Had you told me in college that I would reach a point in my life where I would defend Ulysses, I would have said you were delusional. I crammed the book into my head for a test and remembered enough to pass. I figured that was it for me and Mr. Joyce. Enter God: I am assigned to go to Dublin and follow the route Mr. Bloom took through Dublin in order to write a piece for the centenary of Bloomsday. I read the book a second time. I have only a couple chapters to go when we arrive in Dublin. After a day of listening to Dubliners, it is suddenly easier to read and those last two chapters slip by. Joe Carter says that "Even fans of the book, though, will admit that it is almost completely unreadable without outside help." The only outside help I had was those Dubliners. Of course, I had studied Thomism, which does help, especially when Stephen is pondering on Sandymount strand.The fact is, if you don't approach it with undue reverence and start with Chapter 4, and take your time, just reading a bit at a time and waiting to digest that bit before moving on, I think you'll find it rather wonderful. I have heard Mass in the church Mr. Bloom visits, have stood by the Liffey where he stood feeding the gulls. I have come to think of him as a friend.
This is not to suggest that Joyce's book is flawless. I still agree with J.B. Priestley: "Joyce was not taking the novel anywhere; he has to be enjoyed but then bypassed. ... In terms of the novel, Joyce is an eccentric with astonishing gifts and of unquestionable genius. He is not so much a novelist as a unique combination of fantasist, humorist, scholar, poet. ... most of what we have been told about Joyce as a great modern master of the novel , changing the course of fiction, opening a way for later novelists, is nonsense. [His] are the astonishing creations of a comic poet of genius, who did whatever appealed to his idea of prose narrative in depth; and in those works he is unique and inimitable."
This is not to suggest that Joyce's book is flawless. I still agree with J.B. Priestley: "Joyce was not taking the novel anywhere; he has to be enjoyed but then bypassed. ... In terms of the novel, Joyce is an eccentric with astonishing gifts and of unquestionable genius. He is not so much a novelist as a unique combination of fantasist, humorist, scholar, poet. ... most of what we have been told about Joyce as a great modern master of the novel , changing the course of fiction, opening a way for later novelists, is nonsense. [His] are the astonishing creations of a comic poet of genius, who did whatever appealed to his idea of prose narrative in depth; and in those works he is unique and inimitable."
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