50 books to read before you die discussion

This is the 20th book on the list, we last discussed this as a group in March 2016

If anyone is going to start Ulysses this month, read this first, it may help. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Not sure if anyone else is reading Ulysses this month - I'm not either, but only because I don't have the time. It's long and dense and difficult. I've read it twice and both times took me much longer than a month, with plenty of time on my hands.

But it is one of my favorite books ever! I read it for the first time in a college class and my professor was able to really open it up and help us dive right in. Most of the other students hated it, and I could see why - but I enjoyed it anyway.

I really love Leopold Bloom. He's such a nontraditional hero; his most heroic act is not confronting his wife about her affair, because he sees it as her way of processing grief at the loss of their child. He empathizes with her, and respects her even as it hurts him. He's one of the most compassionate souls I've ever seen in a book.

I love the Odyssey references too. Drunk Irish bigot = Cyclops. A funeral = a journey to the Underworld. Communion = cannibalism = island of the Lotus Eaters. It all works so well! It's like the pretentious English major's personal puzzle.

I've read that one of Joyce's goals was to poke fun at the pretentious literature fanatic. He claimed that his novel was so dense that people would waste their lives pulling it apart trying to uncover answers, but he also claimed that this book was written for the commoner. The literary elite would spend their time hacking up Ulysses for its secrets, and all the while the simple Irishman could get it in a heartbeat. The very Irish humor, the recreation of Dublin, the cultural and political context...all for the people he knew on the streets of Dublin, and at the same time he points a finger at his snobbish contemporaries. That seems really special to me.

I have some expanded thoughts on my blog post: http://jeffreycscott.com/ulysses/

Anybody actually reading it this month? I'm no expert but I'm one of the few people I know that actually likes Ulysses, so I can maybe answer questions.

Thank you for your comment and blog post Jeffrey. I am one of those people who have read it but didn’t really understand it from start to finish. I have made a mental note to try and read it again at sometime, so thanks for the recommendation for the guide/notes book.

Thank you, Jeffrey

I read it a while back. I wish I had liked it but I didn't. Our prior discussions are here, including my demeaning review https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , as well as others' thoughts.