Do I need to read The Odyssey before Ulysses? What's the best version of Ulysses?
Do I need to read The Odyssey before Ulysses? What's the best version of Ulysses?
Benjamin Ramirez
Zachary Butler
You need to have a fairly good grasp of the Western canon before reading Ulysses, and that includes the Odyssey.
Penguin Annotated Student's addition
Jason King
What would the essential canon be? I imagine Homer, Virgil, Dante, Bible are all at the very least?
Thomas Smith
You're going to want to read all the pre-socratics, as well as plato and all the greek tragedies. Then you should be equipped to tackle the illiad then the odyssey, then read some romans and jump straight to ayn rand and then continental philosophy, skip analytical joyce himself disregarded it as "trash" so you don't need it, then read the bible (new testament first, then old testament , reading the books in reverse order), then harry potter (this sounds like a funny one, but is a mirror to many plot devices and themes in ulysses), after this read the entire dictionary but only reading consonants, then the sunday paper of you local region.
last but not least, read my diary and moby dick then you should be right to tackle the masterpiece of ancient literature that is ulysses by joyce
Angel Allen
You'll never be well read enough to understand everything in Ulysses, so I recommend reading Portrait of the Artist and then jumping right in. If you like it, you will want to reread it, and you'll have a better idea of what you should read before your second read (Aristotle to better understand Stephen for example).
Tyler Jackson
Just read Hamlet and the Odyssey and pick up an annotations book (wikibooks has a great one)
Don't get a first edition
Zachary Reed
Good compilation of the memes but you forgot infinite jest
Jaxson Taylor
Why not? Was Joyce not human?
I WILL do it. All I need is willpower.
Elijah Turner
I see, I'll likely start there then. Thanks friend.
Jose Diaz
Just read it and worry about understanding everything later.
Elijah Turner
Just read Homer and then ignore Ulysses because its shit.
Luis Brown
Just read the damn book. You won't understand everything but you can find guides to help you. Probably not the best intro. into Joyce but it's fine.
Connor Young
And to answer your second question. I'm a big fan of the facsimile of the 1922 1st Edition.
Cooper Reyes
The better question is why would anyone come to desire reading Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, The Tunnel, and other '/lit-meme boks' before having already read and studiously devoured Homer. And not out of attempt to get to the 'real work of art' by rushing through the pre-reqs, but out of a love for literature. Sure, it's possible to love literature without reading Homer (Henry Miller never read Homer, apparently!),and some people may just find more enjoyment in the style of the (post-)modernists, but goddamn are people here in a feverish hurry to embark on and complete (for the sake of completing, most of the time) what are considered the 'final bosses' of literature, challenging books accessible not to just anyone who likes literature but comprehensible solely to the enlightened few how happen to digitally meander on an internet imageboard. Man, charts and memes involving a collection of great works---whether it be on /a/, /tv/, /mu/, or whatever creative media board----truly devalue and flatten discussion. Why would I watch Welles before Brakhage? Listen to Beethoven or Bach before Antoine Beuger? or Charlie Parker prior to Peter Brotzmann? Dante before Pynchon? what am I, a fuckin' pleb? You should want to read The Odyssey!
You get the idea. Senseless rant, whatever.
Jeremiah Johnson
No and Gabler obviously
Bentley Morris
you were great up until reading the books in reverse order
Kevin Gonzalez
Dude you have to experience all the most important memes of the history before even tasting the Greatest Meme Of Them All! Eat some memes here, drink some memes there... and then you're in! The Greatest Meme is served! Enjoy your meme! Uh, and don't forget to accompany the Greatest Meme Of Them All with an annotated meme, and once you're done with it, make sure to consult a critic meme. At the end you'll be so stuffed with memes that you'll be the most intelligent person on earth. Now go, little memer, fly up like the wind, find the memes and do your duty! The memes are waiting for you!
Julian Hill
thanks guys, it means a lot to me
Jason Gonzalez
i hope this isn't pasta cause i like this and agree
Christopher Perez
Never let myself get entrenched into board culture, but there has to be a better way of going about a whole history of writing than tracing it from the start. Definitely, good things are lost along the way, but is there just no enjoying something contemporary without having to be informed by previous writing?
At the least I can say that following /a/'s recs is better than sifting through piles of shit.
