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This is actually one of the best summaries of Ulysses I've ever seen, and I took an extension course at Stanford on the book. We also had an approved commentary

This is actually one of the best summaries of Ulysses I've ever seen, and I took an extension course at Stanford on the book. We also had an approved commentary book. I don't remember most of these themes being raised. I remember the teacher saying with awe, "He can do whatever he wants with the English language!" and me thinking, "Who cares?" He also went on and on about Joyce's stream-of-consciousness writing, and how that was a real reflection of how we think. Again, I thought, "So what? It's old hat now." As for the fragmentary style: sorry, this didn't impress me either, at the time. Good article.

kridsdale3 2y ago
I did similar, in university 20 years ago. Your post brought up hidden memory of the same excitement by the prof, and my reaction, as I was already pretty exposed to postmodernism. Maybe its a Big Deal because it was an early break-out from Modernism (as this essay goes in to detail on its membership within) and into Post-.
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  Yes, his "innovations" aren't particularly interesting now. The things in this article are though, and I wish the prof had dwelt on those instead.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>I remember the teacher saying with awe, "He can do whatever he wants with the English language!" and me thinking, "Who cares? I would normally think that saying someone can do anything they want with (X) would be an assertion of absolute mastery, and one should care if someone is an absolute master in something. This candidate can do whatever he wants with our main programming language, yeah but I'm still going to hire this one guy who said graduating code camp last week was super cool! The chef at this restaurant can achieve whatever effect they want with food, sure, but me and the band are going to eat these delicious street dogs! it would be easy to make more absurd examples..
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  > it would be easy to make more absurd examples Like, for example, "this man can do whatever he wants with flipping a coffee cup!" (that's a real example, btw) "this woman is an absolute master of beer pong." The skill has to be valuable.

kridsdale3 2y ago

I did similar, in university 20 years ago. Your post brought up hidden memory of the same excitement by the prof, and my reaction, as I was already pretty exposed to postmodernism. Maybe its a Big Deal because it was an early break-out from Modernism (as this essay goes in to detail on its membership within) and into Post-.

AlbertCory 2y ago
Yes, his "innovations" aren't particularly interesting now. The things in this article are though, and I wish the prof had dwelt on those instead.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

>I remember the teacher saying with awe, "He can do whatever he wants with the English language!" and me thinking, "Who cares? I would normally think that saying someone can do anything they want with (X) would be an assertion of absolute mastery, and one should care if someone is an absolute master in something. This candidate can do whatever he wants with our main programming language, yeah but I'm still going to hire this one guy who said graduating code camp last week was super cool! The chef at this restaurant can achieve whatever effect they want with food, sure, but me and the band are going to eat these delicious street dogs! it would be easy to make more absurd examples..

AlbertCory 2y ago
> it would be easy to make more absurd examples Like, for example, "this man can do whatever he wants with flipping a coffee cup!" (that's a real example, btw) "this woman is an absolute master of beer pong." The skill has to be valuable.