Reddit Reddit reviews Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses

We found 20 Reddit comments about Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses
University of California Press
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20 Reddit comments about Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses:

u/GradyHendrix · 17 pointsr/books

I'm not a Faulkner guy, but I love Joyce and posts like yours pop up on Reddit from time to time. First, congrats on making the effort. The world is full of sissies who are too chickenshit to ever make it past the easy stuff. Second, here's my advice on Ulysses. Have a ball!

Everyone should read Ulysses at some point in their life. It's a book unlike any other, a book that knocks you out of your comfort zone. A book that makes your brain strain like you're reaching for something on a high shelf. And it's really, really funny. I've read it a couple of times and here's my advice:

Step 1) RELAX. You're going to miss things. It's okay. Some things are worth missing, some things are boring, some things are references that don't make any sense in today's world, so who cares? Joyce didn't want people to puzzle out his book like the answers to an exam, he wanted to present a slice of life in all its freaky majesty and stupidity. Keep looking up at the stars, not down at your feet.

Step 2) Like a shark, keep moving forward. Reading this book is like trying to drink a waterfall. The point is the overall impression, not so much the individual details. Just keep pushing ahead, don't sit there with a magnifying glass trying to appreciate every single word. Joyce himself said he put in a shit ton of puzzles and tricks and things that don't make sense for literary critics and scholars, just to mess with their heads, so don't get hung up on them.

Step 3) There are no such thing as spoilers. Seriously. Buy yourself the Seidman Annotations. These are your new best friends. The introduction to each chapter will get you oriented, and if you get hung up on a phrase, a detail, a bit of wordplay, they're like the board you stick under the wheels of your jeep when it's stuck in the mud.

Step 4) Remember that Joyce wasn't living in Dublin when he wrote this. He hadn't lived there in a long time. So what Ulysses is to some extent is his attempt to rebuild Dublin in his mind, recreating the sights and smells and mind set and beliefs and feelings and streets and people he remembered, but doing it in an impressionistic way. What the impressionists and modernists did for painting, Joyce is doing for books. That's why it reads like he wrote it on drugs. Keep this in mind, the way you keep the north star in mind when you're navigating a ship (which I'm sure you do a lot, right?). This is why the book is "important," because it's an amazing act of sustained imagination. The same way that Superman has the Kryptonian city of Kandor trapped in a bottle, Joyce has one day in Dublin in 1904 trapped in a book.

Step 5) It's funny. It's really funny. You just have to rewire your brain a little to get the jokes. Joyce always thought of himself as someone who was writing, primarily, a comedy. He's sending up the epic form by using the structure of The Odyssey to talk about people going to the bathroom, and masturbating, and getting drunk and making idiots out of themselves. But by doing this, he's not only elevating everyday life to the level of an epic but he's lowering the epic to the level of everyday life. But also: fart jokes. Everywhere.

Step 6) It's okay to skip. Even the biggest Joyce scholars in the world agree: some chapters in Ulysses suck. Here's my breakdown of the book, chapter by chapter. I'm using the chapter names that Joyce gave the book in another document, not the chapter titles that are in the book:

1- TELEMACHUS - come on, it's the first chapter. You've gotta read it. It's basically two roommates squabbling over money.

2 - NESTOR - a bit of a bore but also relatively short

3 - PROTEUS - this is the first long, boring, skimmable chapter. If you're deep on Joyce it's very "important" but it's also pretty impenetrable.

4 - CALYPSO - now we're in Leopold Bloom's part of the book and this is one of the three most famous chapters in ULYSSES (the other two are "Circe" and "Penelope")

5 - THE LOTUS EATERS - fine chapter, a bit dense, but readable

6 - HADES - one of the best in the book in my opinion, just totally Irish and death obsessed and there's even some plot!

7 - AEOLUS - from this chapter forward to "Cyclops" you're in a dense, unforgiving part of the book. I recommend breezing through these chapters and keep up with what's going on with the annotations.

8 - LAESTRYGONIANS - not so bad, but tough stuff.

9 - SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS - ouch. Even Joyce scholars think this one's like getting hit in the head with a brick. Lots of academic nattering about Shakespeare.

10 - THE WANDERING ROCKS - a neat trick (19 bits, told from around a dozen points of view) but otherwise it's really just a walk around Dublin

11 - THE SIRENS - a sweet, lovely chapter but it's all pretty wordplay

12 - CYCLOPS - alert! alert! The least loved and worst chapter in the book. No one can read and understand this one. Fortunately, it's the end of the worst section of Ulysses.

13 - NAUSICAA - a really perverted, really dense, very funny chapter.

