So the first page of Ulysses makes me feel like I had a fucking stroke. How do I read this book...

>piles

...it's a few books. If the notion of prior supplementary reading is annoying to any user out there then they're too memekid for me to even worry about. Not having a go at you personally or anything.

I do suppose Ulysses would be easier to get through if you already finished Finnegans Wake

If Lucas made a better film, he would have had a reason to live.

>tfw when no qt conservative hapa gf

you do realise that the "artist as a young man" in portrait later becomes one of the characters in ulysses right?

i don't understand how anyone can find the first page difficult and yet i constantly see people say they do

Having read Ulysses 2 or 3 times, the Ellmann biography, and everything else Joyce wrote except Finnegans Wake, I think this is what you should do...

Go to university and study literature and philosophy. Be sure to spend plenty of time reading Shakespeare, the Classics, and the Church Fathers. Dabble in French, Italian, and Latin as Joyce did. Also, Joyce would have known his Bible very well; people these days don't realize just how much Christianity was a part of people's lives back then even if on paper they professed to be atheists.

Whilst you do this, read Ulysses about once a year. You'll gradually begin to understand Joyce, but once you begin to understand him, you will no longer care about him and will ideally have developed your own interests. Yet it won't have been a waste of time because you'll at least have gained a proper education.

I think you aren't ready to read a book like Ulysses yet. The first chapter is one of the easy chapters. If you are struggling with that I don't think you will be able to handle the weirder chapters. I would suggest coming back to the book after you have read some easier steam of consciousness stuff like Faulkner or Woolf.

You have to think of it as stepping horizontally into someone else's mind--a mind that slips in and out of focus constantly and is subject to all the normal fallibility of human perception. Just let the prose wash over you and take in what you can, remembering that, even when you feel most confused, the character's mind you're inhabiting for the day may be feeling exactly the same.

How has no one mentioned The New Bloomsday Book by Blamires? Definitely the best guide for your first read-through because it's not as heavy as Gifford's.

For the people who call it easy: the first page has some undeniable head-scratchers. I didn't know Chrysostomos or realize the whole "genuine Christine" thing was a mock Black Mass.

I'd say that this is the way to go as well. Joyce's aim was to capture life in a book - just like with life, you don't have to try to understand every reference or event that takes place in Ulysses.

I have the Bloomsday Book but never actually opened it. As far as I can tell it's a line by line summary of the novel that you can read independently of or after the novel, whereas Gifford's is an encyclopaedic text to he referred to while reading the novel. Would that be about right?

You need to learn to read poetry first. Joyce is advanced poetry. If you don't already read poetry, or you read free verse pablum, you need to pick up a primer on poetry and then read a couple of anthologies until the music starts to click for you and give you pleasure. Once you can read Shakespeare fluently, you can read Joyce.

You could also try an audiobook.

I can't imagine reading TNBB after the novel or separately. It's not that interesting on its own. I say read a chapter of TNBB (even better, half a chapter or a few pages) and then read the corresponding section in Ulysses.

I wouldn't use Gifford's because it's literally bigger than Ulysses and I can't keep flipping back every now and then for things that aren't that important, at least the first time.

>One of the main characters in Ulysses, who a large portion of the book about, is featured in one of Joyce's other books
>Characters from Dubliners are also in Ulyssrs
>he didn't read eithee
>has a hard time understanding Ulysses
You people only have yourselves to blame. Everything you need to succeed is available to you but all you see is the end goal.

>I don't have the Dubliners or A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
gen.lib.rus.ec/

Good advice user. Learning to read language that requires attention is so worthwhile. Shakespeare and the KJV will equip you to read anything. That 'translating' into your own contemporary vernacular and then re-reading is exremely illuminating. Take your time and do it studiously.

What are some books about the church fathers?

Lol the first chapter is as conventional as it gets until the fuckin play chapter. Quit now

no need to exaggerate mr smarty pants!

is ur comment not a contradiction?

Of all of the writers praised on Veeky Forums, I find Joyce and Nabokov to be the most insufferable. Both are talented writers who felt like they knew what technical elements were present in a good novel, but had genuinely nothing important to say to the reader.

If you are having problems with the first chapter already, don't even think about reading it yet. Try again in few years. Or even better, don't at all because Ulysses is a meme.

its pretty easy with the Sparknotes

>but had genuinely nothing important to say to the reader.
both were more poetical than the average novelist. Speaking for Joyce I would think Ulysses touches upon and relays many ''''important things''''' to the reader, just not perhaps important like 'her dress was black, she though she loved him, it was the lawyer in the foyer with the candlestick. And then she called her mother. And then she logged on facebook and made tea. Then she laid on her bed and twirled her hair. She though of what he was doing. She made plans to go to his house, to propel the plot, and unravel more clues to the mystery. She thought of something important about life and death, despair, sadness, bootstraps, toughness, kindness, rain, she thought of something important about cake, and france, and the 1800s, and a few indie bands, and metaphysics, and as she walked out the door she told her mom something important about the politics of the day, and how to bake her favorite cake, the boiling point of mercury, a few of her favorite movies, maxims and parables. And then she headed to her friends house, but first she went to starbucks".

