― steve ketchup, Monday, 31 October 2005 07:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Which raises an interesting question - how much of a book do you need to understand for it to be enjoyable? I suspect this is largely a question of temperament: Reader A can understand 80% of a book and find it a pleasurable read; Reader B understands 90% and finds it frustratingly obscure.
― frankiemachine, Monday, 31 October 2005 10:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 31 October 2005 13:36 (eighteen years ago) link
But he / she is slightly and understandably wrong on one count. The Citizen borrowed Garryowen from Giltrap, who is Gerty's grandfather. The narrator of 'Cyclops' tells us the first of those two facts.
― the finefox, Monday, 31 October 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 31 October 2005 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― steve ketchup, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 03:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 05:08 (eighteen years ago) link
Yes that's my point - I just can't do that. I'm not saying I need to understand a book 100% before I can enjoy it but I have a relatively low tolerance of obscurity.
he did give himself a good long while to write Ulysses, more than any of us have given to reading it, you know?
Curiously, this is not quite true. I have now spent almost twice as many years reading it as JJ spent writing it.
Someone told me that Joyce once said (I paraphrase) "all that I ask of my readers is that they devote their lives to the understanding of my work". I've never seen it written anywhere, but the guy who told me this wouldn't have made it up (it's just possible he had been misled himself).
― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 09:55 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not entirely sure "meaning" or "understanding" can be quantified. But even if you do understand "80%" of a text, what if it's the wrong 80%? What if you understand 100% of a text, but your understanding diverges with everyone else's, including the author's? A text like "Lolita" you can read all the way through and feel as though you "understood" it and then go back and reread it and discover there was a whole secret code going on during the novel that you might not have known to see the first time.
Finepox: Jaq is a lady-style person.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 10:38 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't disagree with any of that & in fact anticipated the objection. But I decided I could spend long enough trying to refine what I'm saying to remove this kind of ambiguity, probably still without total success. If we get into philosophical discussion about semantics none of us will ever get out again. I think my basic point is clear enough.
― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:28 (eighteen years ago) link
So to "understand" Ulysses in the common sense of the word is impossible. All you ever do is get better acquainted with it. The fact that it points you at other facts, that you can learn about it from outside of it, is just a fact of the intertextuality of knowledge. Which is an interesting and often overlooked point about knowledge, I think.
― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 12:03 (eighteen years ago) link
Dublin is obscure, in a sense, possibly, the first time you go there. Especially, perhaps, if you don't take any guide books or maps. But less so if you live there, I imagine.
Maybe something somewhat parallel can be said of the book.
― the finefox, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link
Some people, for example steve, find that not understanding large chunks of a novel are not a barrier to enjoyment: others, myself included, generally do. This is surely obvious enough. What interests me more particularly is that people will tend to assume that if steve likes the novel better than I did he must have understood it better. That obviously doesn't necessarily follow: but as I say the assumption is frequently made.
My point is a general one and not specific to Ulysses, a book I incidentally feel very ambivalent about.
― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 16:02 (eighteen years ago) link
As I recall the story, Joyce was in a social situation and another guest complained to him about the convolution and opacity of Finnegans Wake, asking, (I paraphrase) "Do you really expect me to spend my whole life puzzling this out?"
Joyce answered, "Yes."
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:04 (eighteen years ago) link
A better-educated friend of mine read Ulysses around the same time as I did and understood much more of it. He said he thought it was basically garbage (which is what I think of Gravity's Rainbow).
Joyce was so deeply involved in his own work that he honestly thought WWII occured because not enough people read his book (FW).
― steve ketchup, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― steve ketchup, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 19:13 (eighteen years ago) link
i like steve's remark about unknowing.
― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 08:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I can empathise with this, having felt similar things around the same age when I started to get interested in "literature" (not having been interested in much except girls, beer and playing in bands in my late teens). Ulysses was definitely part of that: I was quite dazzled and slightly obsessed by Joyce for a time and read everything about Ulysses I could get my hands on - although there were other infatuations that hit me just as hard or harder (Rilke, Wordsworth, Lawrence). I think at bottom though there was the idea that if only I could grasp this stuff properly there would be an almost spiritual enlightenment at the end of it (I was fascinated by neoplatonism and similar rubbish). Joyce, more a aesthete and less of a would-be sage than the others, probably looks like a slightly awkward fit here, but he was pressed into service all the same.
― frankiemachine, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 10:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― literary critic, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 10:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Also, 'You will', and 'I will'?
― the finefox, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 13:07 (eighteen years ago) link
Ulysses isn't that mysterious to me anymore, but it retains a place of significance in my life because it forever changed my relationship to my own ignorance and confusions. Since then I have tended to embrace things I don't get (but feel vague attractions to), rather than feeling defensive about them. Sometimes a massive waste of time (the economics/politics of Ezra Pound fr'instance), but often rewarding. It's not limited to works of art either (I learned how to fix cars mostly because it was so out of my aesthete-type character).
Substituing pot, etc. for beer my experience was like frankiemachine's.
― steve ketchup, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:46 (eighteen years ago) link
oh yes, so OTM and well put.
except that now i'm filled with unknowing again since, for some reason, i can barely follow the plot of a TV show. novels are much easier though.
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 3 November 2005 05:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 3 November 2005 07:20 (eighteen years ago) link
Well done with your reading, Jaq.