14 - OXEN OF THE SUN - scholars love this chapter and it is fun, but don't take it too seriously. The point is to trace the history of the English language from early speech to 20th Century speech in one chapter. It's very complex and kind of unrewarding, which makes it a bit like "Cyclops" but not nearly so bad.

15 - CIRCE - essential

16, 17, 18 - EUMAEUS, ITHACA, PENELOPE - the last three chapters, and completely lovely, moving and awesome.

So my recommendation is to read about it as you read it so you can know what's going on, and save your strength for the better chapters, while avoiding getting hung up on chapters like AEOLUS (which is a bunch of hot air, like its namesake) PROTEUS and CYCLOPS. Also, this is one of the few novels you can read in almost any order and enjoy. If you just want the highlights, I recommend the following order:

  • TELEMACHUS

  • CALYPSO

  • HADES

  • NAUSICAA

  • CIRCE

  • EUMAEUS

  • ITHACA

  • PENELOPE

    Then you can go back and read the tougher chapters however you like.
u/promonk · 7 pointsr/books

Well, it might behoove you to read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man before you dive into Ulysses. Both books are more conventional in style than is Ulysses--therefore easier to read through--and both books have characters in them that appear in Ulysses. Dubliners will set you up for some of the themes regarding the ambivalence of Irish national identity in the bigger book, particularly the section titled "The Dead." Portrait also contains some of these themes, but is more important in that it sets up the character Stephen Dedalus, who is one of the two main protagonists of Ulysses.

There are two companion books that might help you while reading Ulysses that I recommend: Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses, which is a huge collection of glosses and notes explaining obscure references and history. It tends to be slightly more accurate than the other book I'm recommending, but the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming, and some of it is kind of pointlessly digressive.

The New Bloomsday Book is an excellent summary of the plot episode by episode. Blamires makes a point to show the intentional parallels between Ulysses and the Odyssey. Some of the hypotheses Blamires presents seem kind of far-fetched at times, and there are a couple of inaccuracies (at least in the edition I used), but on the whole I referenced this more than Ulysses Annotated.

I would also suggest that you pick a good edition of Ulysses to read. For too many reasons to relate here, Joyce kept revising it throughout his life and many differing editions exist. The Gabler Edition is the best synthesis of Ulysses textual scholarship and is considered the definitive edition in academic circles.

As for approach, I would suggest that you be patient. This is a book that's legendary for rewarding consideration and rereading. If you care to spend the time and effort you'd do well to read each section through without references, then read the synopsis in Blamires, then return to the text and read through while referring to Ulysses Annotated before moving on. You will see things you hadn't noticed before each time you read it, especially if you've read Dubliners and Portrait. However, this can be a bit much for a casual reader as opposed to a scholar, so you could do almost as well simply reading the sections and then comparing your observations and reading with Blamires and moving on.

Best of all would be to find or start a Joyce book club and read it through with them. This will slow you down enough to actually grasp some of the intricacies instead of just robotically scanning pages, and allows you to discuss and hash out ideas and interpretations.

Good luck, and have fun!

u/sensible_knave · 6 pointsr/badphilosophy

Portrait's pretty easy. But fuck that, read Ulysses. The annotations are helpful.

u/goodnightlight · 6 pointsr/mildlyinteresting

I'm a little late but I would also like to say that reading Ulysses in a group is very rewarding, especially if lead by someone who has read and studied the text. I read it in college and our professor was a bit of a Joyce scholar and it made everything so much easier to get the context of. Additionally, the companion book that has all of the contextual explanation and references is a must buy if you are going to undertake it (http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973). Also, it wouldn't hurt to read The Odyssey first either.

u/Agenbite_of_inwit · 5 pointsr/books

Next time you give Ulysses a go you should buy Gifford's Annotations and consult it when necessary. The book is readable and is well worth the work even without the Annotations. You just have to decide beforehand that you're not going to worry about catching every reference.

u/ObeisanceProse · 5 pointsr/books

Here is some quick advice from someone who studied Ulysses at a top Dublin University:

  1. Get Ulysses Unbound:
    This is a very well-respected guide. It doesn't hold your hand but gives you just enough to enjoy every chapter. The much more extensive Ulysses Annotated is also available for those who want more assistance but it is outdated now and full of errors.

  2. Use the Gabler Edition: The editorial history of Ulysses is just awful. The book is full of very precise jokes that have been lost with poor editing. Gabler goes back to the original manuscripts and tries to create a more faithful book.

