Should I even bother reading this with no prerequisites? My dad happens to own a copy. What he doesn't own is a copy of The Greeks and I am just perusing his collection looking for something to read. If it is such a great work of literature the prose should be compelling enough to carry an avid reader to the end, right? I doubt I will understand everything but I can always treat the first reading as a primer.
Just read a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man first
The first three chapters and the end deal with the protag from that book, so you realllly need that to appreciate it.
You'll never pick up everything tho.
It's a 10/10 GOAT, so just have fun and let a master do his thing
Its great. I've just been reading literature for about a year and some chapters are harder than others but the prose is enjoyable the whole way through.
read the first chapter and you will surely be hooked
>cover spoils the ending
wooooooow
>>8098928
This
don't let the elitist punks dissuade you from reading some classic lit. my granny who never even went to highschool loved this book.
the confusing parts are mostly meant to be confusing. if you've got the motivation to push through it (it is long, it is tough) you'll be fine.
>>8098928
>Just read a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man first
this is definetely optional, but i'd reccomend it
otherwise the allusions are ultimately slight. people make it out like its written in code you can only pick apart if you've an understanding of the whole western canon. most of the literary or historical or religious allusions come in conversation. if you don't know about irish history you won't understand a conversation of early 1900's irish politics, but then you wouldn't in real life either. read it for the exchange and push on.
if you know the story of the odyssey you will be fine.
>>8098921
Dubliners then Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. If you really like those then you'll be good.
Both are really good regardless of whether or not you want to read Ulysses.
>>8098959
What if my understanding of The Odyssey is relegated to the Simpsons episode?
>>8100106
According to Reddit.COM, that's exactly the level of Homeric knowledge the Brothers Koen brought to their filmic adaptation of it, so I'd say you're good.
>>8100111
I don't know if I am being made fun of or encouraged with a post like that
Femanon here. Don't read it, it's pretentious, meaningless garbage. A failed modernist project -- a glib facsimile of the avant-garde. You're better off just reading the 'prerequisites' and not touching this pile of trash.
>>8100198
das bait
