Sunday 31 July 2016

First Steps up Mt Joyce - Ulysses

I have just started reading James Joyce's Ulysses, which is actually my second attempt at one of his novels. I tried A Portrait several years ago and only made it 42 pages in.

So far, so good. I usually know within the first page whether I'll stick with a book, and I'm already carrying the characters from Ulysses around with me during the day. The last novel I read was Atwood's Cat's Eye, and I was desperate for it to be over by the last hundred pages or so.

It's very dense. Very dense. Within the first chapter I've had to contend with Latin from the old Roman Catholic Mass, a reference to an ancient Church Father called Chrysostom, a few Greek words, lines from popular songs from the early 1900s, Irish slang and bits and pieces like Mabinogion and Upanishads. And lots of Aristotle follows.

I have a secret weapon though. I made my preparations before starting out on this trek. I knew it would be a marathon, and that I'd need help along the way. So I ordered a copy of Gifford's Ulysses Annotated before I started. I read a page of notes, then a page of text. It's slow going, but at least it gives me some idea of what's going on!

The book of notes actually got lost in the mail at first. It took four weeks, five calls to Booktopia and three calls to three different post offices to track it down. Waiting for it seems to have built up the suspense though.

At the risk of sounding over the top, I have a feeling of destiny reading Ulysses at the moment. Ten years ago I would have dreaded it. But as I begin, various strands are coming together: growing up in a house with no TV, but having a copy of Stories of Greek Mythology on my parents' bookshelf, half a semester of Latin during second year university, five years of seminary training, or, priest school as I prefer, a few assorted units of philosophy from an otherwise useless Bachelors Degree in Theology, an introduction to Greek by a wonderfully eccentric priest who tried to get his class of three tone deaf students to sing second century mass parts in harmony. And he had a motorbike. He called it Priscilla. I'm not making it up.

1 comment:

  1. Nice post! Something interesting about you going on a journey while you read Ulysses. Cheers.

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