  3. Take your time: We read a chapter a week and discussed it in class. A chapter a week is ridiculously slow for any normal book but perfectly reasonable for Ulysses, especially for your first read-through.
u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/books

Ulysses Annotated
New Bloomsday Book

These are not suggestions. You need both of these.

u/torturedbythecia · 2 pointsr/books

Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377602116&sr=8-1&keywords=ulysses+annotated

Les Miseables is fantastic if you're an empathy zealot. East of Eden is fantastic as well - I met and fell madly for a woman who had the disposition of Cathy Ames once - it was stupid of me to fall for her as it was after I had read East of Eden. Crime and Punishment makes me feel kind of sick as I read it so I wouldn't say it's a book I like to read, but it's still epic. I don't really like Raskolnikov - but who really likes him?

u/j_la · 2 pointsr/books

Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated is chock full of interesting tidbits, although Penguin's Ulysses: Annotated Student Edition is also good for someone who doesn't want to go as deeply as Gifford will take you.

That being said, I completely agree that you don't "need" the notes, especially since they can mislead readers into thinking that they can get a total picture of the world Joyce is creating. More to the point, it is missing the forest for the trees: the point is that Joyce is recreating the world he lived in; it isn't expected (or possible) that you relive it as well. The first time I read it, I got fixated on references. Now, I just refer to the notes when my studies or interests necessitate more information.

u/RMFN · 2 pointsr/C_S_T

> For clarification, are you recommending/would you recommend that I listen to Delany concurrent to reading each chapter

Yeah he literally breaks it down page buy page. Sometimes an episode will be fifteen minutes on one paragraph. It is amazing.

Yeah and if you have any questions I can do my best to answer them.

This is the edition I have. It is the 1922 text as reset in 64? or something like that. Make sure you get a copy that is not trying to peddle the 'original' 1922 printing as it is full of errors.

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Modern-Library-Reprint-Hardcover/dp/B00C7F057E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458323096&sr=1-1&keywords=ulysses+modern+library

Get this book. It makes the framing of Joyce's Dublin really easy to understand.

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458323069&sr=1-1&keywords=ulysses+annotated

>Also, I appreciate the invitation to share a chat about it, I may indeed take you up on that. Thanks.

Any time. Any question. It wont just help you but it will also help me understand the book more.

You might want to also read Hamlet and be failure with the odyssey seeing as Joyce used those works for the basic outline of the book.

u/yonina · 2 pointsr/literature

This book is generally considered to be the Ulysses bible - the end all guide to understanding all the references, jokes, minutiae, etc. I think it's better to have a guidebook that you can reference occasionally, rather than blunder blindly through what is known as one of the most difficult novels in the English language. That's just what I would do, but of course you have to be careful not to get too obsessed and just to enjoy it as well. Good luck and have fun!

u/thysaniaagrippina · 2 pointsr/literature

I agree with what a lot of people have said about just reading it for the language, and letting go of understanding every sentence. However, if you're curious about the connections to The Odyssey, and also want to know as much as possible about every reference in the novel, I recommend Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated. I liked having it on hand to use if I felt like referencing a place, name, or slang word, or when I just was trying to figure out what the hell is going on at certain points.

u/strychnineman · 2 pointsr/books

Realize that it was written during a certain period, for certain readers.

The person who was interested in this book in 1922 would have likely read Joyce's earlier works and been familiar with Stephen Dedalus. He/she would likely have been familiar with some Latin (the Mass was still conducted in Latin then). ...would have understood the history of Irish and English conflict. Ideally (and Joyce did not expect this) he/she would have been familiar with Dublin.

All of this means that Joyce basically skips the entire common (and expected -by-the-reader) concept and writer's device of exposition.

Which makes for a confusing ride if you aren't an Irish catholic living in Dublin born at the turn of the 19th century and who has read all of Joyce's previous works. And especially because most of us come at this book due to its reputation and being lauded as a Modern Masterpiece. ...we don't usually choose to read it because we have read his other books and loved them, but because it is required reading, or because we have heard so much about it, that we give it a shot. This means we come to it unprepared.

But sheesh... who ever prepares to read a book? Well, we would prepare ourselves if it were a foreign language, or in a technical field we knew little about, or was perhaps Shakespeare in the original English, or Beowulf in Old English, or the Canterbury Tales, etc. etc.

Lots of books require a little more effort than we are often prepared for. The reward is in reading them in their original sense rather than in a sanitized easy-access version. This is one of those books, that's all.

Sure, I'm exaggerating a bit. But let's look at merely the FIRST PAGE (This is the page that convinced me I really wasn't quite the reader that I thought I was, when I picked this book off the shelf for the first time with false bravado).

