It’s subtracted in another typo when the list of attendees at Dignam’s funeral include L. Boom instead of Bloom. Even typos find their doppelgängers in Joyce’s work and even themselves out in the end.

A man’s disrupted attempt to read Ulysses before the end of the world. This time, I am going to succeed! ‘What’s that? Oh for Fucks sake!’

I wanted to make this post mostly to enter it into the body of Google history for people looking to get into the book. I bounced off of Ulysses 7-8 times, always around Hades. I had searched around looking for advice on how to read it, and the consistent byline was not to worry about understanding every reference, and just to read through for what you can get. This didn't work for me at all. With that strategy, long sections of the book just turn into meaningless subvocalization, sounding out words that don't signify anything, which is incredibly boring.

I just finished the book, and the strategy I instead adopted for my successful runthrough was to make maximal use of secondary sources. I read the book on Joyce Project dot com, and every time there was a hyperlink embedded in the text I clicked it and read it. I eventually even started reading these articles completely the first time I encountered them, rather than trying to avoid spoilers about later parts of the book. I also read Potrait to get a good handle on Stephen Dedalus, as well as Joyce's wiki page and a bunch of random blog posts. I skipped Dubliners, which I regret, and I will go back to read it before I reread Ulysses.

This approach transformed my relationship to Ulysses. Previously I had been picking up maybe 30% of the obvious meaning of each chapter, sometimes much less or more. After making use of secondary sources I feel I've gotten 90%+ of the substance of the book. I just read Nabokov's lecture on it as a coda, and he didn't drop anything detail-wise that surprised me.

Reading Ulysses properly– e.g. understanding the racial undertones of the soap advertisement that Bloom has stuck in his head throughout Calypso and later on in Circe– is basically like taking a college class. It took me about 4 months, though it was spaced out by the fact that I always read chapters in 1 or 2 sittings of 6-8 hours, except for Circe which is a monster of a chapter. I feel like I learned as much from this period as I did from the best classes I took in college, about a huge array of subjects. In my opinion, doing it this way is absolutely worthwhile, because the book has a huge amount to teach us; I've even been thinking about it frequently with respect to issues in my real life. Reading it shallowly, on the other hand, sounds to me like an exercise in frustration, mouthing out sounds and skipping over whole paragraphs because the references are too dense to parse at 100 years' remove.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts in the matter. Like I said, I wrote this post because I got the opposite advice when I went looking for it over the past few years, and would have read the book a long time ago if I had found a post like this one.

First timer who wants to tackle Ulysses. What do I need to be successful?

The Text: What edition is best for understanding what is going on?

Companions: I am overwhelmed by the volume of companion guides. What do I actually need to understand the book?

-ulyssesguide.com -The New Bloomsday Book by Blamires -Ulysses Annotated by Gifford -joyceproject.com/ -Reading Ulysses podcast -others?

Pre-Reading: Do I need to read the Odyssey or Portrait of an Artist first?

Happy bloomsday. If anyone has any fun adventures for the day I’d love to hear em.

Hey! I’m currently writing an essay on the humour/comedy of Ulysses and I’m wondering if anyone here has any examples? I just thought to ask here in case if I’m missing anything! Thanks!

I am in the middle of my read through of the this classic. So far it's humbling and pleasant read. The only thing I wish was my copy had the chapter names.

I know that one is supposed to read an introduction before whatever comes after, but am also worried it might spoil an intuitive, or whatsoever access to the book.

Any suggestions or experiences? Should I read it all? Should I read his introduction before or after reading the book?

(I'm referring to Declan Kiberds Introduction in the penguin books edition, 1992/2000)

I have been looking, and I can’t find an answer to how to have page breaks in pdf exports. I mean, I have a book with chapters, and I’d just like to have page breaks after each chapter. Is that possible? This would be easy in Scrivenor, etc.

Hey, all!

I'm running a Ulysses study group this semester with high-school aged students at the homeschooling drop-in center I teach at. It's going to be super informal, I'm mostly prepped but I'm hoping to crowdsource some favorite paired reading for my class.

I'm looking for relevant selections from Dubliners (obviously Two Gallants) and Portrait in particular and where you'd pair them. I have selections from Shakespeare, The Oddyssey, and William Blake. I've heard tell but haven't fully explored the connections to Nietzche and Walt Whitman (I've been informed mostly those fit in more obviously with The Wake which I've yet to read)--what are thoughts on pairing some of those with Ulysses to further explore, and if so where do you suggest?

I tackled Ulysses over the summer for the first time since my 20s and I'm so glad I did.

If you're like me, you've joined the /JamesJoyce Reddit, so this will be redundant. Still, I wanted to post it here as it's literally a Ulysses Walkthrough series.

So... I made a thing. It's a podcast thing. Or a YouTube thing. I don't expect much to come of it, but I enjoyed making it and any views, comments, or feedback are much appreciated.

The goal is to eventually walk through all of Ulysses, so here's the first few episodes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LPvjZyyOmw&list=PLzrAamg8bpeyn3AXVLGQisf__f4ViftuD

Maybe I should mark a Ulysses thing as NSFW? After all, what work or money has Ulysses ever brought me? lol

Another in the series.

https://www.pisgahsite.com/p/leopold-bloom-and-hope

I'm new here and have just made a quick scan of the threads. I do not see any mention of The Joyce Project

A few articles I posted on my substack about Jewish motifs in Ulysses. You can bypass the subscribe button by clicking on "Let me read it first." Feel free to subscribe.

Hi,

Does anyone know the author of the music named "Martha" that Bloom hears in Chapter 11 (Sirens)?

Thanks

Jim's (dirty) letter to Nora https://vocaroo.com/1brfLm8sSU0z

• i like this voice... ( i can believe (imagine) Young Joyce sounding like this )

• there must be parts of FW, where tone and Subj-matter are exactly like this -------------- Where are those parts ???

• "i read your letter" ------ should be past tense.

• "you like to be f..cked Arseways" --- must mean [Doggy style] and

not ........

Hello, i was reading the introduction to the Ulysses in penguin modern classics edition and in some part the person who writes the introduction says:
" If our words are scarcely our own, suggests Joyce, then neither are our plots, which can be borrowed from Homer, who may never have existed. "

Well, i have looked for this quote in Ulysses and couldnt find it, same in A Portrait of a Young Man Artist and Dubliners. Does anyone knows were Joyce suggests something like this? Why this man quotes something that does not exist?

Thank you and i leave some more of the page which im talking about so i can give a little bit more of context.

" Ulysses is, therefore, constructed on the understanding that styles, like persons, are interchangeable. The method, though not quite dadaist, intermittently justifies Joyce's account of himself as 'a scissors and paste man'. Only Joyce could have written Ulysses; and yet it is a book which asks us to give serious consideration to the possibility that anybody could have written it. If our words are scarcely our own, suggests Joyce, then neither are our plots, which can be borrowed from Homer, who may never have existed. He claimed to base much of his material on borrowings from the talkers of Dublin; and took perverse pride in sharing with Shakespeare the boast of never having created a single plot. "

I'm reading Ulysses for a semester long high school project, but with it being a hard read and all I decided to check out the SparkNotes after I finish each episode. While reading page 2 of the summary for episode six, "Hades," it mentions that Leopold Bloom becomes uncomfortable after Jack Power refers to Molly as "Madame." The analysis mentions that is disrespectful to refer to her in such a way but never explains why, do any of your guys have an explanation?

A specific link to the SparkNotes summary: Ulysses Episode Six: “Hades” Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes