![UlyssesCover[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/xEurssr.jpg "UlyssesCover[1].jpg")
Whats your favorite chapter?
I like the first one with Bloom, feels comfy as shit.
Yeah, I actually read the whole thing because I had to. I was entering a prestigious PhD program and focusing on Joyce because I loved Dubliners, Portrait, and Ulysses. To my shame, though, I'd never read the Wake. I'd never even tried, as hard as that was to admit. It was this huge blind spot and area of vulnerability for me. Whenever it'd come up with my colleagues I'd just smile and nod, smile and nod, hoping they wouldn't ask me anything specific about it. "The musicality of it," somebody would say, and I'd say, "Oh God, yes, it's like Beethoven." Finally, though, I had to dive into it, and let me tell you it was tough going. Joseph Campbell's guide helped a lot. Reading it out loud helped. I listened to other people read it, read online commentaries. Eventually it started to make some sort of sense. It was like I was learning to read for the first time again, and in a way this was enjoyable. I got better at reading the book. Soon I was reading entire paragraphs without trouble, getting the puns, laughing at the jokes. I could sort of follow the story, it was like a blurry picture resolving into clarity, or like I was drunk and I was sobering up, I could actually understand it. As I became more and more adept at reading the Wake, I began putting myself to the test, initiating conversations with my colleagues about it, but specific passages this time, specific parts of the book. You can probably guess what happened. After a number of these conversations it became blindingly obvious that I understood the book a lot better than they did, they who I thought were the experts. It eventually became sort of embarrassing for them and I stopped trying to talk about it. And at the end of the day I would pack my things, catch the bus home, and settle into my apartment to read the Wake. It had surpassed all of Joyce's other works in my estimation. Ulysses, the book months earlier I would've named as my favorite of all time, the best book ever written, was now #2 to the Wake. So majestic, so ambitious, so wide-ranging, erudite, glorious, incredible was it that I couldn't believe that it was the work of one man. Best of all, the heart of it isn't complicated at all. What did I get from the Wake, what are its lessons? First of all, be yourself. Second of all, put one foot in front of the other. And lastly, just do it for crying out loud, time's a wastin'!
>>8007677
beat me to it
>>8007677
10/10
>>8007677
>What did I get from the Wake, what are its lessons? First of all, be yourself.
Please delete this ragebait it is too effective.
>>8007677
lmao
ch2. still reading it though. i have the original shakespeare & co edition so idk what its called.
>>8008072
Did you meet Sylvia? I want her.
>>8007677
incredible
>>8007662
Ep. 15 (Circe) is the GOAT. Hallucination is a hilarious technic.
Probably the first, because it's the one I've read the most and I feel "at home" when reading it or imagining it.
>>8007662
Ithaca. Just heart-rendingly beautiful.
Least favourite is Eumaeus, which is probably the most painful thing I've ever read.
Cyclops is a perfect piece of writing in my opinion, when I read the dialogue it reminds me of conversations I've overheard in pubs or have had with my friends. All the allusions to old myths and folklore in the parody sections are amazing too.
It is an allegory for everything that was right and wrong with Irish Nationalism in and around the time of the rising and civil war etc. and some of the criticisms of the narrator are still relevant today.
If you aren't Irish you might find it difficult to appreciate alot of the allusions and some of the word play might go over your head, but having had an Irish education and family who are long time members of the G.A.A.(Citizen is supposedly Micheal Cusack, founder of the G.A.A.) it all read easily for me and required very little extra reading or googling on my part to understand it.
Also the allusions to The Odyssey are seconded no where else in the book says I.
Proteus
I like the one with the farts.
>>8007677
oh boy
>>8007677
Copy paste from last thread.
>>8007677
>And lastly, just do it for crying out loud, time's a wastin'!
based joyce
