Ah, Ulysses, a trigger for me. Ulysses is the reason I'm a college dropout. I was a junior year English major taking a twentieth-century novel class. We were assigned Ulysses, Swann's Way, The Magic Mountain, and The Moviegoer -- for good measure -- all in one semester. I'm a slow, careful reader. There was no way in hell. I took an incomplete and never returned. Academic malpractice at its worst.
IMO, there should be a minimum age requirement, say 40, to read Ulysses. Without loss, grief, illness, abandonment, children, a mortgage...the book is incomprehensible.
A trigger? A full gunshot blast for me! James Joyce!!! ULYSSES!!! Ugh, my God! I was also in a class for which I took an "Incomplete", because "Run Away Screaming" was not a grading option. We were to only do Ulysses for the entire semester, and all I remember is trying to read it and my mind would NOT stay connected to it. I would wander around what I was going to have for dinner, or how much laundry I had to do, or how I could get my roommate to stop being such a slob. So, then I'd REALLY buckle down and try again, and that would last 2-3 minutes before I was off in dreamland again -- and I wasn't even masturbating!
I really admire people who can read Ulysses and get ANYTHING out of it. For me, it was the "Infinite Monkey Theorem," which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as ULYSSES! (Wikipedia said, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," with which I MUST disagree. It's ULYSSES!)
I'm that guy from last week that somehow missed all the classics of literature -- THIS may be why. Ulysses put me off reading almost anything for at least six months after that experience. It violated everything I had ever learned about literature in my, at the time, 20 years of life. I'm now 44 years beyond that age and it still does. Ugh!!
But thanks Greg -- I appreciate your appreciation! James Joyce, not so much.
OMG! Steve. I get it. I was just getting to that stage as an English major when you start feeling sucked into a vortex where each word, phrase, sentence must be painfully, scrupulously analyzed until every last molecule of pleasure is wrung from it. Why the F would anyone young, dumb, and full of cum devote their life to The Faerie Queen? I did finally read Ulysses for the same reason I read The Book of Mormon. It was obligatory.
Yes, Joyce was mostly fucking around. Which is also part of the fun.
To conquer Joyce yes ... To realize "no mud; no lotus" beautifully
Well put!
Ah, Ulysses, a trigger for me. Ulysses is the reason I'm a college dropout. I was a junior year English major taking a twentieth-century novel class. We were assigned Ulysses, Swann's Way, The Magic Mountain, and The Moviegoer -- for good measure -- all in one semester. I'm a slow, careful reader. There was no way in hell. I took an incomplete and never returned. Academic malpractice at its worst.
That's crazy. Any one of those long books could ad should be a full semester, if done properly.
I have actually contemplated suing the university for malpractice. LOL
Agree they did you wrong
IMO, there should be a minimum age requirement, say 40, to read Ulysses. Without loss, grief, illness, abandonment, children, a mortgage...the book is incomprehensible.
We covered Portrait of the Artist near the end of the semester, Professor (also head of dept) explained Ulysses was for some other time. Thankfully.
A trigger? A full gunshot blast for me! James Joyce!!! ULYSSES!!! Ugh, my God! I was also in a class for which I took an "Incomplete", because "Run Away Screaming" was not a grading option. We were to only do Ulysses for the entire semester, and all I remember is trying to read it and my mind would NOT stay connected to it. I would wander around what I was going to have for dinner, or how much laundry I had to do, or how I could get my roommate to stop being such a slob. So, then I'd REALLY buckle down and try again, and that would last 2-3 minutes before I was off in dreamland again -- and I wasn't even masturbating!
I really admire people who can read Ulysses and get ANYTHING out of it. For me, it was the "Infinite Monkey Theorem," which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as ULYSSES! (Wikipedia said, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," with which I MUST disagree. It's ULYSSES!)
I'm that guy from last week that somehow missed all the classics of literature -- THIS may be why. Ulysses put me off reading almost anything for at least six months after that experience. It violated everything I had ever learned about literature in my, at the time, 20 years of life. I'm now 44 years beyond that age and it still does. Ugh!!
But thanks Greg -- I appreciate your appreciation! James Joyce, not so much.
OMG! Steve. I get it. I was just getting to that stage as an English major when you start feeling sucked into a vortex where each word, phrase, sentence must be painfully, scrupulously analyzed until every last molecule of pleasure is wrung from it. Why the F would anyone young, dumb, and full of cum devote their life to The Faerie Queen? I did finally read Ulysses for the same reason I read The Book of Mormon. It was obligatory.
Hmm? Realism vs Fantasy?
Hey, as Romantic Poetry, Ed Spenser was put together well. I generally avoid theological texts except in the scope of literature reference
"Theological" Now aint that an important sounding word? Hey George, George, hey Carlin what you think, "Theological?"
What you say? Something about smoking a pipe filled with Missouri River bank weed and ground up white lizard?
Yep Carlin disc 6 of ten 10 up tonite.
Lol b4 Charlie Sheen, b4 Richard Pryor (of the infamous hair-on-fire marathon), George Carlin was setting a bad example with whitish substance 😎
Only four comedians.
Silent Charlie Chaplin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and George Carlin.
Every one else is a take off. It's kinda like there are only 5000 people on the planet. There called Bankers. Everything else is a commodity.
Cum agin
I feel like James Joyce would have especially loved what you just wrote. : )
You bring it with the great conversations, Greg.
My favorite piece of James Joyce writing is the story ‘The Dead’. For what it’s worth!
But not to worry, his grandson Stephen James Joyce failed to multiply.
Seriously there is a lot of Ulysses that's hard to SENSE but there is some really good stuff you can FEEL.