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I found a paper copy of the book with notes on Indigo and ordered it this morning, should be here next week. Very reasonable, just under 10 bucks

Just got home from Barnes and Noble with my copy - I'm ready to go!

Diane S. wrote: "Can I join in as well?
Bought this one fo..."

For some reason you can't get this one on UK Amazon. It's a shame.

Structure

The structure of Ulysses parallels symbolically the structure of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.
In both works, a man goes on a journey, encountering a variety of people and situations along the way. However, the journey in Homer’s work lasts ten years, whereas the journey in Joyce’s work lasts about 18½ hours.
The main characters in Ulysses also parallel the main characters in The Odyssey. Thus, Joyce’s Leopold Bloom becomes Homer’s Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses); Stephen Dedalus becomes Telemachus, the son of Odysseus; Molly Bloom becomes Penelope, the wife of Odysseus; and Blazes Boylan becomes a representative of all the suitors wooing Penelope.
Joyce’s characters are ordinary and unheroic in contrast to Homer’s extraordinary and heroic characters.


Fascinating Fact

The name Shakespeare occurs 50 times in Ulysses. References to Shakespeare by another name, as well as to his works and style, occur hundreds of other times.
It may well be that Joyce wanted to be another Shakespeare in stature. If so, his hope outran his talent.

(all of this is quoted from another site. The last sentence is not my opinion....I hadn't ever thought about it or noticed that Shakespeare is so often mentioned)

My copy arrived in today's mail : )

I have my copy and am ready.

I just had a look at my copy.

The first chapter is 15 (small-printed) pages long. This is fairly short for most books but Ulysses may take extra time & discussion. Is everyone fine with reading & discussing just this one chapter for our first week?
I believe we decided to take it slow, which I think is a good plan for this book, but we're in this together & should all have a say.

I'm just planning right now and getting ready. We aren't starting the read 'til mid-September.

That sounds perfect to me .. a good length to mull over for the first week and discuss.

Petra wrote: "I just had a look at my copy.

The first chapter is 15 (small-printed) pages long. This is fairly short for most books but Ulysses may take extra time & discussion. Is everyone fine with reading &..."

Sounds good to me :)

I agree!

Petra ,
I'm not sure , but you may be he only one who had read the book from those of us planning to do the group read , so I would defer to you in how to break down the reading schedule .

Petra, that sounds good to me. A chapter a week is very doable,

Sounds good. Thanks Petra.

Thanks for the feedback (and confidence)!

Okay, we'll start by reading Chapter 1 in the first week and maybe play it by ear for the next couple of weeks to see how we're all keeping up.
This is a very odd book and I'm not sure what pace to set but we won't make it boring or too onerous. We'll find our path. :D

How are the discussions usually held? Do they start on the first day of the first week or is the first week for reading, with the discussion starting later in the week? (just so I don't give away spoilers...if there are any....there really aren't any, I think...as we move through the book)

We usually just post our thoughts when reading, using spoiler tags in case people are not where we are.

Thanks, Diane!

It sounds great Petra! And I also agree with Diane, we can use spoiler tags.

Would like to read this sometime. At the minute the size is putting me off considering I've just finished with university.

Alannah, come join us. We're going to be taking it slow and with chapters being in the 10-20 page range it can almost be a side read to your other books (that's what I'm hoping to make it).

Just received my copy through the mail and...wow! Flipped it open, read a paragraph, sat back in my chair stunned thinking that maybe what I just read is a quirky part, the whole thing can't be like this! Flipped to another section, read more and exclaimed something referring to the holy mother including curse words. Now I understand why you spoke of help guides and taking it slow. Great ideas! This is going to be interesting.

And this is why I think I put off reading this for so long ! I'm so glad to have the company .

It's a difficult read and having a group will help us get through it. Making it on one's own is daunting.

If our chatter here is any indication, we're going to do just fine....great, even.....with this read. We'll help each other along.

