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I just finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. (9.3/10) Should I read Ulysses? I’ve wanted to read it on account of its acclaim but after reading some comments

• 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Anna Karenina is a classical novel that follows classical literary conventions. It's heavy and will give your understanding of Russian naming a workout, but it's still basically readable. Ulysses, on the other hand, is hundreds and hundreds of pages of modernist stream of consciousness, from the point of view of many characters who don't believe in providing context, where every sentence is packed full of complicated wordplay and obscure allusions, and everything happens at a snail's pace. If the idea of reading a book where you literally can't understand half of it gives you pause, Ulysses is probably not the book for you. For what it's worth, Joyce is commenting on Finnegans Wake, which goes 10x on everything above and is basically entirely incomprehensible.
  • saberience 6y ago
    You should add "in your opinion." Just because you couldn't understand or appreciate Ulysses, it doesn't mean that other people cannot, it takes a certain amount of education and reading of other books to be able to "get" Joyce and especially Ulysses. Do you expect a person to fully understand C++ the first time they use it?
    • 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
      I read Ulysses to the end and appreciated it as the literary experiment it is. I don't intend to do it again though, and despite being quite widely read, thank you very much, I'm not going to claim I understood more than a fraction of it.
  • leephillips 6y ago
    I don’t think this description of Ulysses is accurate nor perceptive. The first time I read it, I felt confused for the first 100 or so pages, and then it clicked. Once you get it, it’s crystal clear; and, in fact, you realize that it’s carefully plotted, with everything fitting together beautifully. Don’t deny yourself the pleasure of this book just because of other people’s lazy takes. If you would be more comfortable with a companion, look up Nabokov’s lecture. But ignore 99% of the other Ulysses criticism, especially anything that talks about Homer. Nabokov understood Ulysses, as he understood Kafka, the way very few other people have.
• kinghtown 6y ago
  I hated it the first time I tried. Every seven or ten years I’d give it a shot and decide it’s not worth trying or finishing. But it has its charms for sure, which had drawn me back to it over the years since because maybe I was wrong or not ready. It was like my fourth or fifth attempt like six years ago (at 32) where it clicked. Honestly love it now. The trick is to let go of this notion that Ulysses is some kind of schoolboy challenge. You have to let it wash over you, allow the language to intoxicate you mind. You need to be in an altered state where you are more open to symbolism in general. I think the key to enjoying it is familiarity. There are many balls you need to juggle mentally and it’s hard to enjoy Ulysses when everything is too different to what you’d normally expect from a book. But start with Dubliners first. See how it goes from there.
• runawaybottle 6y ago
  If you really want to start with a Joyce, start really small with The Dubliners. Those are his short stories, and if it’s to your taste, move onward. Wells would say don’t, but fuck Wells ;p
  • sateesh 6y ago
    I would say "Dubliners" is a straight forward read, not lot of allusions and doesn't need lot of context to understand, and is probably the most accessible work of Joyce. I can't fathom "Ulysses". Probably one can try "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by Joyce, and finds it interesting can try "Ulysses".
  • mcv 6y ago
    Wells doesn't say don't, he says it's completely alien to him but it might be totally valid from a position completely opposite to his. Well, he also calls it unreadable, but that sounds like a fairly objective assessment, after reading the bits quoted in this discussion.
    • leephillips 6y ago
      Wells is talking about Finnegan’s Wake.