4 ms·
I wouldn't feel bad. I listened to the audiobook five times - a yearly pilgrimage to try and "get it." I loved the language and the cleverness from the start;
by xsmasher 4y ago
I wouldn't feel bad. I listened to the audiobook five times - a yearly pilgrimage to try and "get it."
I loved the language and the cleverness from the start; and I understood more of the story each time. BUT I no longer feel like the "payoff" was worth the journey. I assumed there was some deep understanding or message that would come through eventually, but I no longer think that's the case.
Robert Anton Wilson described the book as a joke at the expense of English majors (can't find the exact quote) and I tend to agree. Kind of like the obfuscated C contest; try to read it if it entertains you, but stop if it doesn't.
I've decided it's a little too "inside baseball" for me.
- leephillips 4y agoYou may enjoy literature more if you don’t reduce works of art to conveyances of “messages”. Ulysses is far better than that.
- xsmasher 4y agoI enjoy a lot of literature. I've just fallen out of love with Ulysses; The more I understood the more I felt the author was just trying to show off. Clearly it's not worthless or we wouldn't be talking about it a hundred years later. But when you say it's "better," what is your measure of quality?
- leephillips 4y agoSubjective, as everyone’s should be. But adopting the criteria of art for art’s sake, which is the opposite of works with messages or social purposes.