Do you enjoy this book or have you read it just to say you've read it?

>>24529681 (OP)
>Ulysses (or “Youwussies” as a surly Joyce would say, berating his weak-kneed friends such as captain spock) is a novel/Captain’s Log/Telephone Book/Menu/Cookbook/Zionist Tract written, during a seven year drinking binge, poofboy kunterson. The book is considered one of the greatest acts of plagiarism ever created by single man (though Joyce was convinced, for several years of his early life, that he was Franciscan Nun called Mary). The original monkey's creation is made up of various cut-outs and clippings from the gargantuan amount of Teen magazines and pornographic novels Joyce had stolen from numerous places throughout Europe.
>Critics, several species of chimpanzees, and Nostalgia Critic consider Ulysses to be one of the greatest novels ever “written”. Others, usually the ones not bribed by Joyce, consider it a dirty con engineered by a sly confidence man looking to make his mark on the streets.
>Always the perfectionist, Joyce only worked on Ulysses when standing on his head and post-coital. Joyce disliked working without some background noise, so he asked Samuel Beckett to sit in wicker chair behind him and moan over the pessimistic nature of human existence. Joyce found this deeply arousing.
>The first half of the book was completed in March 1918. Joyce then gave the completed half to a one-legged chicken farmer who buried it in the middle of field two miles outside Lyons. Joyce found this deeply arousing.
>When the second half of the book was completed in early 1922, Joyce had the two halves welded together in a bicycle shop in Zurich. Present at this event was Nora Joyce, The Artist Formerly Known As Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot accompanied by Macavity the Mystery Cat, and the mayor of Zurich (though it was later discovered he was only present to use the bathroom). Joyce found this deeply arousing.
>The book completed, Joyce went looking for a publisher. He did this by forming his own Country Western band (Jim Joyce and the South Navan Buckaroos) which preformed in the streets of Paris. Though he and his band got a six album deal with EMI, no publisher would accept Ulysses. But it was during this time that Joyce was being stalked by William Faulkner. Disgruntled by this, Joyce fired a copy of Ulysses at Faulkner, killing him instantly. As he lay dead, effusing alcohol through his ears like a sinewy stream in autumn in Mississippi, Faulkner’s corpse drew the attention of Sylvia Beach, owner of Shakespeare and Co. book shop and publisher. Beach realised immediately that Faulkner was out, and Joyce was in. She agreed to publish Ulysses. Joyce found this deeply arousing.

>>24529681 (OP)
I read it 5 times just to say I enjoy it

>>24529689
This may be the funniest thing I've ever read.

>>24529731
You should read more

>>24529681 (OP)
I enjoyed parts of it. Sirens is a great chapter. But other parts like the Q&A chapter are just boring.

>>24529681 (OP)
Enjoyed it but I think I was just 22 and easily taken in by novelty.

it's way more entertaining than i expected it to be when i first read it
the key was when i realised that each chapter was in a different style. as well as simply pastiching stuff he's simply having fun writing in as many ways as he can think of and if you ever don't like one the next one will be different so you can power through. ultimately it's a very funny, thoughtful guy doing as much as he possibly can with the english language in as many ways as he can and it's playful as hell

>>24529681 (OP)
I just read dubliners and portrait. About to read this one but I hate long books

>>24529681 (OP)
Read it three times. Enjoyed (and understood) it more each time.

>>24529689
>The book is considered one of the greatest acts of plagiarism ever created by single man (though Joyce was convinced, for several years of his early life, that he was Franciscan Nun called Mary)
Mary Sue bros, we won.

It's not bad once you figure out the metatextual elements and what they're doing. Still, it's absolutely a book I would recommend either taking a class or buying a guide for.

>>24529681 (OP)
To me the beauty of the language is as thrilling as listening to beautiful music, although in a somewhat different and more cerebral, challenging way at times. It’s also as irrational (or suprarational) an enjoyment as we get from listening to music.
I think it has some of the greatest poetry of the English language possible in it, and to do this he had to create a uniquely challenging, dense, ultra-allusive, sometimes almost schizoid style for it, but that was what reached the maximum poetry. Ordinary English wouldn’t do.
My favorites, stylistically, are the first three chapters following Dedalus, or the Telemachiad if you want to use the scholarly term based on the parallels to Homer’s Odyssey. Others dislike them more or find them too challenging, and Dedalus too morose and cerebral a character to be in the head of (as opposed to Bloom or Molly), but it’s exactly this character which afforded Joyce the greatest opportunity to display his beautiful style, blending literary, poetic, theological and philosophical influences and musings.
It’s also pretty funny. There’s a great comic spirit to it, and also some interest value in the ultra-voyeurism, how much detail he crams in about one day in the lives of a few characters and what’s going on in their heads.

>>24529681 (OP)
>just to say you've read it?
Why would I do that?

>>24529748
This but reversed