Just found this in an article titled "How To Read James Joyce's Ulysses":

5. Keep reading. Reread. Add time to that reading schedule you made if you need to. But most of all, have fun. Skip around. If you’re excited about Molly’s famous monologue at the end of the book, go ahead and read it. Again, the point is to enjoy the experience. If you can trick a friend into reading it with you, so much the better. Have at it.

According to this, we're going to have fun (reading with friends) and we'll make each chapter as much fun as we can. We'll pace it as necessary for maximum enjoyment.
When I read it, it was work but it was also fun. The story can be quirky but it's got its humorous elements, too. It's sometimes hard to find these but we'll help each other.

I love that and I'm glad we tricked each other into reading it together . The enthusiasm here is making me want to start now but I"ll be patient.

I loved this:


The book itself is a rollicking jaunt through one day �� June 16, 1904 �� Joyce wrote it as a tribute to his wife Nora.
They had gone on their first “date�� (a walk through Dublin �� with probably a sexual encounter in a back alley) on June 16, 1904. He wrote to her later that on that day she “made him a man��. And so Ulysses was a tribute to her. And to that first day they shared together.
Damn. Imagine someone writing a tribute to you and then having it turn out to be the greatest book of the 20th century.
The funniest thing of all is that Nora said she never read it.

PS: if we're ready, we can start. We're just waiting for the end of summer for some reason I can't remember.

How is our frame of minds for this? Are we ready? Should we wait?

..... "If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new."
-Johann Friedrick von Schiller-(German Poet, Dramatist, Philosopher and Historian. 1759-1805)

(don't worry; we'll find something pleasant)

Petra ,
I think when in the beginning you offered to read it with me , i said maybe middle of September at that time wanting to catch up on some other books . I was thinking then that we would be just reading it through .
Now that we have all agreed to do it a little at a time , I can start anytime it works for the rest of the group .

I am in the Grub street and Golem read along, not sure hen those start but they are slated for September. Since it is only a chapter a week I am sure I can manage, so I too m willing to start.

I'm happy to go with this any time that suits the rest of you. I'm reckoning on the Golem read being at the start of September, Diane.

Whatever works for everyone is fine by me!

I'll be away for about a week, early in September, with no internet access. You'd all be on your own for that week but you'll be able to get through and I'll catch up with all comments when I get back.

“The pity is, the public will demand and find a moral in my book �� or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it.��
-James Joyce about Ulysses

Joyce never felt he was writing about “the extraordinary�� �� he didn’t believe writers/novelists should focus on that �� “that is for the journalist��. He wanted to focus on “the significance of trivial things�� �� thoughts, stream-of-consciousness, sensory reality, dream-spaces, the way the world looks through a particular set of eyeballs �� to be INSIDE the character rather than outside. This is why much of Ulysses can be quite challenging to read. There is no narrator. No one interjects himself and tells you, “Here is what is happening here.�� It is a purely subjective book �� and we are inside Stephen Dedalus and we are inside Leopold Bloom. We see and hear only what they see and hear.
But once you get that, once you stop looking for an objective voice �� the whole thing is not only quite easy, but a ton of fun. To treat it like a big serious tome is to completely miss the point of the book �� which is rather silly, most of the time �� and has to do with what people eat, and how they chew, and what it’s like in a brothel, and the people you meet on any given day: windbags, sirens, patriotic nimrods, pious righteous folks, old tired teachers �� whatever. It’s a cornucopia of personality.

- from The Sheila Variations

Stephen Dedalus


The character of Stephen Dedalus is a harshly drawn version of Joyce himself at age twenty-two. Stephen first appeared as the main character of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which followed his development from early childhood to his proud and ambitious days before leaving Dublin for Paris and the realization of his artistic capabilities.
At the beginning of Ulysses, it is over two years after the end of Portrait. Stephen has been back in Dublin for over a year, having returned to sit at his mother’s deathbed.
Stephen’s artistic talent is still unrealized �� he is currently a reluctant teacher of history at a boy’s school. He is disappointed and moody and is still dressed in mourning over the death of his mother almost a year ago.
Stephen’s interactions with various characters �� Buck, Haines, Mr. Deasy �� in the opening episodes of the book crystallize our sense of the damaging ties and obligations that have resulted from Stephen’s return to Ireland.
At the beginning of Ulysses, Stephen is a self-conscious young man whose identity is still in formation. Stephen’s aloofness and his attempts to understand himself through fictional characters such as Hamlet dramatize his struggle to solidify this identity.