What the hell is Buck Mulligan doing and saying? What's with the frigging Latin, and can I buy a footnote clarifying it? Well, no, you can't. You're supposed to know it's basically the Catholic Mass, in Latin. Hell. My mother, who had no desired to read Joyce, basically laughed at me when I showed her and she plucked it all out. "It's the Mass!" she said, whacking me in the back of the head.

Where are they? what the hell is this gunrest crap? Barbicans? Towr? WTF? ...well. Martello Tower. What other tower is there on the bay in Dublin? sheesh. everybody knows that

Why's he wearing black, and saying he can't wear grey pants? Jesus. I'm two paragraphs in and sinking fast. ...well, his mother died. When someone was wearing black then, it wasn't a fashion choice. You automatically assumed the person was in mourning.

And so (to beat this to death), Joyce doesn't trip over himself explaining this stuff. The characters do not think to themselves for the purposes of letting us in on things, or for explanation's sake, they simply think the way you do, to yourself. You don't use full sentnces, or explain to yourself what you already know.

So you aren't going to get a line from Joyce that says:

"Buck Mulligan, a guy who is kinda fun on the surface but is really just a blowhard ass, and who is taking from Stephen what he can get (lodging, beer money, and intelligence-cred, among other things), comes from the stairwell getting ready to shave, but first goofs around by pretending he's a priest and so (blasphemously) holds up the shaving cream in a bowl like the sacraments held aloft by a priest, and says "Coming to the altar of God", only in Latin."

This is why the book benefits from a little view behind the curtains. Because as u/danuscript says, except for Joyce, no real all-knowing reader exists. There's also no reliable narrator running consistently throughout who can hold our hand.

It's essentially unfolding in little vignettes seen though others' eyes, or from an uninterested narrator (objective as possible).

So, grab the Gifford annotated volume (the bigger thicker one HERE ). But realize you don't need EVERY notation here to understand it. And some are speculative. really, does the yellow color of the dressing gown warrant three paragraphs? A lot of folks have read in more than joyce may have intended.

Also, try the "New BloomsDay Book". It is is an excellent synopsis, with as much exposition as is needed to understand the meat, and what is happening.

Last... the book is NOT meant to be a one hit wonder. It's not a beginning/middle/end thing, which is read once, and whose 'climax' is some great revelation or surprise. It's meant to be re-read. You would then understand the subtle unsaid things (e.g. which occur in interactions between people, which hinge on these), and you'll understand what's happening which you will have missed the first time through.

And skip.

There. I said it. Bogging down? Eyes glazing over? Try skipping a bit, or reading the first and last line of the medium-sized paragraphs. No shame in it.

If you find that you like the language, are getting the story (with help), and are glad you waded in, then you'll likely be back for a second read, and that can be the one where you focus, and delve, and read each line.

Took me three times, frankly, to make it through.

But I was aware that it wasn't Joyce's failings. but mine, which kept stopping me.

There really is a there there.


u/ragvamuffin · 1 pointr/Denmark

Her kan du få den for knap en halvtredser inklusiv fragt: http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/455531/Ulysses/Product.html?searchstring=ulysses&searchsource=2&searchfilters=s{ulysses}%2bc{91}%2b&urlrefer=search

Hvis du vil nærlæse den, kan jeg anbefale dig at have denne guide liggende ved siden af: http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Annotated-Notes-James-Joyces/dp/0520253973
Men som du selv siger er det nok en del sjovere bare at læse igennem den som førstegangslæser. Jeg læste den selv sammen med en læsegruppe første gang, hvor vi nærlæste den nærmest på enkeltsætningsniveau. Det var fedt, men jeg ville næsten ønske jeg bare havde bøffet den igennem selv først.

Jeg overvejer selv at læse Karsten Sand Iversens nye oversættelse.

Du nævner selv du læser den med en underviser - hvad læser du? Engelsk? Litteraturvidenskab? Det er forhåbentlig ikke en gymnasielærer der har sat den på programmet :)



u/SynysterSaint · 1 pointr/literature

This helped immensely with my Ulysses read-through.

u/jakethedog53 · 1 pointr/Canonade

Love Ulysses.

Here's a copy of the Gilbert schema and the Litany schema.

If you're trudging alone, Ulysses Annotated is invaluable.

u/shesautomatic · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

I'm about to tackle this shit as well. Last week I read the Odyssey and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for homework and then I picked up the Gifford annotations book to read along with an e-copy of Ulysses. The annotated book is an extra 700 pages to read but I can tell it's going to help with my comprehension a ton.

u/RunsWithShibas · 1 pointr/books

Don Gifford's annotations are super helpful for this problem.