James Joyce

Has anyone here read Joyce? I've been thinking of getting into his works by starting off with Dubliners but I'm not so sure about reading his other works such as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. They're triumphed and fetishized as being his most difficult works, but if the prose is so difficult why read it? Why read something that is made with the intention of being unreadable? Or is that not the intention with Joyce at all? I don't mind difficult works when it comes its mixed with meaningful narrative. To me, literature should always be about narrative, prose second. But where does Joyce fit in with this? Questions: >Where should one start with Joyce? >What, if any, background material should you read beforehand? >Why are Ulysses and Finnegans Wake considered so difficult, and is it for good reason? >How much of Joyce have you read? How long have you read him for?

>portrait of an artist as a young man It has been a while since I read him, but IIRC portrait of an artist is a semi auto-biographical account of growing up as an outsider (and then his struggles with the church vs. individuality) Joyce had an interesting pattern of trying to capture a sort of "stream of consciousness" in his writings, not to mention he put easter eggs with lots of symbolism in each that are debated to this day. Have not gotten to finnegans wake yet, but ulysees has a really odd syntax that culminates with a massive run-on sentence about sex You can see the progression of the thought development of his characters in their syntax and language composition. Portrait of an artist starts in childhood with the phrase: >Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...

meant to attach this

I think with Ulysses and FW, he thought he was pioneering a new artform altogether. It may not simply be that you find them difficult, they may in fact be impenetrable to anyone who doesn't have the proper education. That didn't stop me from trying though. I loved the first chapter of Ulysses but each subsequent chapter became more and more mysterious until I found I was completely lost. Then the final chapter as Lain mentioned >>3021 is one big run on with no sentence or paragraph breaks but I found that quite enjoyable because at least I knew what was going on again. I read six pages of the Wake and threw it aside forever. That's all I can say about that. What was promised in Joyce's writing which I was not able to find, I found in later books by someone who read his stuff and tried doing something similar but in a language that was closer to my own. Dhalgren by SR Delany is not just my favourite book, it is my favourite thing in the history of human civilization and takes a lot of cues from Joyce including structural ones and some direct references.

>>3023 Is Dhalgren really that good to you? I see it hated by A LOT of people, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

>>3025 It was rejected by the SF community at the time for various reasons. It has graphic sex scenes and presents race as a factor which will still exist in the future (classic SF posits almost as a given that progress and reason will do away with racism automatically). The narrative structure is not conventional either and the fandom and practioners of the so-called artform of ideas didn't like to be pushed TOO far. It is also informed very deeply by the counterculture of the mid 60s to early 70s while very seldom actually referring to it directly. There was so much in my own experiences as a bohemian punk rocker 20 years after it was published which resonated with the environment described in its pages, which suggests to me that certain experiences and states of mind are inherent to humanity or at least those of us on the fringes of society. I don't exaggerate when I say it's my favourite thing ever and I'm not shocked that a lot of people hate it either.

just read one of his stories. they aren't all that long.

the light shattered on the refractory coast. colors of blue hue crispy granular neocontinoid.

OP - studied Joyce a bit back in college. Just go chronologically - Dubliners, Portrait, Ulysses, the Wake. There is an enormous amount of secondary literature dedicated to unraveling his last two works that you can reference to catch the allusions etc that you maybe wouldn’t see otherwise (maybe? I don’t know your reading background). Outside of FW his other works are highly readable.

>>3023 >impenetrable to anyone who doesn't have the proper education this is the problem I have with lots of modernist literature, just throwing in references to the Classics everywhere. It's like a insider trade for public school/oxford academics, rather than actually being interesting writing

>>3829 >insider trade wow didn't even know that was a w°rdfilter. Shit. fuarrrk. Present Day, Present Time! AHAHAHAHAHA!

>>3829 Sure, maybe in today's world where you have "literature" classes throwing Harry Potter on the reading list. A lot of these so-called classics were written at a time and place where all students had some sort of education in Latin and Greek language and literature.

