Posted on 12/09/2022 2:12:50 PM PST by Borges
In 1923, the year after James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was first published in its complete form, T. S. Eliot wrote: “I hold this book to be the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.” Although Ulysses was not yet widely available at the time—its initial print runs were minuscule and it would be banned repeatedly by censorship boards—Eliot was writing in defense of a novel already broadly disparaged as immoral, obscene, formless, and chaotic. His friend Virginia Woolf had described it in her diary as “an illiterate, underbred book … the book of a self-taught working man, & we all know how distressing they are.” In comparison, Eliot’s praise is triumphal. “A book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape.” And yet this proposed relationship between Ulysses and its readers may not seem altogether inviting either. Do we really want to read a novel in order to experience the sensation of inescapable debt? In the century since its publication, Ulysses has of course become a monument not only of modernist literature but of the novel itself. But it’s also a notoriously “difficult” book. Among all English-language novels, there may be no greater gulf between how much a work is celebrated and discussed, and how seldom it is actually read.
(Excerpt) Read more at theparisreview.org ...
I agree that it is unreadable. How many other classics are also that way? Zemyaitin “We” ?
It’s wonderful. One of my favorite books in the world.
Did Eliot keep or change his opinion after he became a Christian?
I waded through all but the last 80 or so pages of that crap in a summer univ course in 1968.
Never went back to finish it and never will.
He was always a Christian. What bearing would that have?
I can confirm the “formless and chaotic” and would add “unreadable”. I didn’t get far enough into it to comment on the “immoral, obscene”.
It’s fascinating how people react so differently. I found it hilarious and very moving.
It’s wonderful. One of my favorite books in the world.
+++++
Well it’s not going to get a lot of positive votes here at good old FR. What is the attraction for you? Or was that sarcasm?
I’m not sure why that would be a distinction. There are a number of big fans here that I recall. The attraction is how teeming with life it is. How many different human experiences are dissected. And the sheer grandeur of it.
bump for later
It’s not that good. All hype. The Citizen Kane of books.
I also was forced to read Ulysses in a college literature 101 class. In order to read the epic novel, one must first be prepared to be extremely bored (think about what it’s like to sit in a prison cell with nothing to do for a month).
One grateful event the class did do for me was to introduce me to a true masterpiece called Trinity by Leon Uris. If you ever want to know the real Ireland at it’s core, read Trinity.
Citizen Kane is good.
Molly’s life affirming Yes. Edited just a bit but I do love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_aZ6djNkM
I need to read it. I love James Joyce’s works. Spent a wee in Dublin studying literature Didn’t get to Ulysses. Our instructor recommended it.
I read about 2/3 of this the other day. Thanks for reminding me to finish it.
Even “Shakespeare in Love”
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