Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
I started reading Ulysses this week. I was curious about the reputation it has; critics for the last 100 years have called it a masterpiece. Writers have been more divided. Non industry people whom I've seen discuss it always say things like "I tried to read it" or "I couldn't read it" or "I didn't finish it." It has been described as a difficult read, a challenging book, and "dense." None of that is true.
Ulysses is not a story. Stories convey ideas, touch on emotions, share experiences, and give humans the opportunity to share life with other humans. Ulysses does not do that. For example:
I thought that maybe I was missing something, that there might be some kind of context I wasn't understanding, or some obscure literary form Joyce was using that I wasn't familiar with, so I turned to our evil overlords at Google for some answers. In trying to read this book, I was coming to the conclusion that Joyce was a troll, that he was sticking his thumb in the eye of the literary world and playing a joke on pretentious critics and academics. Then I started to read about him, and that illusion was broken. Literary Hub has a useful write up:
My biggest problem with the book is not that it says nothing, because it does in fact say things. The problem I have is that it uses so much space to say so little. Do me a favor and click this link. What you read on that page took Joyce 21 pages. For those of you who didn't click, that webpage contains one line of text. And you didn't miss anything by reading that one line vs. reading Joyce's 21 pages, he really had nothing meaningful to add with the 21 pages of bloat that convey that one line concept. The man wrote an epic length text about nothing.
Ulysses is not a story. Stories convey ideas, touch on emotions, share experiences, and give humans the opportunity to share life with other humans. Ulysses does not do that. For example:
them bloody well boulders, bones for my
steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman.
A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be
master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther
away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The
two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see
you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?
Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs
of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of
gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting,
hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city a horde of
jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, scaling,
hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their
blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among them on the frozen
Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. I spoke
to no-one: none to me.
The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my
enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. TERRIBILIA MEDITANS.
A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you
pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The
Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's
false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and
Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All
kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from
drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked
Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of ... We don't
want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A
boat would be near, a lifebuoy. NATURLICH, put there for you. Would you or
would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock.
They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to.
I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my
face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out
quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in on all sides,
sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under
my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man.
His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I ... With him
together down ... I could not save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.
What in the ever loving fuck is that trying to communicate? That's an actual page from this book. As a counterexample, here is a page from another "difficult read," also taken out of context:steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman.
A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be
master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther
away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The
two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see
you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?
Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs
of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of
gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting,
hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city a horde of
jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, scaling,
hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their
blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among them on the frozen
Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. I spoke
to no-one: none to me.
The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my
enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. TERRIBILIA MEDITANS.
A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you
pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The
Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's
false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and
Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All
kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from
drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked
Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of ... We don't
want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A
boat would be near, a lifebuoy. NATURLICH, put there for you. Would you or
would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock.
They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to.
I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my
face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out
quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in on all sides,
sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under
my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man.
His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I ... With him
together down ... I could not save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.
sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last.
Down, dog, and kennel ! '
Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation of
the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless
a moment ; then said excitedly, ' I am not used to be
spoken to that way, sir ; I do but less than half like it,
sir.'
' Avast ! ' gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and
violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate
temptation.
' No, sir ; not yet,' said Stubb, emboldened. ' I will
not tamely be called a dog, sir.'
' Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and
an ass, and begone, or clear the world of thee ! '
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such
overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily
retreated.
' I was never served so before without giving a hard blow
for it,' muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending
the cabin-scuttle. ' It 's very queer. Stop, Stubb ;
somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go back and
strike him, or what 's that ? down here on my knees
and pray for him ? Yes, that was the thought coming
up in me ; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.