>>3831 why shouldn't harry potter be studied in literature classes? It's one of the most successful series of books ever written, there's clearly something there worth studying

>>3833 That's a fellatious argument.

>>3833 All I'm saying is, like in philosophical writings over the past 2500 years, there exists a sort of ongoing 'dialog' in literature (western lit at least, not so familiar with the east). So yeah you'll inevitably encounter references. Though, to my mind, a lot of the criticisms about this that people bring up are overblown. A person could read Dante and enjoy his writings without knowing anything about Italian history, his life in Florence etc. Similarly a person could read Ulysses and enjoy it without having read Homer, without knowing anything of Dublin, etc. It's all overblown IMO. And to be honest it's completely a non-issue with smartphones, it's not like googling something here and there is a problem. Yeah, there are exceptions to this like The Cantos by Joyce's buddy Ezra Pound but it's a piece of trash anyway. As for Harry Potter...totally my own opinion here but I don't think genre fiction/young adult stuff has any place in a literature class. Assuming people still read books in 100 years, they'll be irrelevant in terms of the study of literature. And I'm saying this as a fan of the books.

>>3834 Any cultural product is worth studying and the skills you learn in literature classes apply to just about anything. Even if we give canonized literature a monopoly on getting to be considered high-quality (which we shouldn't), quality is such a minor part of what studying literature is about. Many of the best discussions I've had in university have been about absolute trash. It's all about improving your skills as a reader and a human being, not just reading the best books.

>>3847 It's a joke, dumbass. >it's not bad and even if it was that's ok, who can even tell what bad is, being good isn't everything what not only good books are good what are even words lmao you're a real cunt, you know that?

>>3847 Yeah, you have a point with that - most things are worth examining to some degree. And I won't discount the fact that I had several pretty engaging courses on things like sci-fi, the graphic novel, 30s pulp fiction along with the typical string of lit courses in school. I guess I'm mainly speaking from the perspective of...there's a ton of literary ground I want to cover in my life, life is kind of short, time is hard to come by with all the other things going on in life, so I tend to gravitate towards works that don't immediately appear like they were written with monetary profit in mind. More confidence that I'll walk away having gained something from it. Whether that's true or not, who really knows :)

>>3848 I don't care if you were joking, the Harry Potter soykaf is an argument real people make. I just said "canonized literature isn't the only good soykaf and finding good soykaf isn't the fuarrrkin point of studying literature," it's a pretty clear reply. Go back to 4chan if you're going to throw a fit. >>3851 I definitely understand that! I like to be pushed into literature that's unfamiliar or challenging to me, and it's sometimes a bit of a let down when I'm in that mindset and instead get handed some standard YA. I just try to remember that I'm not there to get forced to read a list of The Best Books, I can do that with access to a library/the wired, I don't need to spend money on it. So I'm left looking for the best things to read on my own, while growing in other ways as a person in class.

>>3853 evidently, given you're defensively rambling at a post talking about "fellatious" arguments you should, that's the point I'm making.

>Why read something that is made with the intention of being unreadable? I wouldn't say the intention is to be unreadable, but to explore language to an intense degree can make a book difficult to read, and exploring language should not be a technique that's off limits just for the sake of accessibility.

>>3854 Going >haha xd meme to reply to an actual conversation doesn't just end the conversation, dumbass.

>>3859 And screaming >debate me repeatedly won't suddenly make that happen. Equivocating financial success and substance is tired and more stupid than any joke I could've cooked up. If you want someone to reason with you, start by being reasonable.

Ulysses.

>>3856 I see it as a sort of elaborate game, one that I'm not personally equipped to play because I don't have the education. I'm talking specifically about Joyce here though, because writers who were inspired by his technique reapplied it in more modern contexts that I was able to understand better because I had the proper cultural background and knew the slang. Dhalgren by SR Delany comes to mind.

