

That alone is enough to make it one of my favorite books.

>> No.509914

As I Lay Dying is. Everybody knows that.

>> No.509924

Anyone who thinks that this isn't a literary masterpiece needs to do some more reading. There isn't a writer better than Joyce out there. Ulysses is pure genius, and if you don't understand that you might as well give up on reading.

>> No.509958

>>509924
because reading has to be hard for it to be meaningful right? herp derp

jesus christ you smell of pretension

>> No.509960
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509960

Sure is philistine in here.

>> No.509988

>>509958
Why bother reading a book if there's no meaning to it? Any other kind of book is pointless.

>> No.509995

>>509958
> Implying that reading Joyce is hard.

>> No.510001

>>509988
the book doesn't have to be difficult to be understandable

yeah, i'm not going to lie i had a hard time reading ulysses and so did all of us. but i really liked the fact that our professor was so smart to tell us that at the end of it all, ulysses was full of shit, wasn't it?

lol we all agreed.

>> No.510006

>>509995

>implying that the cluekey to a worldroom beyond the roomwhorld, for scarce one, or pathetically few of his dode canal sammenlivers cared seriously or for long to doubt with Kurt Iuld van Dijke (the gravitational pull perceived by certain fixed residents and the capture of uncertain comets chancedrifting through our system suggesting the authenticitatem of his aliquitudinis) he canonicity of his existence as a tesseract. Be still, O quick! Speak him dumb! Hush ye fronds of Ulma!

>> No.510050
File: 6 KB, 251x251, 1232485745699.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
510050

>>510006

>> No.510062

Proust is better

>> No.510070

>read thread
>facepalm.jpg

>> No.510095

>>510006

>authenticitatem

>aliquitudinis

>No Dictionary Results

Fuck you, Joyce.

>> No.510122

joyce is awesome but hard as shit

i agree with OP

>> No.510146

>>509924
>if the book doesn't get to you, it's YOUR fault.
I assume the same goes for food, music, and basically everything else you don't like.

>> No.510149

>>510095
lol declination

>> No.510166

There have been a lot of words that I really don't know what they mean, even with context. I understand that in the Oxen of the Sun chapter that he was alluding to the evolution of modern English - bravo to him for pulling that off - but there are times in the novel where you don't know what the hell he really means, even after figuring out his portmanteaus.

Asmosphere, for example. And ywimpled ... along with other words. It was good as a novel - but nowhere near the utter best.

>> No.510193

>>510166

So get a fucking dictionary? Ulysses didn't have any portmanteaus besides a few in the siren chapter iirc.

Also if you don't know why he put y before some words then you read Ulysses too early.

>> No.510207

>>510193
There are words that even the best dictionaries don't have. Maybe you need to re-read Ulysses if you implied I didn't read closely.

>> No.510238

>>510207

Only the first few pages of Oxen in the Sun are dictionary worthy. Otherwise read more.

>> No.510272

this thread is divided between pretentious fucks and people who don't think too much of ulysses.

no one's backing down.

>> No.510274

>>510238
you are a troll

or a really old guy

>> No.510287

>>510274

Sadly not old enough to look good in tweed and elbow patches.

>> No.510551

the dead is his best work

i am book expert, reader of more than 2000+ books

>> No.510565

If you didn't read annotations alongside the book then you did it wrong

>> No.510590

>>506056
>but nowhere near the 20th century's greatest work
Well yeah, there's no way you can compare that shithole of a book to the literary magnificence that is his letters to Nora Barnacle

>> No.510713

>>510590
>arse full of farts darling
>fucked them out of you

genius, really

no, Ulysses is OK, but fuck the Wake.

>> No.510718

>>510565
the really great novels are self-referential - they just tell a masterful story. agree with op here.

>> No.510739

>>510565
in a really good book you don't even need annotations. that's basically OP's point.

>> No.510748

>>510739
Then I guess Ulysses is a great book for people who are smart

>> No.510787

>>510748
nah, ulysses is a great book for pretentious hipsters

>> No.510871

>>510787
If they don't need annotations to get the book, they must be pretty well-read

>> No.510877

>>510871
That is a very unfortunate way to view the book. There are many things one can appreciate about it without having extensive knowledge of past literature. For example:
>>509866

>> No.510882

>>510748
not necessarily

i like ulysses for stephen

such a smart bastard!

>> No.510899

james joyce is a perv, i wont read any of his works