What one must read before Ulysses in order to make it less painful?

what one must read before Ulysses in order to make it less painful?

>reading is painful

find a new hobby

Hamlet
The Odyssey
Portrait

Should have knowledge of the Bible/catholicism as well.

It was just a joke, friend

Thanks. I already had in mind that I would read Dubliners, Chamber Music, Exiles and Portrait before it. I am finishing The Iliad and will probably go through The Odissey before Ulysses arrives.

Don't worry about Exiles or Chamber Music. You don't necessarily need to read Dubliners either, but it wouldn't hurt if you haven't read Joyce before which seems to be the case. The Iliad isn't particularly necessary and in all honesty The Odyssey isn't completely necessary either, but it will help to understand the structure.

Out of all the books usually recommended, Portrait is definitely the most important considering its main character is also an important character in Ulysses and in Ulysses he alludes to events that took place in Portrait.

Basically if you're reading those books because you want to then go ahead, but if you're doing it solely to prepare for Ulysses then see above and don't worry about it too much.

Why do you want to read Ulysses?

Thanks man. The Iliad and The Odissey I am reading reardless, only Exiles and Chamber music I was going to read just to "get into" Ulysses, but now I guess I'm just gonna read Dubliners that I bought yesterday and Portrait.

questions like this always strike me as so dumb. why would anyone be able to know anything about a book well enough to explain why they would or wouldn't want to read it in the first place? I haven't read ulysses, but I can tell you that from what I've heard, and from the acclaim that I've seen it get, it has me curious. I like what I hard from "the school of life" youtube channel, about how it's showing that ordinary every day people can be just as extraordinary as legendary heros, and the way it actually has the internal dialog of a person's mind inside of it. It sounds like a very transcendent novel, although I'm sure it's one which would have to be read in a heavily annotated copy to really get anything out of it. I don't buy the whole "you have to read a bunch of shit before you read this" unless it was a guide book that simply points out stuff that's actually relevant to helping you understand the book.

Btw dont listen to him when he says you dont need the odyssey, it is not only related to structure(which in itself is huge). It has a lot to do with the three main characters (as does Hamlet).

So you dont neeeeeed it as in its not required to actually open the book and look at the words, but as far as "what do i read b4 ulysses" its definitely on the list.

Start with the Greeks

But I am. I've read Edith's Mythology, Hesiod's Theogony and right now reading The Iliad.

Yeah, I am aware of that, and as I said, I'm reading The Iliad and The Odissey regardless of reading Ulysses or not.

Well, so far I plan on reading these before Ulysses:
>Hamlet
>The Odissey
>Dubliners
>Portrait
Also I'm gonna read some other classics before it (not as preparation, regardless of reading Ulysses or not) like Lolita, Crime and Punishment, The Sun Also Rises, The Stranger, Amerika...

If anyone has other suggestions..

Thanks for your responses, guys

this is really weird. Because I'm basically doing exactly what you're doing. Except I'm taking a detour at the bible and reading some Kierkegaard.

Not saying you should do this because it obviously requires quite a bit if disposable income but I spent time in Ireland throughout my life 1,4,8,14,17 and it really coloured the tone of the book for me. Understanding people's mannerisms and the like. Also my dad knows some gaelic so even that helped me a lot.

I'm almost positive that these experiences essentially made this a much different book for me than it would of been otherwise seeing as everything was lacquered in a sort of childhood nostalgia.

(Also read portrait and the Odyssey)

You are partly right but Ulysses draws extremely heavily from literary references so it helps quite a bit to know them. (I say this but I read Portrait and the Odyssey and most other references flew over my head...)

how?

I am not exactly taking a detour, but I am also reading The Bible while also reading The Iliad. Unfortunately though, I probably won't be able to go through the whole Bible before Ulysses but anyway..
Really weird

Ulysses is an 800 page list of allusion...to really 'get it' youu need to be very well read, especially in the classics, Shakespeare and the Bible. Anyone can read it - but won't get much out of it.

How are there literary references?

Well there's an entire chapter that is essentially an in depth discussion about Shakespeare that will have you pretty lost if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter. Half of the time they are speaking in direct quotes or taking quotes and modulating them slightly to change their meaning.

Also Oxen and the Sun is written entirely in mimicked styles of other authors.

Stephen practically thinks in Aristotle/Biblical/Dante references.

Bloom thinks of literature quite a bit but part of his charm is that he misquotes it (even in his mind).

The very first scene of the novel is supposed to be mimicry of a mass.

Too lazy to think of more but rest assured this book is not to be taken litely and it has EARNED it's reputation.

Yeah, I've read that it has tons of references, but I think its pretty much impossible for one to get fully prepared to read Ulysses...I will just read it after reading these and keep always reading, after few decades, maybe I will read it again and try to naturally get the more subtle references, just like I will do with Divine Comedy, I've read it without any background and I want to read it again after reading The Bible, some theology and philosophy up to Augustine and Aquinas

A solid plan. I dont believe that there is a single person who has gotten from Ulysses all that Joyce put In it.

