I think the Losey film of Ulysses with TP McKenna and Maurice Roeves, is superb, even though I saw it after reading the novel. Nowadays I fear a film of Ulysses would ruin it with 21st century gimmicks.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostYes, of course you're right, Bryn. Thanks for the correction. I didn't have me copy to hand and I'm not well-up on either director's work.
The 6-minute overture by Stanley Myers is a welsome bonus on the video.
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Originally posted by johncorrigan View PostI've never read Joyce's 'Ulysses', but I could be persuaded by this terrific documentary from the 'Arena' strand, though it might be a bit raunchy for an old soul like me. I really enjoyed the way the film was cut together. A fine cast of the talking heads assembled gave an excellent guide to the book. Great viewing, I thought.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...joyces-ulysses
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Originally posted by johncorrigan View PostMrs C and I have been enjoying 'The Newsreader' on the Beeb's i-player. Set in Melbourne in 1986 it's been a very entertaining series with some very good characters and reminders of 'real-life' events.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...iesId=p0cgx57w
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I wonder if 'Ulysses' is already becoming antiquated , like Shakespeare, in needing help to read it. This would not have occurred to me when I first read it fifty years ago.
Yes, the many unexplained allusions, to Catholicism, for instance, are a puzzle. But solving them makes the reader feeel Joyce has paid you the compliment of assuming you can do some of the thinking for yourself, bringing you as it were into the creative process.
I remember Anthony Burgess re-writing the opening of 'Ulysses' in the style of pulp fiction where everything is explained in plodding detail. It made the point well.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostI wonder if 'Ulysses' is already becoming antiquated , like Shakespeare, in needing help to read it. This would not have occurred to me when I first read it fifty years ago.
Yes, the many unexplained allusions, to Catholicism, for instance, are a puzzle. But solving them makes the reader feeel Joyce has paid you the compliment of assuming you can do some of the thinking for yourself, bringing you as it were into the creative process.
I remember Anthony Burgess re-writing the opening of 'Ulysses' in the style of pulp fiction where everything is explained in plodding detail. It made the point well.bong ching
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Originally posted by smittims View PostI wonder if 'Ulysses' is already becoming antiquated , like Shakespeare, in needing help to read it. This would not have occurred to me when I first read it fifty years ago.
Yes, the many unexplained allusions, to Catholicism, for instance, are a puzzle. But solving them makes the reader feeel Joyce has paid you the compliment of assuming you can do some of the thinking for yourself, bringing you as it were into the creative process.
I remember Anthony Burgess re-writing the opening of 'Ulysses' in the style of pulp fiction where everything is explained in plodding detail. It made the point well.
I did find that Frank Delaney’s “James Joyce's Odyssey: Guide to the Dublin of "Ulysses"” was quite helpful in getting into it. It’s not an academic guide, but acts more like a helpful friend who can explain the more obscure allusions while showing you around the Dublin of Joyce’s time."I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest
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Originally posted by LHC View PostWhen I read Ulysses some 40 years ago, I think it was already recognized that many readers would need a helping hand to understand all of Joyce’s allusions. I found it quite difficult to get into (I almost gave up when I came to the (in)famous sentence “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes”), but once I had found my way in, I thoroughly enjoyed and can remember that when I finished it, I wanted to go back to the beginning and read it all again.
I did find that Frank Delaney’s “James Joyce's Odyssey: Guide to the Dublin of "Ulysses"” was quite helpful in getting into it. It’s not an academic guide, but acts more like a helpful friend who can explain the more obscure allusions while showing you around the Dublin of Joyce’s time.
But I shall have to buy one of the guides mentioned here and read it again.
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Originally posted by Joseph K View PostI tried Ulysses in my first year at uni. I remember I told my mum what chapter I was on and she mentioned something about a funeral, to which I was either nonplussed or said "no, there has not been a funeral" and she assured me there had been. But I read the whole thing without any guide several years later. Personally, I love that infamous sentence you mention, LHC!