If your post wasn't bait I might unironically call you a pleb

Can you give some or at least an example of something important a novelist has said to the reader? I am sincerely, genuinely asking, to have some reference frame example of what you consider important, or beyond what you consider, but what is important.

>reads the first page of Ulysses
>immediately goes to Veeky Forums
>"So the first page of Ulysses makes me feel like I had a fucking stroke."
every time

Burgess predicted Trump

No it isn't, since I was referring to supplemental companion books to Ulysses (which OP was asking about), like ones offering commentary or explaining what passages mean in the book. I don't think it's good the first time through to just read someone else's thoughts on the book. That said, it's helpful to have some background in Joyce before starting Ulysses, but Dubliners and Portrait are both standalone works, they are not supplemental.

you can tell Nabokov didn't altogether plan out his novels in advance, he just began writing and shaping little snippets of events into a full novel, making it up as he goes along (Read the original of laura)

Joyce is 10/10 though and you're a pleb

Borges predicted Burgess

>So the first page of Ulysses makes me feel like I had a fucking stroke.

Wat? The first *chapter* is easy-peasy. It's like the apotheosis of the realist style he developed in Dubliners, with the latter beautiful like Handel, and the former a kind of perfection of that beauty, like Mozart.

Just relax and re-read it. It's not hard to understand.

Really. Read sparknotes or shmoop to get the gist of the first chapter - Joyce's alter-ego Stephen Daedelus is hanging out with his friend Buck Mulligan, who enters doing a mock version of a priest celebrating Mass in Latin. And so forth. There are a lot of nuances, and a lot going on beneath the surface, but the surface narrative is accessible and vividly realized.

I don't read authors who are hard for the sake of hard

quite a take, have fun with that

Joyce and Nabokov are not that bad, they're just insufferably memed on Veeky Forums. Veeky Forums has a really stupid hard-on for books that are dense, playful, erudite, focus on style over substance, challenging, experimental, maximalist, modernist/postmodernist, avant-garde, and so on. Veeky Forums is more attracted to dazzle than to real substance, the outer form than the kernel. This is why such authors are insufferably memed:

>Gass
>Gaddis
>Nabokov
>Wallace
>Pynchon
>Joyce
>Faulkner
>Melville
>Proust
>McCarthy
>Burroughs
>Bolano

And more. Not only that, but it's mostly 20th century literature. I'd say the 20th century postmodernist Americans and European modernists are the most insufferably memed on here. They're good (I've actually read the major works of all of the writers on that last except Bolano), but they're absolutely NOT all that literature is about and has to offer. Veeky Forums has such a uniquely weird and insular taste, I don't know where it's from. I used to like it but after being here for a few years it's become increasingly boring, this board needs a wider range of reading and discussion of books.

Dante and Iliad get memed pretty hard here to though

>Veeky Forums is more attracted to dazzle than to real substance, the outer form than the kernel.

So what's your list of top-tier Veeky Forums that has real substance?

>the greatest writers the english language has to offer
>"yeah idk why Veeky Forums likes them so much"
also maybe 10% of the board has even started The Recognitions, let alone finished it or read his other work
same goes for Gass

I deleted my post because it had a typo lol, I'm a bit autistic. Well, I'm not saying those authors don't have substance, I'm just saying that the excessive reliance on a dazzling form and style is not the only way to relay it. Also, I'm not even saying that some authors I'll list are as good as or better than these authors, just that you can have fun reading different types of literature. I rarely see some good books by classic authors talked about on here that are in a more conventional form like

Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts
Raymond Chandler
Henry James (not the super-dense later experimental James, but the more readable James, like in Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller, some short stories and his earlier novels generally)
Gogol (he's probably mentioned more than any other of these honestly)
Kingley Amis
John Updike

This is kind of a random smattering and biased towards American literature, but they're just some authors who I found write books that are equal parts entertaining, have a good style without being incredibly maximalist and dense, and have some substance behind them too (yes, even Updike, even though people think he's just a chauvinist; in fact, I wrote a lot of posts on Veeky Forums too criticizing him whenever he gets mentioned, although admitting he has a good style and occasionally can be profound)

>the greatest writers the english language has to offer
This is exactly the problem I see, this extreme pretension. I've read all of these "greatest authors", and, ultimately, I don't really care about reading the greats now. Literature isn't that serious, it's mostly just for your own entertainment, maybe to feed a bit of a need for some intellectual stimulation and some emotional stimulation too. It's probably a more intellectual hobby than a lot of others, but when you glorify it as if it were the greatest thing in the world, it becomes kinda psychopathic.

