5 ms·

Joyce Project

77 points by agarttha 6y ago

brudgers 6y ago
Link to Joyce Project homepage, https://www.joyceproject.com/ https://www.joyceproject.com/
log101 6y ago
Really like it but they should add "back to homepage" link to the about page.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  My guess is this is an old about page used in a version of the site that uses frames. If you go straight to the root of the domain you’ll get a modern website that links to a completely different about page.
  - fjfaase 6y ago
    Quite possible that they used frames before and that the notes were displayed on the side of the text. Now you have to use the back button to go back to the main text. I understand that there are a number of version of Ulysses. I wonder if it would be possible to compare these versions. There is a wealth of information on this website, but I am afraid that there is no other way to access it then through the given interface.
  - raimue 6y ago
    The submission URL can be found on the main website by navigating in the menu to "The Site" > "About the Project".
0wis 6y ago
A nice project to show that computers and internet technologies can be useful to literature teachers. Its a shame that its possible since the 90's and still not a standard way of learning complex texts in school.
subpixel 6y ago
I’ve never read Ulysses and am interested and yet ... clicking a dozen links in this annotated version seems to add mainly trivia to the equation. Admitting that I may be self-consciously afraid that I lack the education to “get” Ulysses, I also wonder whether works of art should be considered greater on account of the complexity of their allusions. Not taking anything away from Joyce’s talent. Dubliners is amazing without requiring a source codex.
- lou1306 6y ago
  I'd say the best way to read it the first time is with very little notes (just to explain what's going on, plus some analysis before/after each chapter). These online, hyperlinked versions are better suited to scholars and people who want to get something more out of the book.
  - aasasd 6y ago
    I'm immensely annoyed every time I read—or worse, listen—through a book and it's peppered with critical notes instead of simply contextual ones (which explain obscure things that the author's contemporaries wouldn't need explained). “For Hesse this and that is a symbol of death...”—bah! Maybe I want to read through the book first and then think about foreshadowing or symbolism, how about that. The worst is when these notes give out the story that is yet to come, sometimes even the ending straight away. I do wish bad luck to certain producers of audiobooks.
- dwhitney 6y ago
  > Admitting that I may be self-consciously afraid that I lack the education to “get” Ulysses, I also wonder whether works of art should be considered greater on account of the complexity of their allusions. I’ve read Ulysses twice - painstakingly, once on my own, and once in a course in college from a well known Joyce scholar. It was tremendous having help from an expert. In the end I don’t know if I enjoyed the book so much because of the amount of effort it took, or because of the merits of the artist behind it, but I’ve definitely concluded that Finnegans Wake just isn’t worth it. Either way, I hadn’t seen this website and I’ve been thinking about reading it again, so maybe I will with this as my guide.
aasasd 6y ago
Huh, apparently this is the first time I zoom in on a site that only uses the default browser font. Turns out, Firefox on Mac changes from Times New Roman to just Times when zooming in—so that the font proportions suddenly change.
kewp 6y ago
I like the idea but I wish it didn't do a full reload each time you click on the links - all this space on the right where it could display things
twoodfin 6y ago
Two resources I always recommend for anyone daunted by Ulysses: - The RTÉ dramatization[1]. It's essentially unabridged: The entire novel as a well-produced, well-acted radio play. Just amazing. - Frank Delaney's Re: Joyce podcast[2]. Sadly interrupted halfway through "Wandering Rocks" by Frank's death 4 years ago, it's a delightful unpacking of the novel in paragraph-to-page-sized chunks, depending on the density. Regardless of any background material you bring along, the best advice for reading Ulysses is just to read it: Plow through the verbiage and don't take too much heed of the references or exactly who's saying what or what in the world they're talking about. Before too long you'll get to some much more straightforward but painstakingly crafted prose, and in the meantime, the flow and rhythm of Joyce's words can be appreciated on their own. [1] https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-james-joyce-podcast/ https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-... [2] https://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/ https://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/
- leephillips 6y ago
  Good advice. It’s a novel, after all. It’s great fun, and some of the best English prose I have ever encountered. The linked site is a fantastic resource. This is the kind of thing the WWW was invented for (OK, not literally). Click on the notes to satisfy your curiosity, but not because you think you need to know all these details to enjoy the book. From the site: “Must one walk the streets of Dublin to find order in the protagonists’ meanderings?” The last time I read the whole thing I did just this, but on a contemporaneous map, marking the paths of the two main characters in different colors, following a suggestion of Nabokov’s in his lecture on Ulysses (probably one of the few pieces of criticism of this book worth reading). I recommend it!
  - leephillips 6y ago
    I’ll add that the first time I read it, I was confused for a while. I felt like I didn’t know what was going on, but the music of the language pulled me along. Then, about 100 pages in, it suddenly clicked. This is artistic genius: Joyce invented a new way to use language, to tell a story, his own brand of English—and through the beauty of his technique, compelled people to figure it out.
s_dev 6y ago
Dubliners is super easy to read. It's basically the man page for Joyce.
asimpletune 6y ago
It’s funny bc Joyce himself said the book should be read as if you randomly found it discarded in a hotel room. The point is it is what it is, just let it happen, then you can enjoy it.
- lapetitejort 6y ago
  Readers have been disregarding the advice of authors for millennia now, for better or worse.
cyberlab 6y ago
I like that Joyce wrote phrases like `Mama Matrix Most Mysterious` casually in those days. You see, wording like that can be found easily on The Internet and you have writers/bloggers trying to stand out using all manner of flowery language. Joyce would love The Internet in its current form if he was alive today.
bdr 6y ago
This seems like an ok time to plug my mom's project, https://joyceimages.com/ https://joyceimages.com/. She has spent the past 10 years collecting old documents, photos, and artifacts mentioned in Ulysses. For example, there are some really obscure people mentioned in it who she's found pictures of. It's a fun game for her, and if you're reading along it can help you picture what's going on! The goal is to eventually cover every line of the book.

