/lit/ - Literature

there are apparently a couple good pages towards the end

>>17281120
>got filtered by both Dubliners and Portrait (which is a masterpiece in it's own right)
How do you expect to be able to enjoy and get Ulysses when you can't even appreciate his much more accessible works? Go back and read them. The protagonist of Portrait is also one of the main characters of Ulysses, so it's important that you understand the former.

Also, you should work a little bit on not getting filtered by Middle English. It's really not that difficult and won't take too much effort for you to be able to read Canterbury Tales. It's definitely worth being familiar with

>>17281120
Joyce might not be for you. Different strokes, that's all.

>>17281139
I'm more than halfway through Ulysses though.

>>17281148
That's what I was thinking.

>>17281135
kek

>>17281157
That doesn't prevent you from putting it down and opening a different book

>>17281120
You got filtered pseud

>>17281139
did you actually read it in middle english? are you sure it wasn't a translation? some of middle english sections are pretty much inaccessible without knowledge of middle english...

>>17281186
>did you actually read it in middle english?
Yes. I took the time to learn the differences with the language that are not immediately apparent

>>17281194
ok, so then why did you tell someone to just go and read the ME without studying the language lol come on mang

>>17281179
why is it good and not complete trash?

>>17281178
Seems like a waste of time considering I didn't like them before. What is so good about them?

>>17281205
>Also, you should work a little bit on not getting Filtered by Middle English
I literally prefaced it by saying he should put in the work to understand it

>>17281120
>>17281213
You seem to have made up your mind that the works of Joyce are "trash"
I'd tell you to kill yourself but the words would go right over your head. Don't let me meet you IRL or one of us is gonna get his ass kicked, and it aint me

>>17281216
oh nvm you're right. lol I took that as "just read it bro, stop not understanding the words"

>>17281225
So why is it good?
'YOU DON'T THINK BOOK YOU SUPPOSED TO LIKE GOOD. ME WANT KILL YOU NOW.'

>>17281120
you got filtered by dubliners LMAO

>>17281120
Yes

>>17281213
>Why is it good and not complete trash
Not going to type up an entire essay for you, but the way Portrait is structured makes it a masterpiece. The prose starts off childlike and simple and progresses and Stephen Dedalus grows older. Many passages in the latter half of the book are sublime. Most notably the scene where Stephen decides to be an artist instead of joining the priesthood. It's just very good, and also semi-autobiographical, so it tells us a lot about Joyce and his childhood.

Dubliners has some of the best short stories in the English language. Not too much more to say about it beyond that. If you don't at least read The Dead, you're doing yourself a great disservice.

>>17281238
It's soulless parables written for people that don't think there should be any soul in writing. 'Let me be vague and word it nicely, that'll give it depth.' It's utter shit written for academics to jerk themselves off to, then he made this piece of shit, which is just quips, annoying gimmicks, and a worthless endeavor. Really what is good about these pieces of shit that make them a must read.

>>17281242
Yes what

>>17281247
So it's just gimmicky? It's funny when Salinger did that in Hapworth 15 he was labeled a hack and never published again because of it, but when Joyce does it we pretend it's a masterpiece, because he hit all the right notes for academics to jerk themselves off to. It's just gimmicky writing. Why should I care if it's semi-autobiographical? The Shakespeare part in Ulysses would make me think it's entirely autobiographical, insofar as he is the 'father' to all of his characters with parts of him still inside of them.

They were well-written sure, but that's about it. So is Fitzgerald, another boring uninteresting writer for domesticated academics.

>>17281234
Look pal, there's no point in trying to convince you of a pleasure that is subjective to me. And any argument from objectivity would be met with your own subjective rebuttals, taking my claims in bad faith, and declaring your own reality to be the true one. I shall simply say that the best writers and thinkers have been delighted by Joyce's prose, and you are simply not among them. It's not that I couldn't point to what is good, funny, or meaningful in Joyce. Such explanation would be futile when you have already decided to disagree. Perhaps it would be futile regardless of that.

>>17281120
>audiobook
No wonder you got filtered
If you can't even be bothered to read with your fucking eyes like a human being, get off this board.

>>17281280
>I shall simply say that the best writers and thinkers have been delighted by Joyce's prose
No most of the best writers and thinkers have been born before Joyce. Nabkov, Salinger, TS Eliot, and Burgess held him in high regard sure, but other writers I like didn't even read him. Woolf called him unreadable iirc, why is an appeal to authority and diminishment of my writing grounds for me to not be able to make a judgment. Gaddis also got 'filtered' by Ulysses.

