I have a copy of ‘Ulysses’ that has been sitting on my bookshelves for decades and decades and… Perhaps I bought this volume of the Modern Library affordable classic works of literature at the Jordan Marsh book section. The old fashioned book department of the large downtown Boston department store had life-long clerks who loved books and had actually read most of the classic books they sold. I remember being a high school student with a few extra dollars to fill my personal library with books I intended to read. I knew the reputation of ‘Ulysses.’ The pinnacle of English literature and written by an Irishman.

I probably paid $4.99 for the 800 page work. Today the book costs ….. $18.44 hardcover.

I have had the book near my bed for a while. I was trying to read the book. Again and again I began the novel with the morning happenings of some of the main characters. But, I simply was not interested in the characters. I listened to a Librivox reading of the first three sections again and again. What was so funny or witty about the happenings? How was this mundane breakfast meeting between three twenty-something room mates worthy of being called the best novel in the English language?

One character puts uses his shaver to make a cross and repeats some of the Latin mass. I went to Catholic school, and I made fun of Catholic ritual plenty of times, I don’t find this Joycean parody very memorable or amusing. Perhaps this was shocking in 1920 Dublin, but this hardly causes a scandal today. I have been listening to audio books on Spotify, I have been listening to parts of ‘Ulysses’ on Spotify. I happened to bump into an audio version of the story ‘Three Men in A Boat’ which I had never heard of. I laughed again and again out loud at the funny events and words from the story. I remember incidents at random times during the day and chuckle. I listened to the beginning of ‘Ulysses’ over and over again, never a laugh, no humor that I could detect. I watch some television shows that have laughter added to indicate that what is said is funny. Perhaps I need to make a video of ‘Ulysses’ with an added laugh track.

I decided to type in a question about why ‘Ulysses’ is a famous, important novel. I found a number of articles and reposted them so that I would read the articles. I found a number of worthwhile ideas.

One strange kind of praise there is for the work is that it follows the Odyssey from Ancient Hellas. So what? How hard is it to copy the outline of a plot from a story that has been in the public domain for two thousand years. Generations of students had been compelled to read the Odyssey; one could assume that many would recognize the plot outline. So what? What does that accomplish? Exactly what is so compelling about the story of a returning upper class sea raider to the home base he wants to dominate? Isn’t the Odyssey a convoluted homecoming of a ruling class brute whose solution to property rights is armed violence? What does that have to do with 1900 Dublin Ireland? Did the armed uprising by Irish rebels in 1916 have any impact on James Joyce and his story of people wandering around Dublin with mostly their genitals and petty social relations as their obsession?

But all the activity I had around the articles about ‘Ulysses’ caused me to listen to the beginning of the audio book on Librivox yesterday, yet again. I could be wrong. I could be missing something. Maybe I’m and anti-book snob snob.

I actually went beyond the first sections into a part where Stephen Daedalus walks along a beach and there is a stream of consciousness narration. I could follow the ideas and see how people might have found this style of writing very new in 1920. This is why James Joyce won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I also found a movie on Youtube from 1967. Made in Ireland, the black and white work did not try to reproduce the 1904 setting of the novel. But, I got a good hold on the narrative structure of the novel.

Some critics I’ve read praise Joyce for packing all of the events into one day. Big deal. This is fiction. The writer can write that the events took place over the course of a thousand years, or a minute, with a few clicks of a keyboard.

Some of the people who praise the work point out how Joyce takes regular people and makes them ‘heroes’ with a plot from a Greek epic poem. Really? Some of the oldest stories handed down from antiquity involve a lower class person rising to the top of society. Surely all of the people who are complimenting ‘Ulysses’ are familiar with the many, many stories that have the same kind of theme. Why pick that to praise, unless there is a shortage of things to praise.

The stream of consciousness is interesting enough and I can follow the allusions and references. But, so what. What writer doesn’t dream of being free from editors and editing. Why not dream of just thinking worthwhile literature off the top of one’s head?

But, if stream of consciousness was the wave of the future one hundred years ago….where is the wave today? Are people seeking out the freedom of unedited thoughts presented as stream of consciousness? Or are a few examples of stream of consciousness allowed to be celebrated because – in truth – no one finds any truth in the ramblings of stream of consciousness.

As I type these words I am listening to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy on Spotify again. Like a pop song, I have listened over and over. A good actress is performing the work. Is there any hidden truth in the words? Any great meaning of life that James Joyce discovered and hid in the thoughts of Molly Bloom? Perhaps. I’ll listen again.

As I think about the work I see the characters as a strange collection of people who are motivated by – I don’t know what. Who cares what happens to these people? What do they represent?

I don’t know what to make of people who gather to celebrate Bloomsday on the date in June when the events in the novel are supposed to have taken place in 1904 Dublin. What is the lesson that these people are holding onto? What lines from Joyce are they repeating. There are lines from Shakespeare that flit through my brain every day. Simple phrases composed at first by Bill Shakespeare with some obvious human truth that wasn’t so obvious before Shakespeare organized the thought.

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”

“I have thee not, yet I see thee still…”

“What a piece of work is man…”

Shall I go on, and on, and on? As I listen to Joyce over and over, do I hear any lines that sink in that way?

Or when I listen to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy does it just sound like an insightful character on Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone circ 1963? How come Rod Serling was never called the greatest writer in the English language? Too derivative?

…………….

I understand as I read more articles about the book that Joyce was a great word master and he constructed different chapters in different styles. He told others that he put puzzles and clues and such all through the text to give college English professors something to do for the next two hundred years. I can see that. I have the luxury of using Spotify to listen to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy and Leopold Bloom’s soliloquy again and again, as if they were song tracks. They are interesting, but, pretty mundane in the end. Who wants life advice from a character in 1904 Dublin? Even if the streets traveled in the story are still accurate.

Joyce was a very good student and went to upper class schools at a time when Greek and Latin classics where heavily emphasized. So, the student learned well and he uses his classics background to base a new story on. So what. Big deal.

Joyce was able to mimic the style of the dime store ‘romance’ novels in one chapter, and the stream of consciousness style in several other sections, and then something like a play in another part. Okay, pretty good. A tour de force of literary fireworks to delight the 1920’s niche audience, and then generations of admirers after that.

But, are there any insights into human nature in the book? At almost 800 pages I guess there would have to be. But, when I listened to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy again and again yesterday I simply felt like I was overhearing a woman moving around her kitchen as she spoke out loud about whatever popped into her head. No particular order. No real rhyme or reason, it seems. But, maybe I am missing something. I will listen some more. I have not picked up my printed copy of the work and looked at the ‘no punctuation marks’ Molly Bloom soliloquy. I think I will go do that right now.

I’m still wrestling with this book!

11:34 am 29 May 2019