With the 100th anniversary of Leopold’s and Stephen’s famous day and night around Dublin just three days away, I’m sure folks around here can hardly contain themselves. And so I prepare for my annual to semi-annual attempt at actually get through the whole of James Joyce’s Ulysses…

 

I’ve only made it to chapter 11 (Concert room and liver for dinner at the hotel) before throwing in the towel. I’d have to start over again and try to get a head of steam going, but don’t have time to commit to it. I’ve resisted the audio book approach but I think I’m finally going to succumb to temptation. There’s a 5-hour version for about $20, and an unabridged version for $100 (on sale) that I will catch serious crap about from the wife if I buy.

 

I have a bottle of Crested 10 Irish whiskey that my folks brought back from the Jameson’s distillery last year, and good store of the ‘blonde in the black skirt’ (Guinness) as well to fortify myself, but it’s going to be an uphill battle unless I cheat and go the audio route.

 

Has anyone here gotten through it? If so, you have my profound respect.

 

Slainte’

I can never make it through either. That and Anna Karenina are the two books I can never finish.

 

The Dubliners is good--and it's nice that it's short stories. More manageable.

Shall we try a little Ayn Rand instead? I finally just shrugged, gave up and went to look at the fountainhead instead. of course maybe I'm not be objective here.

 

Some random Ayn Rand quotes

 

Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others - misfortune is not a mortgage on achievement - failure is not a mortgage on success - suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence - man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause - life is not one huge hospital.

read it

 

all the way through

 

liked it

I can never make it through either. That and Anna Karenina are the two books I can never finish.

 

The Dubliners is good--and it's nice that it's short stories. More manageable.

You're right about the Dubliners being more managable being in bite-sized chunks. It also helps that it seems to have enough punctuation, unlike Ulysses sometimes.

 

TThe size of Anna Karenina scared me away, but I id like Tolstoy's short stories that I have read – bite-sized chunks again.

read it   

 

all the way through     

 

liked it           

I am impressed. I hear Finnigan's Wake is even denser, if such a thing is possible. I'm scared of getting almost all the way through Ulysses and then running into the last chaptter that I have heard is really 8 looooooong sentences of Molly's stream of consciousness lying in bed that lasts for something like 40 or 50 pages.

 

My wife and I went to Davey Byrne's about 10 years ago on a literary pub crawl, a historic Dublin pub that shows in the book. We had cheese samiches and burgundy like Leopold did there 100 years ago, and I promised myself then I would beat that book (I had tried and failed once before). A decade later I am still trying.

None of the above