It's not gibberish, but it is really, really difficult. I think it's like Shakespearean English in a way--it can be very off-putting at first but once you learn the language of the writer, it's a total pleasure to read. It's like Sci-Fi world-building, but instead of creating a different world using regular language, the writer is describing this world, using a whole world of words, which has its own sense and layers.

I was in Dublin on Bloomsday a few years ago. It was kind of neat -- I was taking a cab to the airport, and the cab driver was listening to a broadcast about Joyce.

I've never read more than a few excerpts of Ulysses. I did read all the way though Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in high school, and didn't particularly enjoy it.

Excellent and shiny description, Scrappy.

Wow, that's freakin' ignorant, Connie.

That's pretty harsh, Hec. People are allowed to have differing opinions on books. It doesn't make them ignorant.

If you've read Ulysses you'd know better.

I missed the part in her post where she said that she didn't.

Are you assuming that because she has a differing opinion on Ulysses that she didn't read it? That seems to imply that everyone who read Ulysses must love it, or at least have a value-neutral opinion on it. *That* is ignorant.

I'm with Steph.

I did read all the way though Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in high school, and didn't particularly enjoy it.

That's the only Joyce I've read, I think (or...is there a story of his that's about going to some sort of crowded open-air marketplace?). I loved it, though. I liked watching the language of the book change and evolve as the character did.

Wow, that's freakin' ignorant, Connie.

Wow, that's freakin' condescending, Hec. I don't like Joyce. I think it's gibberish. But thanks for your opinion of my intelligence.

That's pretty harsh, Hec. People are allowed to have differing opinions on books. It doesn't make them ignorant.

Anti-intellectualism is ignorant. It surely is. And that was the jist of her comment, not an opinion on the book.

I've been on page thirty of Ulysses for five years. And he's my peeps. I grew up a few miles from the Martello tower the book starts at. And I've done Bloomsday stuff. But it's way easier to read passages and enjoy them than it is to read the book cover to cover. Unless you have a bunch of free time and no commitments. IMO.

And if it takes four times reading an English sentence to finally say, "OK, I think that makes sense," I am not impressed.

I've enjoyed Joyce's shorter works. But I failed when I tried Ulysses. but I didn't fall asleep -- that was Henry James!

I suspect Joyce's novels are more like T.S. Eliot than Shakespeare. With Eliot and Joyce, you need a well-annotated version, a good teacher/guide, or in-depth knowledge of a number of scholarly subjects to really understand what's going on. With Eliot, and I suspect Joyce, it's the author using his classical education (with an added factor of Joyce trying to turn the written word into a more visible medium, and I know I'm not getting my point across, but that's the best way I can put it). Where Shakespeare was very accessible to the typical audiences of his day, but slang and general knowledge have changed over 500 years.