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James Joyce's "Ulysses" (pg. 6)
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| RJT |
Yeah, I'll likely give it a shot, as I think it will give me some perspective on another project I'm working on as well.
Oddly though, probably my two favorite authors in HS were Hemmingway and Dickens - Dickens may make sense (though my love for Great Expectations still frightens me), but Hemmingway for some reason just seemed very accessible to me at a young age. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
This right here only serves to verify my presupposition that Joyce was really just riding his high horse right up his own asshole.
Just because someone claims they've put all these magical puzzles and riddles that very few others will ever get, doesn't mean they actually have. The general lack of clear consensus regarding "Ulysses" would seem to either infer Joyce' utter brilliance in being so adept with the English language as to stump nearly a century of academics, or that there really is little to no real substance or value in the work. Obviously I tend towards the latter. |
I honestly don't think Ulysses is anywhere near the kind of "so meaningless it's meaningful" art you see in most galleries today, the kind pioneered by the Dadaists who were deliberately trying to destroy art only to have their work institutionalised. Really, someone like Kafka is far closer to that school of thought. A story like Metamorphosis seems to be so utterly bemusing that people try and search for meaning where it's arguable there never was one. It doesn't take much to see Ulysses means things and is about things.
The book was banned for a long time and even now it's obviously still pissing people off, both the professors and the students, which shows Joyce obviously succeeded. Even in a culture where we have become blasé towards the bull of modern art, Joyce still causes arguments and insults almost a century after he wrote Ulysses. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
Perhaps I'm one of few here, but I really hated reading the Great Gatsby while I was in High School (especially odd given my HST obsession).
I'd probably try to give it a go again now - just never really had the desire to, and absolutely hated drudging my way through it in HS. |
Fitzgerald is my absolute favorite author of all time, but I agree that Gatsby was horrendously over-rated. It's not even close to his best work.
That said, it's still much better than anything Hemingway ever wrote. :p |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
but Hemmingway for some reason just seemed very accessible to me at a young age. |
Because he writes with a teenage vocabulary and elementary sentence structure. It's like young adult fiction. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by jennypie
Give me Fitzgerald or Hemingway any day. I haven't read any Joyce, but he definitely sounds about as douchey and pretentious (probably more) as Eco.  |
I love it how Eco sounds like "Yuk! / Eeew!" in Portuguese :p
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
And it kills me that I'm giving him exactly what he wants. Even posthumously. |
Quick, let's talk about someone else!!!!
This thread is now about Salma Hayek and Friedrich Hayek! I think Friedrich had a great mind and Salma has a great rack! |
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| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Because he writes with a teenage vocabulary and elementary sentence structure. It's like young adult fiction. |
I have no quarrel with your distaste for Hemmingway - and have myself grown somewhat less enthralled with him as my interest in Thompson has grown.
He was just one of those authors I latched onto in my formative years because I really enjoyed reading him - but the same could be said for people like Michael Chricton and John Grisham. :p
I still having a raging literary hard on for Charles Dickens, though. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
I have no quarrel with your distaste for Hemmingway - and have myself grown somewhat less enthralled with him as my interest in Thompson has grown.
He was just one of those authors I latched onto in my formative years because I really enjoyed reading him - but the same could be said for people like Michael Chricton and John Grisham. :p
I still having a raging literary hard on for Charles Dickens, though. |
Haha, yeah, it was Tom Clancy for me. God I ate that up. |
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| Silky Johnson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I love it how Eco sounds like "Yuk! / Eeew!" in Portuguese :p
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Sounds about right, lol. |
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| RJT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Haha, yeah, it was Tom Clancy for me. God I ate that up. |
Never read any Clancy myself, but I probably read every stupid ing word John Grisham wrote - many more than once.
And I'd probably read the lot of them again. Same for Chricton.
And dammit, while we're owning up to embarrassing literary pleasures, add Dan Brown and a handful of Star Wars expanded universe novels to the list... :(
Sometimes I just don't want to think when I read.  |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| I don't think Chrichton is in the same league - his books rarely failed to be interesting. And when they did fail, he covered it up in global warming denial. |
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| Renzo |
In middle school, I really enjoyed Agatha Christie's suspense thrillers. Then in high school, I liked Dickens and Fitzgerald a lot, and even some Dostoyevsky.
In college, I was more into David Mamet and his plays. Glengarry Glen Ross is money.
Never read Grisham or Clancy... |
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| Project-K |
I never actually had the patience to finish all of ulysses, but I did read a fair part of it (the first half or so). Maybe it takes a lot of effort to get through, but when I finished a chapter and understood what was going on, it was pretty enjoyable. I'd never really given a thought to the douchebaggery involved in writing with such cruel disregard for the audience. :conf:
I guess I must only be pretending to like it so I can look smart. |
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