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[greyscale]

My SO and I were thinking of reading Ulysses this summer as a way of sharing something while we're living apart. I probably can't keep up with a chapter a day, though.

[marigolds]

My SO and I were thinking of reading Ulysses this summer as a way of sharing something while we're living apart. I probably can't keep up with a chapter a day, though.

I love this idea.

[prufrock]

Read it all on June 16th.

[nordicexpat]

Good luck everyone. I've read it several times now, and even taught it in a previous life (over two terms, to non-native speakers). I think a chapter a day is a breath-taking pace, though. If you feel like springing for it, Naxos has an unabridged audio version that is marvelous. It's a lot easier to understand what's going on when you hear it read aloud (but the audio version is on the expensive side). And if it helps, I started it a few times before I finished it the first time ( the trick for me was not giving up after Proteus.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

There's a free audio book here:
http://www.archive.org/details/Ulysses-Audiobook
(and, if you prefer an American accent, here:
http://www.archive.org/details/ulysses_2007_librivox) - DvF

[polly_mer]

It's a lot easier to understand what's going on when you hear it read aloud

Is that true as a general case or is that only true for certain people, like those who have trouble with English so that the struggle would be two-fold: material and language.

I know that I do much better with complex material when I get to control the pace.  I can exert that control when I am reading.  Read, think, reread, think, flip back, reread, write some notes, and go forward.  Listening to a text that is too complex for me is worthless, whereas I get a lot from reading.

Now, if someone were to point to a video, that might have value since I could see what was going on.  However, I thought most of the point of Ulysses was internal to characters, so a video wouldn't do me much good, either.

[dr_alcott]

I'm gearing up! I found my copy of Ulysses yesterday and will look for Gifford and Seidman today.

[drkinbote]

to polly_mer:

Just my two cents: I think that the audio is helpful for anyone reading Ulysses, though I think it works best if you read along with the audio. I think if you get a few episodes in, you will see why. "Oxen of the Sun," for example, is a really long play on language where Joyce is trying to dramatize the development of the English language through all of its various embryonic stages. It is very difficult to decode a lot of that on the page, but the reader brings its humor and its vitality to life.

For "Proteus," we are in the mind of Stephen Dedalus, but the text itself does not use a lot of structural cues by which we might orient ourselves in the flow of his thoughts. The reading brings the flow to life, and the various pauses and inflections help make sense of it.

In essence, what I am really saying is that for long stretches, Ulysses is meant to be performed, not read. In fact, our traditional reading processes often just don't work with this novel. It invites a kind of performative reading even if you are doing it on your own, as you have to invest significant imaginative and intellectual energy to help make the text mean. Hearing the text read aloud by a gifted actor is invaluable in this process. When I read it the first time, I listened to several episodes while reading along. It was illuminating, to say the least.

My students continue to doubt my sanity as I play them parts of the novel from my iPod, as someone always points out how incredibly weird it is to have Ulysses on an iPod.  But they too appreciate the ways hearing the text makes it live.

[polly_mer]

Well, I'm signed up to learn, so I'll give the audio a shot.  What's the first part where audio or performance really takes over?

[alastrina]

I've put a hold on the book at the library. It should be in by Friday.

[chaosbydesign]

There's a free audio book here:
http://www.archive.org/details/Ulysses-Audiobook
(and, if you prefer an American accent, here:
http://www.archive.org/details/ulysses_2007_librivox) - DvF

Thanks for posting this DvF. I'm going to give the audiobook a try.

[zharkov]

Well, I'm signed up to learn, so I'll give the audio a shot.  What's the first part where audio or performance really takes over?

James shifts gears among description, dialogue, and internal monologue pretty abruptly, but I think you can get the hang of it.  While the Odyssey forms a scaffolding to the story, the style of individual chapters changes or differs.  (I read it two or three years ago, asked for advice on the fora then, which was helpful.)

So I will try to keep up and follow, have read the first part this weekend, and have Blamire's New Bloomsday Book.

May I suggest one of the discussion themes or questions for chapter 1?  It's only Dedalus.

[nordicexpat]

That's a hard question to answer. I think it really takes off with the Sirens episode. Once you get the hang of it, the chapters before that aren't that difficult, except for some tough spots hete and there (proteus, episode three, for instance). The reason I said audio is helpful because a skilled reader can help you navigate the text. Consider the following:

PINEAPPLE ROCK, LEMON PLATT, BUTTER SCOTCH. A SUGARSTICKY GIRL shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne, sucking red jujubes white.

There's no friendly narrator here saying things like , "he read" or "he thought."  you basically have to work out that the first two sentences set the scene, the next two are Bloom's thoughts, and the rest up to the last stence are what Bloom sees on the package, and the last is Bloom's irrelevant characterization of the picture of the King on the package. We see everything through Bloom's eyes, no matter how skewed the perspective. A skilled actor can help you figure out when we are entirely in Bloom's (or steven's, or Molly's) head (memories, random thoughts, fantasies), and when he is perceiving something in the outside world. The trick is that we are entirely limited to what the character would actually think or say. There's no contrived way of informing readers what's going on (ala CSI, where scientists continually explain what exactly they are testing for and why.

[zharkov]

Naturally I should have said Joyce shifts gears.   I also have The Golden Bowl by Henry James on my reading list.

Now if James Joyce married Henry James, ......

[drkinbote]

I think "Proteus" is the first episode that really helps to hear. Others that benefit from audio assistance, in my opinion, are "Sirens," "Oxen of the Sun," and "Penelope." And maybe "Cyclops." Because it is a play, "Circe" can be good to hear as well, though I don't think it is all that hard to understand without hearing it.

I might also add that I really enjoy listening to the first episode in part because it makes Buck Mulligan's shenanigans that much funnier. And, if you can get on board with the idea that Ulysses can be hysterically funny right out of the gates, it gives another incentive to keep going. In my opinion, as much as I love Ulysses, it can be a drag to read the first time because you have to look so much up (or at least I felt that I had to the first time through, as I took a very dutiful approach). Anything that brings out the potential joy in it helps.

The audio version I have is read by Jim Norton, who is fabulous.

http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses/dp/B001DNNASW

Some libraries have this available online. I know my university does because it has a subscription service to NAXOS audio, and Ulysses is there.