I'm going to put this out here for the first chapter (Telemachus). It tells all the "circles" or "systems" (not sure what to call them) that Joyce tried to (succeeded in?) putting into his book.
The book is supposed to be all encompassing of life, the internal body, color, etc...and The Odyssey.

We can decide if we want to explore or look for connections in what we're reading with these as we read. If any of us sees a connection within Ulysses to any of these, we could post it & explore. There's a VERY good chance that we won't see much of these at all. If this becomes onerous, we can leave all of these elements out and just enjoy the book. That may be the best way to tackle Ulysses.


1. TELEMACHUS
TIME: 8.oo am.
SCENE: A Martello tower (erected by the British to repel French invasion during the Napoleonic wars) at Sandycove on the shore of Dublin Bay, 7 miles southeast of Dublin.
ORGAN: None
ART: Theology
COLOURS: White, gold
SYMBOL: Heir
TECHNIQUE: Narrative (young)
CORRESPONDENCES: Telemachus & Hamlet/Stephen; Antinous/Mulligan; Mentor/the milk woman. Sense: Dispossessed son in struggle.


Additional Notes:
Antinous was a Bithynian Greek youth and a favourite, or lover, of the Roman emperor Hadrian.

Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus or Heracles and Asopis. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.

I am away next week with little or no internet access, but I could catch up when I return

Summerdale, you are braver than I! I haven't cracked mine open yet.

That's two of us that will be away soon. Perhaps its better to wait until everyone is back.

I'll be back by September 7. How about we start on September 8th? Will we all be back from vacation then? We can change the dates to accommodate. Don't be afraid to speak up.

Sep 8 is great with me

I think that's a good plan .

I'm so glad I have all of you for support, though I don't know what I'll do if at some point I need to be held. lol I'm hearing that Ulysses is tied in with Homers Odyssey. I own Homers Odyssey unread. Should I try to knock that out before I get started on Ulysses?

Also, the 8th is good for me too.

Good for me too

Petra wrote: "That's two of us that will be away soon. Perhaps its better to wait until everyone is back.

I'll be back by September 7. How about we start on September 8th? Will we all be back from vacation then..."

The 8th is good for me too :)

Summerdale wrote: "I'm so glad I have all of you for support, though I don't know what I'll do if at some point I need to be held. lol I'm hearing that Ulysses is tied in with Homers Odyssey. I own Homers Odyssey unr..."

I read Ulysses without having read The Odyssey. It went fine.
However, now that I have read The Odyssey, I can see the tie-in. It's not necessary and has nothing to do with the story of Ulysses. Rather, Joyce follows the same pattern that The Odyssey is written in (the first chapters focus more on the son, showing him as young and insecure; the rest focussing on the father).

There's more tie-ins but they aren't integral to the storyline, since there really isn't one. We'll be following Bloom & Stephen through one day in Dublin.


ETA: the 8th it is.....our starting date.

Great the 8th works for me... thanks for the comments so far Petra, they're really helpful.

8th is fine with me also. Thanks Petra.

8th works for me.

Summerdale , I think I may just read a synopsis of the Oddessey rather than the whole work .

Any version of The Odyssey will work. I think they are all understandable, etc. but I thought I'd mention this version, The Odyssey. I thought the verse flowed and was easy to read.
I read a few excerpts from on-line bookstores with versions that had a "look inside" feature and found this version flowed the best.

I'm looking forward to the 8th.

OK I figured it was mainly a format thing. I'm gonna wing it without reading the Odyssey because truthfully I already have so many books piled up in my Sept plans, I don't know if I could fit it in. Thanks folks!