>>17281287
I read the first 300 pages and switched to audiobook for the last 50 to speed it up, because I was either re-reading pages or going through quickly and not getting anything from it. Isn't supposed to be like music/poetry anyway? Why would an audiobook be bad for it?

>>17281120
Buck Chungus

keep going, peak joyce kino awaits
once you finish it you will want to read it again

jeez OP. nobody likes everything they read. don't apologize to these people

Yeahhhh
I finished it for finishing it and yes the last couple chapters are the best. I think it would be much better a second time and wanted to restart it when I finished.
I didn't.

The real cringe isn't that you couldn't finish the book. That happens to everyone all the time.
The real cringe is complaining about it here like a fucking attention whore, bleating out for sympathy. 4chan isn't your diary. Do you have a uterus by any chance?

>>17281291
Woolf was a snobbish high class girl who hated that a poor kid from Dublin was writing the best novels of his time. She later recanted and said that she liked Ulysses

>>17281120
>filtered by Dubliners
>tries to prove he's a grown-up by tackling Ulysses
>fails disastrously
>whines about it on the internet

Ulysses is not an enjoyable book for most people, so I wouldn't worry about the snobs here, OP. It's interesting for its technical innovations, but not much else.

Although, yeah, if you didn't get into Dubliners it's a surprise you'd want to tackle anything later from Joyce.

>>17281889
Woolf is a complete phony who just aped Proust and Joyce and had nothing original of her own.

I don’t even need to read it to know it’s shit. I just know

How the fuck do you listen to books at work? What do you "work"?

>>17281247
>>17281270
Dangerously based OP BTFOs all the pseuds ITT.

Mate at the very least read The Dead. It's the final story of Dubliners and the greatest thing I've ever read. I too didn't enjoy what came before it but I'm glad I held out to the end.

>>17281120
>My question to you is what am I missing
You're missing the giant ego of being a colossal pseud faggot.

>>17283064
Most /lit/ post ever.

>>17283289
>filtered and raging about it
Second most /lit/ post ever.

>>17283191
> The Dead. It's the final story of Dubliners and the greatest thing I've ever read
I've never understood why The Dead has this massive reputation. It's not even the best story in Dubliners, even if it is the most technically accomplished.

>>17283324
It's the most ambitious, and offers the widest snapshot of Dublin society. It's also the most tragic.

>>17281120
>No, I did not finish Dubliners or Portrait either, both trash.
How the fuck do you get filtered by little chandler and a fucking moocow?

>>17283346
>Dublin society.
Fascinating subject.

>>17283401
Were you expecting something else from a book called "Dubliners?"

>>17281250
Dubliners is not vague, much of what tries to communicate to the reader is simple enough.

>>17281250
Stick to comics.

>>17282974
Kek

>>17283191
Spoken like a true philistine

>>17283741
Oops, I meant to answer to >17283014

>>17281186
>some of middle english sections are pretty much inaccessible without knowledge of middle english...
This is just wrong. Say the words out loud as you read it and stop the pleb misinformation. Even the most difficult passages only require context clues. There are no full passages of middle English that are entirely inaccessible, it is simply not sufficiently different a language for that to be the case

>>17281250
>It's utter shit written for academics to jerk themselves off to
This is the biggest most obvious pleb dogwhistle I see spouted around. You think the academy and academics were the same in Ireland 100 years ago to how you understand it now? Use your fucking head and stop being mediocre

It's funny because not a single anon has been able to say why it is good other than gimmicky techniques, and how I have to re-read his first 2 books, which nobody has told me why they are worth reading.

>>17283851
That's because nobody's interested in talking to a retard.

>>17283861
I'm sorry you feel that way about yourself, but I'm happy to talk about the book with you, anon.

>>17283014
thanks anon

>>17283754
You mistakenly replied to the right guy, kek. The last 3 pages of The dead are great but the story overall is not even a standout in Joyce's own bibliography

>>17281120

>audiobook

Just posting to let you know that listening to an audiobook is not the same as reading the text. If anything, listening to audiobooks might actually harm your reading speed and comprehension.

>>17283899
I just switched over because I wanted to get over with it.
Source?

I started this book yesterday and I’m a couple chapters in. I’m loving it so far but am I supposed to read portrait first?

>>17285395
I don't think you're *supposed* to do anything but read it. Dubliners and Portrait are both excellent places to start with Joyce; you get to experience his growth as an artist, get context for the character of Stephen Dedalus, and a decent primer on the irish history that matters to Joyce. I had a decently annotated edition of Portrait which really helped me with the latter, as knowing the relevant irish history is important to understanding the irish and why they are the way they are.