Joyce Project

77 points by agarttha 6y ago

brudgers 6y ago

Link to Joyce Project homepage, https://www.joyceproject.com/ https://www.joyceproject.com/

log101 6y ago

Really like it but they should add "back to homepage" link to the about page.

wodenokoto 6y ago
My guess is this is an old about page used in a version of the site that uses frames. If you go straight to the root of the domain you’ll get a modern website that links to a completely different about page.
- fjfaase 6y ago
  Quite possible that they used frames before and that the notes were displayed on the side of the text. Now you have to use the back button to go back to the main text. I understand that there are a number of version of Ulysses. I wonder if it would be possible to compare these versions. There is a wealth of information on this website, but I am afraid that there is no other way to access it then through the given interface.
- raimue 6y ago
  The submission URL can be found on the main website by navigating in the menu to "The Site" > "About the Project".

0wis 6y ago

A nice project to show that computers and internet technologies can be useful to literature teachers. Its a shame that its possible since the 90's and still not a standard way of learning complex texts in school.

subpixel 6y ago

I’ve never read Ulysses and am interested and yet ... clicking a dozen links in this annotated version seems to add mainly trivia to the equation. Admitting that I may be self-consciously afraid that I lack the education to “get” Ulysses, I also wonder whether works of art should be considered greater on account of the complexity of their allusions. Not taking anything away from Joyce’s talent. Dubliners is amazing without requiring a source codex.