― the finefox, Thursday, 3 November 2005 14:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 16:00 (eighteen years ago) link
I can extend the similarity a bit, Steve - I could easily have written the following sentence after ploughing through Kenner and and the rest:
Sometimes a massive waste of time (the economics/politics of Ezra Pound fr'instance),
Maybe the difference is that I'm much, much less likely nowadays to be interested in self-consciously "difficult" art (although define-yer-terms may be a fair riposte to that because, for example, Cecil Taylor's Conquistador is on constant rotation on my cd player as I speak). The enthusiasm of Jaq, Pinefox and others, and the thread on favourite sentences, has even got me semi-interested in re-reading Ulysses, although perhaps not.
― frankiemachine, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 17:39 (eighteen years ago) link
I, too, have found myself less interested in difficult-because-it-aspires-to-be art as well, but to me there's a distinction between that which arrives at difficulty organically (like Cecil, Ulysses-era-Joyce, or Messiaen) and the I'm-so-clever kind. As a phase of development, Kenner was important to me. I'm glad I did all that, not from what I took from it in terms of substance, but that it gave me confidence in sharpening my critical apparatus enough to understand the difference between complexities that proceed from expressive neccessity and those which are deliberate -and maybe pointless- displays of mental agility (kind of how I feel about FW, even though it makes me laugh).
― steve ketchup, Thursday, 10 November 2005 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 12 March 2006 01:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 12 March 2006 01:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― paralecces, Sunday, 12 March 2006 06:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 12 March 2006 11:16 (eighteen years ago) link
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1091216,00.html
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 12 March 2006 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link
does anyone know anything about a japanese film from a couple years ago: ulysses relocated to the red light district in tokyo except with an underpinning of japanese paganism replacing the classical references? i remember reading about this but people keep saying "that sounds like something you'd make up"
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 12 March 2006 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Sunday, 12 March 2006 21:59 (eighteen years ago) link
now, how would you film chapter sixteen?
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 12 March 2006 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost: like a 70s home movie with skronky film, jumpy edits and a final "flick flick flick flick" as it comes off the projector. Chapter 14 would be super duper fun.
Has anybody else seen the 1969 (?) version? All I can say is - it stays faithful to the story.
― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Monday, 13 March 2006 01:21 (eighteen years ago) link
honestly, it'd be a great miniseries.
i remember 'bloom' being called 'bl.,m' on the website. or was that another one? regardless it's a useless title, guy gets to be called like twelve names, yo. VOICEOVERS. eahrrh.
i want someone to make a case for chapter sixteen as not being alarmingly uncharitable! please!
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 13 March 2006 01:50 (eighteen years ago) link
(I have just reread it, coincidentally.)
I am happy to agree quite strongly with the people who think Ulysses should be on TV, in a series. I remember saying so, enthusiastically, to a bloke at a bus stop, about 10 years ago, maybe more, and he unleashed his spleen against me. I did not use the word 'miniseries', though. Maybe that would have helped.
― the finefox, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 12:37 (eighteen years ago) link
how would you televise it?
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link
well that may inspire me to pick it up again
― Are you addicted to struggling with your horse? (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 30 April 2024 15:28 (one month ago) link
"The Lady is Lingering" on Indiscreet borrows some lines from a Henry Miller book, Ron can make something out of literary inspiration.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 16:10 (one month ago) link
Nearly done with Circe. Honestly a bit underwhelmed this time around. The connections to the Odyssey don't really add that much, without that the structure falls a bit apart. And without the structure, it seems like a bunch of experiments brought together, and some of them work a lot better than others. Those that work, though, are obviously incredible, I''m not hating. But reading Finnegans Wake two years ago was a bigger experience.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 1 May 2024 11:46 (one month ago) link
I've never managed to make it very far in the Wake.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 2 May 2024 15:38 (one month ago) link
tbf neither does the Wake
― Bitchin Doutai (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 2 May 2024 16:35 (one month ago) link
I keep finwake as an open window on my phone and re-read bits of it when I have time. The annotations are great. I like to read it aloud to myself, half the enjoyment is in the mouthfeel of it
― your dog is fed and no one cares (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 2 May 2024 20:34 (one month ago) link
what annotated version are you reading on your phone?
― default damager (lukas), Thursday, 2 May 2024 20:41 (one month ago) link
I told a Joyce professor I met that I was afraid of the Wake, he laughed and said "be afraid. I've spent 50 years programming myself to read this book." So that was encouraging.
― default damager (lukas), Thursday, 2 May 2024 20:44 (one month ago) link
Two things I took away from the Wake:
1) Even though all the words stayed mostly incomprehensible throughout, it's often easy to grasp the tone/discourse of the text. If it's a lesson, a flirty conversation, if it's satire, elegy, mystery, etc. So in some way you can just float along, and get an emotional experience out of it. And enough things recur to get a sort of grip on a sort of plot.
2) Nobody understands Finnegans Wake anyway, so you're free to just make up your own interpretation. While Ulysses seems a lot more settled, the meaning of Finnegan's Wake is still up for debate. To me, it seemed to be about the Irish Civil War in a lot of ways. Or something like that. About trauma, the way so much modernism is about trauma, but a very different trauma than WWI.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 2 May 2024 21:35 (one month ago) link
finwake [dot] com!
The book comes alive when you read it aloud to yourself, it’s as much music as it is text
― your dog is fed and no one cares (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 2 May 2024 22:26 (one month ago) link