Ulysses by James Joyce

Ulysses is in the number one spot on the Modern Library book list, the greatest novel ever of the twentieth century.  Radcliffe's Rival list puts it at number six, still a respectable showing.  I will never understand why.  Almost every review of Ulysses says that the reader has to (or at least should) read the book over and over to really “get” it.  I can tell you right now that will not be the case with me.  There are too many good books or mediocre books or books that I know nothing about that I will read one time rather than waste my time re-reading Ulysses and trying to understand or enjoy it.  While researching Ulysses, I was never able to find anyone who could say exactly why it is the best novel ever.  Most reviewers parrot back what they’ve read before and then make reference to other books you can read to try and make more sense of Ulysses or Joyce himself. 

While much better and far more intelligible than Finnegans Wake, Ulysses is full of Joyce trying to cram as many writing styles as he can into one book.  There are chapters with no punctuation, dialogue with no exposition, sentences that go on for hundreds of words and one chapter written in a question and answer format, never asking the most important question…WHY?!

While the goal of following a group of people through a single day and documenting every tiny detail of their lives seems a grand idea, with Joyce it just comes out as a pretentious pastime.   While briefly banned in the US as obscene, it should have been banned as just boring.

There were a few chapters that gave me hope.  In one scene, a group of locals are espousing their views on Shakespeare.  While I am certain this is Joyce giving us his opinion, the writing is clear, the scenes are vivid and the arguments are well made.  So Joyce could write well.  Why he chose not to is anyone’s guess.

I do not recommend you read Ulysses.

Next week:  Sandra reads The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.