Where should i start with dfw if im not well read? Some people tell me to dive in to ij right away but..... yikes

didn't mean to beat you over the head with it. just making sure that there fella didn't lead ya astray.

enjoy your journey.

I got what you said, didn't mean to be rude either.

appreciate it

no how does it help quite a bit to know them

like how does knowing the first scene mimics a mass change your enjoyment of it? is religious procession totally alien to people that they would have absolutely no idea how to interpret it if they hadn't read the whole bible from genesis to relevations? and how would reading the bible have you know about mass anyway?

stephen thinks in references. so what? you read it and think "oh it's a reference"

Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original.

>get a james joyce anthology book
>read dubliners and portrait
>fucking love them
>want more
>anthology doesn't have ulysses
>go to store and buy it
>turns out it's absolutely fucking incoherent

While it is possible that you could just assume something you don't understand as a reference with a small degree of success the references that Stephen (or others) will yield are usually meant to colour the whole of whatever concept is being mulled over in his head or in conversation. In this way references or quotes are used sometimes sarcastically or they are sometimes used to inject the entire ethos of the quoted work into the mix to have it bounce around amongst the subtext.

This makes the knowledge of that text crucial to the understanding of whatever scene it is at play in in at least the way Joyce intended it to be understood.

Also keep in mind that I say all this while understanding very little of the majority of works that Joyce references throughout the novel and enjoyed the book immensely with annotations and having read portrait and the Odyssey. This book is so dense that having 10% comprehension of it still places it above most.

But a novel should be able to hold its own, independent value in order to be a good book. I don't care how deep it is, if it can't be read without prior knowledge regarding a vast variety of topics, then I'm not going to bother ever reading it. But from what I have read of Ulysses (just over 100 pages), the writing is extremely good with or without knowledge of the subjects to which it alludes.

my diary desu

>a novel should
there is no "should" in art, man. It is what it is and if you like that, good. If not shrug and move on to the next thing.

I don't think a novel "should" really be anything other than what the writer wanted it to be. After its out of their hands it's perfectly understandable for the reader to do whatever they want with it and experience it however they want.

I understand how you feel about it but the immensity of the density of Ulysses is one of the reasons it is recognised as the modern monolith that it is.

Statistically, almost no reader who will read Ulysses will know a single gaelic word. Does this mean that Joyce was wrong for having them in Ulysses? I would think not since they add a certain Irish authenticity to the work and also inject deeper Irish heritage than could be achieved otherwise.

I didn't say that Ulysses is a bad book for having so many allusions, but I hate the idea that people have to understand these allusions to enjoy the book. I am not capable of imagining that Joyce really intended the readers of Ulysses to understand every allusion in the novel.

it is also possible that people impose meaning on a scene because they think a reference fits but it doesn't. i've seen how people interpret texts here, on other boards, and on other sites, and often they're wrong because they think something is more meaningful than it is. no one here is going to understand the text more by doing preparatory reading; it's a meme to say people must be warming up for something like the 'final boss of literature'. allusions and allegories still retain their meaning when referenced intertextually so it's not impossible to still understand a scene if you can't place the exact character, scene, and text that something is quoted from. even if i'm wrong you still don't need to read these texts before ulysses as you can read them after and still make the same connections.

annotations i can understand because they also add cultural and historical information rather than allusions. but really preparatory reading and chronological reading are such bad ways of going about an interest in literature. no one learns that way

Well I'm sure your capable of imagining it :P.

It's a good point though, it took him like 7 years to write. Maybe the ideal reader takes 7 years to read it lol.

Who knows, the amazing thing about density like this though is that it ends up being a vastly different book person to person.

2/10 made me reply

>The plump shadowed face and sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

>—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

A PRELATE? WHAT IS THIS REFERENCE? HIS NAME IS ANCIENT GREEK? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? WHAT'S THE REFERENCE? ULYSSES IS HARD

Well Marguerite Young took 17 years to write Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, but I don't think anyone is expected to actually spend that long reading it. Writing a novel is always a process that takes longer than reading it.

The rest of the western canon

I suppose you could be right. All I know is that I felt like doing as much supplementary research on Ulysses before and during the reading of it helped me quite a bit and I would vouch for anyone interested to do the same. It would be pretty silly to at least not read portrait first as it centres around one of Ulysses main characters and is so short.

The best thing to do is to just read it when you want too. I waited quite a while and wanted to familiarize myself with more experimental writing before hand. I also wanted to read the Bible and all sorts of other stuff but I ended up just picking it up one night and getting really drawn in.

That wasn't really meant to be taken literally user.

The Phenomenology of Spirit, then by comparison it won't be so hard