lou1306 6y ago
I'd say the best way to read it the first time is with very little notes (just to explain what's going on, plus some analysis before/after each chapter). These online, hyperlinked versions are better suited to scholars and people who want to get something more out of the book.
- aasasd 6y ago
  I'm immensely annoyed every time I read—or worse, listen—through a book and it's peppered with critical notes instead of simply contextual ones (which explain obscure things that the author's contemporaries wouldn't need explained). “For Hesse this and that is a symbol of death...”—bah! Maybe I want to read through the book first and then think about foreshadowing or symbolism, how about that. The worst is when these notes give out the story that is yet to come, sometimes even the ending straight away. I do wish bad luck to certain producers of audiobooks.
dwhitney 6y ago
> Admitting that I may be self-consciously afraid that I lack the education to “get” Ulysses, I also wonder whether works of art should be considered greater on account of the complexity of their allusions. I’ve read Ulysses twice - painstakingly, once on my own, and once in a course in college from a well known Joyce scholar. It was tremendous having help from an expert. In the end I don’t know if I enjoyed the book so much because of the amount of effort it took, or because of the merits of the artist behind it, but I’ve definitely concluded that Finnegans Wake just isn’t worth it. Either way, I hadn’t seen this website and I’ve been thinking about reading it again, so maybe I will with this as my guide.

aasasd 6y ago

Huh, apparently this is the first time I zoom in on a site that only uses the default browser font. Turns out, Firefox on Mac changes from Times New Roman to just Times when zooming in—so that the font proportions suddenly change.

kewp 6y ago

I like the idea but I wish it didn't do a full reload each time you click on the links - all this space on the right where it could display things

twoodfin 6y ago

Two resources I always recommend for anyone daunted by Ulysses: - The RTÉ dramatization[1]. It's essentially unabridged: The entire novel as a well-produced, well-acted radio play. Just amazing. - Frank Delaney's Re: Joyce podcast[2]. Sadly interrupted halfway through "Wandering Rocks" by Frank's death 4 years ago, it's a delightful unpacking of the novel in paragraph-to-page-sized chunks, depending on the density. Regardless of any background material you bring along, the best advice for reading Ulysses is just to read it: Plow through the verbiage and don't take too much heed of the references or exactly who's saying what or what in the world they're talking about. Before too long you'll get to some much more straightforward but painstakingly crafted prose, and in the meantime, the flow and rhythm of Joyce's words can be appreciated on their own. [1] https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-james-joyce-podcast/ https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-... [2] https://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/ https://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/

leephillips 6y ago
Good advice. It’s a novel, after all. It’s great fun, and some of the best English prose I have ever encountered. The linked site is a fantastic resource. This is the kind of thing the WWW was invented for (OK, not literally). Click on the notes to satisfy your curiosity, but not because you think you need to know all these details to enjoy the book. From the site: “Must one walk the streets of Dublin to find order in the protagonists’ meanderings?” The last time I read the whole thing I did just this, but on a contemporaneous map, marking the paths of the two main characters in different colors, following a suggestion of Nabokov’s in his lecture on Ulysses (probably one of the few pieces of criticism of this book worth reading). I recommend it!
- leephillips 6y ago
  I’ll add that the first time I read it, I was confused for a while. I felt like I didn’t know what was going on, but the music of the language pulled me along. Then, about 100 pages in, it suddenly clicked. This is artistic genius: Joyce invented a new way to use language, to tell a story, his own brand of English—and through the beauty of his technique, compelled people to figure it out.

s_dev 6y ago

Dubliners is super easy to read. It's basically the man page for Joyce.

asimpletune 6y ago

It’s funny bc Joyce himself said the book should be read as if you randomly found it discarded in a hotel room. The point is it is what it is, just let it happen, then you can enjoy it.

lapetitejort 6y ago
Readers have been disregarding the advice of authors for millennia now, for better or worse.

cyberlab 6y ago

I like that Joyce wrote phrases like `Mama Matrix Most Mysterious` casually in those days. You see, wording like that can be found easily on The Internet and you have writers/bloggers trying to stand out using all manner of flowery language. Joyce would love The Internet in its current form if he was alive today.

bdr 6y ago

This seems like an ok time to plug my mom's project, https://joyceimages.com/ https://joyceimages.com/. She has spent the past 10 years collecting old documents, photos, and artifacts mentioned in Ulysses. For example, there are some really obscure people mentioned in it who she's found pictures of. It's a fun game for her, and if you're reading along it can help you picture what's going on! The goal is to eventually cover every line of the book.