Brody Brooks
Read anything Hellenic, including the Odyssey. Some knowledge of their philosophy and mythologies would be good too ("metempsychosis"). There's Platonic dialogues and dialectic stuff related to in Ulysses
Also go over Hamlet and Dante. You're probably interested in language, so read up on linguistic theories and Western languages - in Oxen Of The Sun, there's a chronological development of medieval dialect mocked until 19th century, so there's that.
I'm Irish, but if you're not acquainted with our (dull) history I recommend learning a bit about it, especially how the English raped us for so long without apology.
Dubliners is a good Joyce starter too.
Bentley Sullivan
Best version is the modern library. Avoid Gabler hype.
Pro tip: Ulysses Annotated is pricey but it will save your ass on the first reading.
Landon Reyes
Do the Irish get just as frustrated w/ The Wake as the rest of the world, or do they lol?
Elijah Kelly
>using ulysses annotated
>avoids gabler
pseud detected
Justin Watson
You need to read the Odyssey but also the western canon and most of the important English literature.
Gavin Gonzalez
Yeah I wasn't born with maps of downtown Dublin 1904 in my head. Idiot.
Owen Lee
>read the western cannon first
Get the rundown on Aquinas.
Matthew White
Given that Brakhage is formless avant garde art film
And Welles is (well regarded,quality) commercial entertainment
I have no idea why you wiuld even put the two in the same sentence
Leo Foster
>he doesnt even know why he's a pseud
pseud detected
Luke Evans
>be Gabler
>decide to correct thousands of Joyce's typographical "mistakes."
This fucking pleb.
Jayden Sanchez
Not an argument.
Adrian Robinson
ok fine ill lay it out for you instead of just flaming you like i should be
you advise against the gabler edition while in the same breath suggesting using ulysses annotated, which indicates you haven't even read ulysses annotated because that book is based entirely on the gabler edition in terms of scholarly approach and consequences. in fact, the page/line numbers and citations of ulysses annotated all use the gabler edition as the reference. there is absolutely zero reason to use the book if you're not using the gabler edition.
also the generation fixation on which ulysses edition people should use is absolutely asinine for purposes like this one.
it's no secret that the original 1922 edition contained a plethora of errors, which joyce then worked with random house to emend for the 1934 us edition, that was later reprinted in 1961 by the modern library and forms the "standard" text
the highly unusual styling of ulysses meant there was copious room for error, esp from the copywriters/typesetters, and it showed abundantly in 1922. though thousands of errors were corrected by joyce himself in 1934, there were still many more he worked on, and often included as errata for later editions before being incorporated into the text. it's not unreasonable at all to think there were still more to come.
general academic consensus today states gabler likely overstepped a bit in his corrections, but it is not at all unreasonable for him to have done what he did. the controversy around the edition is, anyway, largely academic and completely irrelevant to the lay reader, and certainly not to pseuds on Veeky Forums
let me repeat and emphasize the key point:
THE CONTROVERSY AROUND THE EDITION IS, ANYWAY, LARGELY ACADEMIC AND COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO THE LAY READER, AND CERTAINLY IRRELEVANT TO PSEUDS ON Veeky Forums
Ryder Ramirez
lmao. This assblastedness from you just shows I'm fucking right. Learn what an argument is before you embarrass yourself again. Do you think I'm impressed by this shit you've read on wikipedia?
>ok fine ill lay it out for you instead of just flaming you like i should be
so you admit your just a troll?
>there is absolutely zero reason to use the book if you're not using the gabler edition.
um, aside from giving information about the fucking book? Again, do you think I have a fucking map of dublin in my head?
>also the generation fixation on which ulysses edition people should use is absolutely asinine for purposes like this one.
Not an argument.
>it's no secret that the original 1922 edition contained a plethora of errors, which joyce then worked with random house to emend for the 1934 us edition, that was later reprinted in 1961 by the modern library and forms the "standard" text
Not an argument.
>the rest of what you fucking posted
Not. An. Argument.
Daniel Hughes
Not an argument
John Gomez
not an argument
Sebastian Allen
ulysses is great in a vacuum but it's allusion heavy. annotations would help but i don't think you're really supposed to 'get everything' anyways. catch what you can catch and it makes the story your own.