Well for one, that was someone else, but also the problem is that you think literary "substance" is the only thing worth studying. "It sells well so it must be good!" is an obviously terrible argument, but something selling a lot does make it a big important part of the world around us. Understanding that world is the fuarrrkin point of academics.

I love Joyce, always have always will. It is not impenetrable, nor is it meant to be. Modernists wrote with a very specific presence of the past in mind (which people choose to whinge about as classical ""junk"" that is only for academics and private schools), when really it was a staple of education at the time. Most of these authors were taught Latin and Greek, as was most everyone who could afford an education. That said - we have the internet and a library that is accessible the world over. If you're willing to take time to explore, it opens up a multitude of avenues from which to read further into Joyce's works. Read Ulysses with leisure in mind, and it will begin to open up to you. Read with the expectation of difficulty and impenetrability, and you will give up in 10 pages at best.

RAW got me into joyce https://invidio.us/watch?v=Gh2qMf2f8qo

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>>5277 Excellent point, but wrong. It's wrong because it's an excellent point. You tried to show a counterexample trash text that isn't worth discussing, by adding it to a conversation where it would be interesting to discuss. Congratulations.

>>3830 What is it a language enhancer for? insider trade?

>>5285 Lol nice

>>3020 >Has anyone here read Joyce? Mostly his love letters to his wife. https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nora-barnacle

> cool fact : “ The absolute record in terms of multifractality turned out to be Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. The results of our analysis of this text are virtually indistinguishable from ideal, purely mathematical multifractals,” said Professor Stanisław Drożdż, another author of the paper, which has just been published in the computer science journal Information Sciences."

The only Joyce I've read are his dirty letters.

Not to ressurect an old thread, but Dan Schneider on the E-Cosmoetica YouTube channel (and the cosmoetica.org website) posited that Joyce had syphillis or some other illness that attacked the brain. According to Schneider, if you read Joyce's works chronologically, they go from (in Schneider's opinion) great to wretched. According to Schneider this is proof that Joyce was experiencing some sort of mental decline with every book he published. Of Ulysses, Schneider rated the book as having flashes of brilliance, but mostly garbage, while Finnegan's Wake was just considered just awful. I don't know how well Dan Schneider is respected as a critic, but I thought I would throw his opinions out there. I myself recently purchased Moby-Dick and Ulysses, and have not had the chance to read either just yet, so I'm still open to any thoughts on how to approach the latter.

>>3020 His earlier writings like Dubliners or Portrait read like regular books with good prose. But in order to read Ulysses or the Wake you sort of have to "learn" a different reading strategy. The more obscure chapters of Ulysses can sometimes "make more sense" when you read them aloud. Also there is a lot stylistically going on... each episode of Ulysses has its own style and can almost stand alone as a work I think the portrait is the most bearable one, and you also get an idea of Joyce's personality and how he conceives of aesthetic value. Also: there is a lot of trash literary criticism on him, but some of it is mildly bearable

>>3020 Start wherever you want, people like to say you need to start with dubliners or portrait but honestly read whatever sounds the most interesting. For a quick into, dubliners is definitely the most manageable and approachable. For me, the appeal of Joyce is the enormity of his scope, so Ulysses is my personal favorite: it gives me a huge fuarrrking mammoth of a text full of obscure references, intertextuality, cool prose/language, and fun soykaf for me to track down, all while having a main plot that's interesting enough to keep me stuck around, but which is definitely more of a background to Joyce using the English language, literary canon, and human history as his personal playground. It's a definite slog if you come in with the mentality of "I must finish this no matter what", so don't do that. Just show up when you're in the mood, enjoy yourself within his work as you see fit, and when it gets to be a lot or you get sick of admiring the sights, just shut the book and come back when you feel like it (unless you're reading his short stories, which are usually best experienced in one sitting). TL;DR, grab whatever strikes your fancy, and admire the sightseeing as opposed to trying to track down every reference or bore a hole through the goddamn book. It's a lot more fun that way. Go to town, lain! Hope you have as much fun with this guy's work as I did.