"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Ulysses (James Joyce, 1918)


I read this in part because it keeps showing up on lists of the "greatest novels of 20th century," sometimes as high as number one. I made it all the way through 800+ pages because I kept thinking something was going to happen. One day in Dublin (June 16, 1904). Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom. The book is full of literary allusions (most of which unfortunately are lost on me). It is modeled after Homer's epic of the same name (which would be of more interest if I knew that story better). The stream of consciousness stuff is fun for awhile - it makes one realize how much of time our minds are working just that way. Completely different writing styles in each chapter. Extremely clever.

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