But I shall have to buy one of the guides mentioned here and read it again."I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest
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Originally posted by eighthobstruction View Post"Portrait of an Artist a Comprehensive school.".
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Originally posted by LHC View Post... I almost gave up when I came to the (in)famous sentence “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes”...
With the help of a dictionary, and hard thinking, today, I translate it as: "The visible present themselves in different ways, or perhaps more, perhaps my way of thinking about them presents them in different ways."
But alma classics says it means something totally different:"that which is inevitably certain of being seen". Now I'm stuck with seeing how alma classics get to this translation! If I eventually work it out then I need to work out of if my translation or alma's is better.
Or are both wrong?
Is Joyce trying to show that Stephen is cleverer than you, cleverer than any critic, and these are thoughts specific to him, so you'll never work out what he means! If you were one of his unlearned mates you'd just let his words wash over you, not bothering to get the meaning, and then press on, with him, to the pub and wait for some lighter moments. So is that the approach a reader should take?
The next sentence is just as hard! And the next, and the next is in a foreign language (Italian?)... If I was an unlearned mate I'd be telling him to knock off the high falutin' stuff and ask him about the weather or political situation! But, unfortunately, we are stuck in Stephen's stream of consciousness.
In that one paragraph, less than a page long, alma has eight annotations, most longer than that paragraph! They themselves introduce perplexities... they reference Aristotle, Homer, Boehme, Johnson, Berkeley, Lessing... Do we need to master Aristotle's colour theory & biography, Greek myth, Boehme's mysticism, Johnson's biography, Dante's poetry, and Berkelian idealism to read this paragraph?
You could spend a lifetime unpacking that one paragraph!
In the rest of the chapter we get allusions to Lessings aesthetics, Shakespeare (Hamlet), Blake, pre-Homeric myths, lots of obscure specifics of Dublin geography, Scottish English, obscure French artists, complex poetics, more Italian, the lesser doxology Gloria Patri, obscure German vocab,...
I think what Joyce is doing is valid - giving us the raw, immediate thoughts & feelings of a first rate intellectual with a vast education, photographic memory, profound language skills, specific geographical knowledge... and that Joyce needn't provide translations, travel guides, & philosophical summaries...
But how should the average novel reader deal with this? I think I'll stick with alma classics, read the annotations and/or think very hard, until I get one reasonable take on the sentence, and then immediately press on - no diverging to read Aristotle etc. (!) Previously I got bogged down by endless analysis wondering if I'd *really* grasped a paragraph, stuck like the critics that Joyce mocked... and then gave up.
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Originally posted by LHC View PostWhen I read Ulysses some 40 years ago, I think it was already recognized that many readers would need a helping hand to understand all of Joyce’s allusions. I found it quite difficult to get into (I almost gave up when I came to the (in)famous sentence “Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes”), but once I had found my way in, I thoroughly enjoyed and can remember that when I finished it, I wanted to go back to the beginning and read it all again.
I did find that Frank Delaney’s “James Joyce's Odyssey: Guide to the Dublin of "Ulysses"” was quite helpful in getting into it. It’s not an academic guide, but acts more like a helpful friend who can explain the more obscure allusions while showing you around the Dublin of Joyce’s time.
Because Homer is no longer taught (and wasn’t taught in my 70’s Grammar school) it’s all most impossible to pick up on the Homeric parallels without these. It’s also pretty important to have read Hamlet , realise that Joyce has replaced speech marks with dashes, and know something of the geography of Dublin including features no longer there like Nelson’s Column . I have my Grandad’s copy which was one of the very first bought into Ireland. He knew quite a few of the thinly disguised originals behind some of the minor characters. It’s honestly not that hard a book really . Proust is harder because of the sentence construction.
Incidentally all that Bloomsday dressing up has always struck me as complete cobblers.
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