Here I'd also add Rumi, who, incidentally, said that he thought wisdom/mysticism was more important than literature/poetry, and said he only wrote poetry to make this wisdom accessible to others. Yep, one of the most highly rated poets in world literature didn't even view poetry as an important means in itself.

Also
>implying the English language is the only one that matters
>only including 20th century writers in these greatest authors, because your horizons are mostly too narrow for pre-20th century English literature

Again, I'm not saying they're bad, they're just not all.

Thats the type of important thing the author told his readers? "I predict sometime soonish a rich populist elite for the people controversial liberal right wing obnoxious nazi businessman will be president"?

You mean thats all joyce had to say, to qualify, and you think he didnt say that and more?

>calling artists great is pretentious
>dude literature isn't even that serious lmao its a hobby get over yourself
if it isn't that serious why are you bothering to argue with me about it?

>How do I read this book?
You don't. It's juvenile memester trash.

>if it isn't that serious why are you bothering to argue with me about it?
Because I have fun arguing? Lol.

If you read Ulysses you'll see "Trump" in it.

You'll also see "gone with the wind" and "Tara" in it, so maybe Joyce predicted Gone with the Wind too.

Finnegans Wake is entry level Joyce. Read that first

>>calling artists great is pretentious
>>dude literature isn't even that serious lmao its a hobby get over yourself
>if it isn't that serious why are you bothering to argue with me about it?
you should know that this type of 'whatever this is' is not 'good' or positive for you, or successful tactic or point in discussion or argument, the logic is a failure.

it not being serious does not preclude the possibility of taking 2 or 4 or 5 or 10 calm or furious minutes to make a statement.

He can say 'literature isnt even that serious' (maybe hes talking objectively, maybe just personally to him) and still discuss books and authors and try to argue what is and not good.

Basically you attempted to fully cop out and back out of any discussion by attempting to make your interlocutor appear bad, but you should know for your own good and sake and for the worlds, it is seen and known that this was faulty and false.

Literature is serious to/for writers and 'serious readers', people very much interested in and admiring of the history, art and craft of literature.

You can say the same thing about (any art, and things beyond art) painting, someone can know all about different types of paint and brushes, and canvases and painting techniques and colors and painters and styles of painting over the eras and who is considered how good, and how quantifiably and qualitatively each painting effects them personally and the public and a person can say its not that serious, but because a person can spend a year on a painting (and it can be whether right or wrong be called a masterpiece) and a baby can poop on some paper and it can be called a painting, it is possible to compare he 'seriousness' of efforts, techniques, purpose, difficulty, impressiveness, possibility for impression.

Give me authors with that kernel you speak off

>hard-on for books that are dense, playful, erudite, focus on style over substance,
This. For them a good story told in a linear way is pleb while some shit story told with bunch of onomatopeias, silly inside jokes, bad pontuation is top literature all time.
Getting tired of this

What i mean is that wisdom is serious, forms of art may convey wisdom but wisdom is beyond art. Usually forms of art are just for entertainment or to create something beautiful, it's not necessarily the same as seriousness or wisdom.

>reading for wisdom
you should go back to r/books

good, great, run of the mill, average, above average, exceptional, standard, dime a dozen, ok, fine, decent, fun, good story, nice story, cool story, great craft, excellent, transcendent, divine, in no specific order

Wrote in haste it seems. But you can still give more examples, since all I am seeing here is that the kernel really is just an idea of moderation or, I dare to say, mediocrity. That the overall eveness of quality is what stands out as extraordinary, not the parts that make it.

I believe that the Veeky Forums meme authors truly are great, especially the well established ones like Pynchon Wallace Joyce. Thing is, this board is mainly comprised by young adults who strive to be intellectual and they are attracted by what is extraordinarily hard difficult meaningful and so on, the "I am not a normie" saying around here should be telling. They parse through intelligentsia to see what is considered hard and appreciated. The greeks meme, the russian literature. Explain the love for Brothers Karamazov or Borges, Goethe Milton Carvantes and c.

what when one thinks wisely, or un, they have had their fill of wisdom? Can a person have nearly all the wisdom possible to have? and even if nowhere near, can the craft of a story, and an exploration of the beauty of the world and human condition and humanity be seriously interesting, seriously intriguing, seriously inspiring, seriously thought provoking and invoking?

I dont get it?

>EXxplain the love for Brothers Karamazov or Borges, Goethe Milton Carvantes and c.

theres a great difference between them and the likes of dfw

>Explain the love for
list some books you think are as worth reading as those

I guess that's because the style is the most superficial criteria you can analyze a story

on suicide watch

You're used to reading books that are easy to read. That's literally it.

Don't let any of these fucking pseuds try to tell you otherwise.
You can't read an avant garde book like you read a regular book.
They aren't the same genre by virtue of both being fictionary.

read it fast and read it again

You sound like a fucking dweeb. Holy shit.