STOP LISTEN Every single one of you should, right at this moment, read at least the first ten pages of this book. Take your time. Allow yourself to freely associate. Subvocalize or read out loud so you can start picking up on the phonetic play. Don't be afraid to laugh You will not regret it, I promise you. With a bit of effort, you'll see that it isn't the syphilitic nonsense you've been told it is. It's a beautiful and wholly unique work that unfurls a nearly infinite dimension of meaning above itself. It's one of the greatest, funniest, and most important works of art mankind has ever successfully seen through to completion. It's a love letter to humanity and its history, past and future.
>went to link >10 lines in >dropped at least Ulysses was readable
Camden Smith
It takes a little bit to adjust to the style, I know, but trust me. Even a monolingual scrub like me managed to pull beautiful things out of it Just treat every word, phrase, and sentence like a punchline to a joke or pun, and work backwards, trying to find the underlying joke
Jacob Edwards
This is just such a wonderfully enjoyable book. I love scouring over outside resources to find out what Joyce was getting at.
Adrian Hill
I forced myself through the entire first chapter
didn't understand a single thing
pic related it's me
Ayden Morales
I believe in you, user! Pick a sentence that you wanna understand, post it here, and we'll all take a look together
Joshua Gonzalez
Let's start at the beginning
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
what does this mean
Jeremiah Bennett
What did he mean by this?
Brody Lewis
Think of it as a description of a long camera shot in a movie. Like you're on a tour, you're being guided down a river, along its bends and swerves, past something called "Eve and Adam's" (a reference to Adam and Eve's Church in Dublin), and through an ultimate act of recirculating, we end up at Howth Castle (a castle in Dublin county) and "environs" (the surrounding environment, here meaning Dublin itself).
Howth Castle and Environs also spells out HCE, which is one of the recurring "characters" who goes by many names but has a connection to those initials. It's typically taken to stand for both Here Comes Everybody (because he represents mankind as a whole) and Humphrey Chipden Earwicker, his probable proper name
Also worth noting is that the first sentence is the second half of the final sentence in the book, which is abruptly cut off, making the entire book an infinite loop, tying in with its themes of cyclical history and rebirth, in particular the philosophy of Vico, who is referenced in "vicus"
Jayden James
Already tried it man. Got like 30 pages in and noped out. Maybe someday I'll try it again.
