Books
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Next Friday the 16th will be Bloomsday.
30 years ago I tried to read the Ulysses, it was impossible.
20 years ago I made the second attempt, I failed
10 years ago, I got the first chapter and then I quit
In February 2022 I started reading it again, this time I managed to finish it on June 16, 2022.
It was like climbing the highest mountain on earth. Now every June I will reread a chapter to celebrate it.
I am now looking at how to tackle Finnegans Wake.
James Joyce followers…. ¿Any advice?
I read Ulysses in grad school, in a Yeats/Joyce seminar. I'd like to pick it up again (and still have my original copy) as I find I'm a better reader than I was half my life ago.
On the topic of big, difficult books: I've tried The Recognitions a couple of times and failed. That feels like my next big climb.
But back to Joyce, the guy who taught the seminar I took was Heyward Erlich, who was pretty well known in Joyce circles--I think he was head of the James Joyce society at some point. Anyway, regarding Finnegan's Wake he said no one reads it, even scholars. They'll pick up passages and sections but it's nigh impossible to read in any linear way as if it were a novel.
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The problem with Joyce is that, not only do you have to be educated in the classics (and I’ve forgotten a lot of that stuff), there is so much contextual reference to the time and place in which he was writing that it is very difficult to understand exactly what he means. Especially considering how there are so many layers of meaning and as you mention the nonlinear storytelling.
It’s a struggle at least for me. I wish it weren’t because he’s a beautiful writer.
Think it, be it.
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@setandsetting , your advice seems reasonable. Thank you
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@mclaincausey, that’s true… languages, history, politics, sociology,... nuances
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@mclaincausey said in Books:
The problem with Joyce is that, not only do you have to be educated in the classics (and I’ve forgotten a lot of that stuff), there is so much contextual reference to the time and place in which he was writing that it is very difficult to understand exactly what he means. Especially considering how there are so many layers of meaning and as you mention the nonlinear storytelling.
It’s a struggle at least for me. I wish it weren’t because he’s a beautiful writer.
Not to mention that he's making puns that require knowing multiple languages to understand.
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I liked Dubliners. As Mclain points out a classical education aids in reading but jokes about Irish politics of the time are over everybodys head today. If I'd tried reading Finnegan first I wouldn't have read a word of Dubliners
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@steelworker Dubliners is a good read, wonderful stories.
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Currently on a dark/gothic western kick, and just wrapped up McCarthy’s (RIP), Blood Meridian. Absolute masterpiece.
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Summer is a great opportunity to read fiction and get away from the usual work-related reading material of theatre, critical theory, and philosophy. I just finished Sophie Berrebi’s ‘The Sharing Economy’, Sean Thor Conroe’s ‘Fuccboi’ and Allison Rumfitt’s ‘Tell Me I’m Worthless’. ‘Fuccboi’ was fun and got better as the book went on even if I found the language a little cloying. Rumfitt’s book was a tough read. Super scary and violent, but felt daring and meaningful too. Berrebi’s book was my favourite of the bunch for its excavation of the self through desire and the art as context framing, but maybe that made it more familiar to the kind of academic stuff I’m used to. All of them recommended.
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Just finished up the first 2 Slough House books and then The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. All very enjoyable
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@doubletee liked the Herron books. There's an excellent series on Apple tv, Slow Horses with Gary Oldman in the Jackson Lamb role. Highly recommend. Season 3 out soon.
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See my post in Random Rants, I had too much trouble going on in the last months to find the time to read.