[thindarkduke13]

Damn, it feels good. I can scratch that off my list of things to read before I die. I waa extremely condescending to all my friends today. One of my teachers too. He wasn't mad though; he thought it was amazing as he never finished it.

[demonrail666]

They say it only ever really makes sense the second time you read it.

[joe11121]

The Joyce novel?

[terminal pharmacy]

congratualtions on reading a book.

[atsonicpark]

Haha wish I could rep you terminal. That's one of the funniest things I've read on here in a while.

[Sonic Youth 37]

I finished it in August of last year and the only Joyce I've managed to read since is "The Sisters" from Dubliners. I get the strong urge to have meltdown when I see his books on my shelf/desk

Originally Posted by demonrail666

They say it only ever really makes sense the second time you read it.

I'm inclined to agree with this and add that you'd need to read it a third time, but that time read an annotated copy.

[Glice]

If anyone's getting points for being an obdurate prick, I'd like it be known that I've finished Ulysses, Finnegans Wake and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

[Savage Clone]

My favorite writer is Richard Brautigan. You could read his entire output in a weekend.

Congratulations though. I found Joyce to be uttery impenetrable.
And unenjoyable.

[Glice]

It's not auto-reflexive, but I do think there's a sense in which Ulysses is about writing Ulysses as much as it a flimsy narrative (it's a good narrative, but it's flimsy). It is, of course, a monstrously 'difficult' book, but I think it's very consciously difficult. Unlike, say, Negative Dialectics which is the most ball-achingly impossible book I've ever read and is clearly written from the vista of perspicaciousness. I wouldn't condescend to recommend or defend Ulysses to Drone or anyone, but I would say it's a book for people who are interested in writing as much as they are reading. Interested not necessarily to write, but in writing. It's a bit Tristan chord, y'know?

[Savage Clone]

I think the above also applies to the likes of Faulkner.
I guess Joyce and Faulkner are still easier to take than their counterparts in the electric guitar world, where you get Steve Vai to keep you company.

Maybe you should hand me that copy of "Ulysses" after all.

[Rob Instigator]

I am seconding the savage one's assesment.

after a hundred pages of nearly imprenetable gibberish I just could not give less of a fuck, so I stopped, twice.

I enjoyed portrait of the artist as a young man though. more of a piece of art than an excercise etude.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

I think the above also applies to the likes of Faulkner.
I guess Joyce and Faulkner are still easier to take than their counterparts in the electric guitar world, where you get Steve Vai to keep you company.

Maybe you should hand me that copy of "Ulysses" after all.

The difference between Vai and Joyce is that Joyce owns his art; Vai fetishises a narrow part of it. I think R. Strauss or Wagner are fairer comparisons (although music is much more permeable than literature, so the analogy is iffy at best).

[Savage Clone]

Well, I guess I could have drawn attention to more tasteful "musicians' musicians," but where is the fun in that?

[Glice]

Where indeed.

[Sonic Youth 37]

Faulkner just doesn't work. Out of the one book I've read of his, "As I Lay Dying", about the only thing I can remember is the father saying "I wouldn't be beholden to no man" about eight dozen times. And I just read it about 3 months ago. I remember tons more about Ulysses because it's infinitely more interesting than the southern gothic nonsense Faulkner churned out.

[Kloriel]

Can you be more specific regarding what you remember?

Are you saying that you can't spit back Faulkner lines on a dime? Also what does 'tons more' mean?

[Sonic Youth 37]

Actual plot lines and descriptions. ie, going to the cabman's hut/shack/hovel, things like that. Faulkner's plot and whatnot didn't stick with me. I remember that line and building the coffin, that's pretty much it.

[Kloriel]

thanks, and haha sounds like Faulkner is a nervous ghost. I shall absorb him.

[pbradley]

I enjoyed Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

[Kloriel]

That's good, that's the point - to enjoy. I know I don't need to tell you that, but I admit I was close to preaching at 37 and the op. I'm a douche.