>>8123651
>companion books

Stop getting into Joyce as if he's some guy exclusive to the very top of the erudite circles. Just pick up the book and read. Trust me, you will enjoy him without the companion books. You can use those while rereading, though. Just don't suffocate yourself with key guides and excessive studies on the novels at the beginning, they will ruin the superb flow of his work for you.

Read and enjoy, he's truly one of a kind.

>>8123651

I think Dubliners and Portrait are accessible enough to jump right into them, although it's very important to read about the history of Ireland around the time they're written.

Two very important guides for Ulysses are Stuart Gilbert's book on Ulysses, and Gifford and Seidman's annotations to Ulysses. Although I hope you'll start off the book by just jumping right in and only reading those books after you've already digested enough Ulysses for yourself. And if on that first reading you're totally lost and have no idea what's going on, you can always just look online.

As for the Wake, this site here provides some good tips on getting into it and has some recommendations for "survival tools": http://www.fractiousfiction.com/finnegans_wake.html

Richard Ellmann's enormous Joyce Biography is essential and good to read whenever you want.

>>8123672
Okay. I was not too familiar with Joyce and his work beforehand, which is why I was approaching it that way, but if it's best just to read I will. Surely though I should at Keats have notes for Finnegans Wake? From what I've flipped through, it seems too obscure to be read straight.
>>8123706
Thanks for the recommendations! I'll read Joyce's Wikipedia article to get the bare context for Dubliners and Portrait and then just read. I'm excited to get started.

Apart from Dubliners, I found Joyce to be verbose.

Finnegan's Wake is (no matter what people say) unreadable.

Have a couple of drinks and read from it like poetry with your mates, it'll create a few laughs - it's a silly book.

>>8123651
Have you read The Bible, Homer and Shakespeare?

>>8123715
Yes to the Bible and Homer; only Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar by Shakespeare.

>>8123729

You should study Hamlet. I've heard somewhere that while Leo Bloom is in a book called Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus thinks he's in a book called Hamlet.

>>8123714
>unreadable
It's readable, just not understandable (for us).

>>8123712
See above.

Even with a guide you probably won't be able to grasp more than just the skeleton. It doesn't mean you won't laugh throughout the book, though. It's hilarious.

>>8123714
It is a difficult read, but far from impossible.