It 's queer ; very queer ; and he 's queer too ; ay, take
him fore and aft, he 's about the queerest old man Stubb
ever sailed with. How he flashed at me ! his eyes like
powder-pans ! is he mad ? Anyway there 's something
on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck
when it cracks. He ain't in his bed now, either, more
than three hours out of the twenty-four ; and he don't
sleep then. Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell
me that of a morning he always finds the old man's ham-
mock clothes all
Both of those pages were picked at random. The second is taken from Moby-Dick, and gives you an actual idea of what the writer is trying to tell you. Past the first chapter, Ulysses doesn't care if you follow what's supposed to be happening, and the reason is because James Joyce was a twat. Let me explain.Down, dog, and kennel ! '
Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation of
the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless
a moment ; then said excitedly, ' I am not used to be
spoken to that way, sir ; I do but less than half like it,
sir.'
' Avast ! ' gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and
violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate
temptation.
' No, sir ; not yet,' said Stubb, emboldened. ' I will
not tamely be called a dog, sir.'
' Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and
an ass, and begone, or clear the world of thee ! '
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such
overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily
retreated.
' I was never served so before without giving a hard blow
for it,' muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending
the cabin-scuttle. ' It 's very queer. Stop, Stubb ;
somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go back and
strike him, or what 's that ? down here on my knees
and pray for him ? Yes, that was the thought coming
up in me ; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.
It 's queer ; very queer ; and he 's queer too ; ay, take
him fore and aft, he 's about the queerest old man Stubb
ever sailed with. How he flashed at me ! his eyes like
powder-pans ! is he mad ? Anyway there 's something
on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck
when it cracks. He ain't in his bed now, either, more
than three hours out of the twenty-four ; and he don't
sleep then. Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell
me that of a morning he always finds the old man's ham-
mock clothes all
I thought that maybe I was missing something, that there might be some kind of context I wasn't understanding, or some obscure literary form Joyce was using that I wasn't familiar with, so I turned to our evil overlords at Google for some answers. In trying to read this book, I was coming to the conclusion that Joyce was a troll, that he was sticking his thumb in the eye of the literary world and playing a joke on pretentious critics and academics. Then I started to read about him, and that illusion was broken. Literary Hub has a useful write up:
In 1902, departing on a first trip to Paris, James told his brother and confidant Stanislaus that should he die during the trip, his poetry and prose “epiphanies” must be sent to all the great libraries of the world, including the Vatican.
Nor, as his parents fought and the family sank into poverty, did Joyce hesitate to contact major figures in the literary world: Ibsen, George Russell, W.B. Yeats, and Lady Augusta Gregory, among others. But even as he made these important contacts, the young man courted rejection; a long letter to Ibsen on his 73rd birthday closes with the idea that the great playwright had “only opened the way” and that “higher and holier enlightenment lies—onward.” It was implicit that Joyce himself would be the bearer of that enlightenment. Having arranged an interview with Yeats, he spent most of the conversation criticizing the older writer, remarking on leaving that “I have met you too late. You are too old.” It was always Joyce’s way to have others understand that he was the more important.
The habit of forcing himself into the limelight while simultaneously inviting exclusion is another facet that would emerge in his writing. None of Joyce’s major publications—Dubliners, A Portrait, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake—was completed before being offered for publication.
This was a man so convinced that his farts were perfume, and so intent on smelling them, that he managed to lodge his entire head in his own ass. In writing Ulysses, he cared nothing of the reader's experience or even the reader's understanding of the text. Several of the critical articles I read about this book described it as being about communication, and emphasized the risks Joyce took in his use of language. But Ulysses isn't a monument to broad vocabulary and grammatical art, if anything it is the opposite. The book is barely written in English and smacks of self masturbatory sentence construction exercises meant to entertain the ego of its author. Its repetitive use of nonsense compoundments, obscure vocabulary, obtuse references, and made up lingo mean that the final product is little more than pseudo grammatical word salad served with a dressing of schizophrenic Alogia on the side.My biggest problem with the book is not that it says nothing, because it does in fact say things. The problem I have is that it uses so much space to say so little. Do me a favor and click this link. What you read on that page took Joyce 21 pages. For those of you who didn't click, that webpage contains one line of text. And you didn't miss anything by reading that one line vs. reading Joyce's 21 pages, he really had nothing meaningful to add with the 21 pages of bloat that convey that one line concept. The man wrote an epic length text about nothing.
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