Mission Accomplished

Last night I finished the book. I wasn't sure I could do it, but Ulysses by Christmas is a reality. I feel good for having made it through the book, but I recognize that as soon as I finished I immediately turned to the annotations and 2 different books of notes for clues. My ability to pronounce all of the words far exceeded my ability to understand them as grouped. In the end, however, I achieved the goal of reading Ulysses, all of it.

The End is in Sight

If you ever want to put off doing something just say, 'let me finish this sentence..." and then pick up Ulysses for the last sentence. I'm there now and will be for 40+ more pages. This last sentencesection (I can be Joycean, too) is devoid of punctuation, including apostrophes and periods. Jeepers Thats all I can say about that you can believe it you sure can Oh my goodness

I expect to finish the book tonight and then read the notes to learn what the book was about. Did I really read the book or pronounce words to myself in my head? I'll let you know once I finish the notes.

Halftime

Today I made it to the halfway point of Ulysses. I still feel like I'm slogging through the snow, uphill, but today I made it to the top of the mountain. So...I get the politics of a free Ireland; my whole life I have listened to this. In fact, I can't get behind the drink Black and Tan if it is composed as Guinness and Bass Ale. Another major theme seems to be antisemitism. Terrific, two things I understand! Right before the halfway point there were a couple of sections consisting primarily of lists. While I'm sure the annotations will explain how this was great literature, I was reminded of my writing assignments in grade school when I incorporated the entire required vocabulary list into 1 or 2 sentences. Here's one of my greatest hits:
"The pink chair sat on the red rug in a room that included..." then I would list whatever other nouns, etc. could possibly fit. Cheating or Joycean?

On and On

The calendar tells me it is December and my tabbed copy of Ulysses tells me I am in trouble. I fear I may not make the goal of Ulysses by Christmas. Four tabs down, seven to go. Those Dedalus chapters are killer or should I say "chaptersarekiller" and start crafting my own faux compound words? I know I can do this but I digressed with a detour into Stieg Larsson, so I lost a little time. Maybe if I apply myself...

Part II

I never thought I'd say it, but Ulysses is getting better. Having reached Part II, The Bloom section, I am much relieved! I know almost all of the words, it is predominately in English, there is punctuation, and the text is most like a novel. Fancy that! By using the Gifford Annotated, e-notes with my e-version at home, and Cliffs Notes, I may get through this by Christmas. My goal is to make it to the first tab of Part II during dinner.

First 25

I have read the first 25 pages of Ulysses, more by the time I am actually typing this. In truth, then, I am reading Ulysses. I eagerly await the day when I can say, "I have read Ulysses" because this undertaking is no beach read. My annotated volume arrived, much to my relief, and I have gone back through the notes of what I have read to get current. Jeepers! I'm reminded of some of my uncle's poetry. The poems were so word/idea complex that his footnotes ran for many more pages than the poems themselves.

I keep reminding myself that our patron read it so I should be able to. I mentioned to Erica that there were words I didn't know and proper nouns that I wasn't sure if they were people or places. Finally I saw the word, "valise" and was so excited..."suitcase...it means suitcase!!!" I know a word!!! This will be a long voyage, I fear.

So it begins...

How do we tackle Ulysses? When we read War & Peace we broke the book down into each small section and tabbed it with Post-It note pieces. Having frequent stopping points to mark progress was a good way to approach a daunting novel. We are using a similar approach with Ulysses. We marked off natural stopping points within the formal sections. Ulysses will still be difficult, I expect. The annotation books should arrive from amazon.com any day now. Have I ever read Ulysses? No, but I've read the first 3 pages.

New Season!!

Time flies and I can't believe how long it has been since I posted anything to this blog. Inactivity is the kiss of death to a blog so it's a good thing this a singular purpose blog. The virtual leaves are changing here in SW Florida and it is time to do our Fall/Winter online book discussion. Once again I reminded Erica that our patron, David, has powered his way through more of the Modern Library top 100 novels than we have.

So...having conquered War & Peace, I have set the challenge to read the Modern Library's #1 pick, James Joyce's Ulysses. Erica was not, at first, convinced until I told her it was only 258 pages (gigantic lie, she's very gullible). Once she learned the truth, the deal we struck is that we will read Ulysses now, followed by Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

We will be reading the novel accompanied by the Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses [Revised and Expanded Edition], which I bought from amazon.com. The reviews I read indicated that in order to understand/appreciate this book we need annotations. Just as we did with War & Peace, we are tabbing the book at intervals to give us good stopping points and to help give a sense of progress. The goal is Ulysses by Christmas.

Please join us in this book, if you would like. Feel free to comment without reading, as you wish. We have no idea how we will do. Will we enjoy it, get it, understand the fuss? The beauty of not reading Ulysses for a literature class is that if we struggle, we struggle; we will finish, however!

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