>>17283851
Joyce is the only one that writes Stream of consciousness that feels real to me, and thats only a fraction of the things he works with. His knowledge is so expensive that it really IS able to transcend the taken-for-granted mundanity of everyday experience in the direction of...

Not to mention the jokes. Its genuinely funny. Wiping his ass with shitty literature, the puns. So many brilliant punches left in just the first few chapters. Thats not to say its unserious, it's deadly sometimes.

brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet brainlet

>>17283851
this idiot wants a sentence or paragraph excerpt that confirms his own opinions about >tfw no gf

stick to reading camus and steincuck

>>17285637
when deadly?

>>17285395
there are references to dubliners and portrait that will make sense if you read straight through

>>17283905
>get it over with
The book takes a ton of reader effort to reconstruct, it's not an accumulation of experience points that you level up with when you 'get through it'... with that attitude your opinion on the book would be worthless anyway...

>>17281120
>Yes, I enjoyed Iliad, Odyssey, Paradise Lost, Faust, Hamlet, Moby Dick, etc. Haven't read Canterbury Tales yet, got filtered by the Middle English.
Moby-Dick not included, Ulysses is nowhere near the caliber of the works mentioned. It's clever marketing that has led you to believe Ulysses is anything near Paradise Lost, Homer's epics, Shakespeare, or Faust. It's not.

>>17286443
huh?

>>17283861
Yet here we are on 4chan

>>17281213
>trash

>a thread full of people who got filtered by Joyce
So this is what /lit/ has come to in 2021. It's a shame, because Joyce himself said that he thought every reader could find something they enjoy in his work

>>17287013
if you include dubs and apotaaaym

>>17286443
>older is better!!!!
kys

>>17286292
The ride to the funeral when Bloom is being made fun of, thinking of his dads suicide strikes me as one example.

When he looks up from Stephen's unconscious body and sees the image of his dead son strikes me as another

>>17281287
The audiobook/radioplay version on youtube is fucking amazing

>>17287013
believing this from the man who wrote FW

>>17288607
Everyone can find some worldplay or puns they enjoy in FW, so he's right in that sense

>>17281225
Kys tranny.

>>17288691
Youre both wrong.

Kill yourself or if you can't do that cut your penis off/put a cucumber in your pussy and never take it out so u wont have kids every again and think about how stupid you are stupid stupid piece of shit throw yourself into a pit euthanasia with a hook you dont get the fucking book rekt straight poetry fire for hire

>>17288691
>everyone can find some wordplay or puns that they like
Scattershot is not a valid writing style. Not liking Joyce is not getting filtered. Getting filtered is when a book is too difficult for you, not too shitty.

I got filtered by Circe, legitimately couldn't tell what was going on or keep track of who the hundred different characters were or decode the arcane shit they were saying.
>it's supposed to be chaotic bro
Sure, but when a third of the fucking book is a schizo dinner theater, it stops being enjoyable quickly, especially after you just got beaten down by Oxen.

>>17281120
350 pages in? Just finish it retard

>>17288820
If you don't enjoy Joyce, it's almost certainly too difficult for you. Sorry, bud. I've never known anyone who understood his work and didn't at the very least appreciate it

>>17281120
Don't listen to these retarded pseuds. If you aren't enjoying a book, don't read or listen to it. There's so much to fucking read, don't waste your time on the unenjoyable or what you find lacking profoundness.

Seriously, switch to the bible or gibbon. It'll make you happier and you'll grow more.

>>17289095
>he didn't love Oxen

>>17287141
Where did you get the idea I believed that, little guy?

Listened to 50 more pages today at work, and will probably do a bit more before bed. 400 pages in now. Probably will do 100 tomorrow, fuck this book I'm just going to finish.

>>17289194
>Seriously, switch to the bible or gibbon. It'll make you happier and you'll grow more.
Yes, but mine as well finish at this point. Thanks anon.

>>17281339
Kek

>>17281120
Is there any reason to actually read this book or Finnegan's Wake aside from proving to yourself that you weren't filtered by a hard book? I've never read a word of Joyce but everyone's descriptions of his writing make it sound like a miserable experience

>>17290283
Ya

>>17290283
i'd say dubliners and portrait of an artist are enjoyable to the average reader. if you enjoy those dive into ulysses. the best way to read any writer is publication order anyway

>>17283851
Youre not worth the

>>17290440
>publication order anyway
Why over written order?

>>17290532
juvenalia published after an author's success is usually only of interest if you're really in love with them

>>17281186
“Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.”