Hooked on Books discussion

📚 Odyssey Book 12 🐂🌀🎶

Honestly? I’m done with the double standards. This entire book is a masterclass in emotional overreaction... from the men.

Odysseus is out here trying to keep the crew alive, but Eurylochus? Sir Whines-a-Lot. “It’s too hard! We’re hungry! Wahhh!” My guy, you were literally told not to touch the sacred cows, and what do you do the second Dad takes a nap? Throw a barbecue. Unbelievable.

And let’s not forget: sirens, sea monsters, death whirlpools.... Odysseus handles all that, but still can’t get his men to follow basic instructions like “don’t eat the sun god’s livestock.” 🙄

Forget femme fatales, it's the fragile egos of sailors that really sink ships.

⚡Bonus Tandem thought: Bloom survives by disengaging. Odysseus survives by strapping himself down. Make of that what you will.

Yeah... it's not hard to see why Odysseus is seen as a genius... Compared to the idiots he's in charge of, anyone would be 😆

🍻 Ulysses Episode 12 – Cyclops
Pub. Pints. Propaganda.

Whew... Welcome to Barney Kiernan’s, where the stout is strong, the opinions stronger, and the patience very, very thin. This chapter felt like sitting in the back of a bar while someone shouts half-remembered history at you, throws out every Irish reference possible, and occasionally veers into full-on hate speech.

Bloom remains... Bloom. Thoughtful, weird, human.

The Citizen? 👹 Unhinged nationalist energy. Loud, aggressive, and not above lobbing anti-Semitic nonsense mid-Guinness.

And good grief, there are so many lists. Names, saints, animals, titles, whatever Joyce felt like tossing in. Some of it was genuinely funny. Some of it was exhausting. I may have... skimmed the rather longer, blustery ones.

🧼 Shoutout to Bloom, still somehow soft-spoken and holding his ground while surrounded by loudmouths and literal threats. The man has his flaws, but honestly? He’s the only adult in the room.

💬 Final thought: This chapter made me tired.

I find the lists are incredibly soothing in audio! Especially in an Irish accent 😁

I'm moving through this at a good clip though I really do think I need to listen to it again after TT is over to really absorb what is happening in this book.

You'll probably need at least a dozen reads for that Judith 😆 (there's a reason I've read it 5 times now!)

that makes me feel a bit better. I also don't think I'm in the best head space right now to be tackling a book like this. So that's not helping either.

How's the move going by the way?

HAH! It's not, in short. 😆

Hubby has a heap of work to get done so doesn't have time to finish off the final things that need doing (and I don't have the skillset/access to do it myself), so I'm sitting here in limbo still.

I'm really worried the house we want will get snapped up by someone else while we're dragging our heels... And there isn't anything else that suits us in the area at the moment. 😢

Oh no, that's stressful. We had a similar issue but it was more we were waiting for our house to sell so we could buy the new one without a contingency since with the market being what it was, those offers were generally never accepted (because they didn't need to with multiple offers).

We watched a lot of houses we wanted get snapped up by other buyers and not knowing if something else would pop on the market. it was very stressful.

fingers crossed it all works out!!

Thanks!

Problem with the rural area is that not many houses come up for sale, so we could be waiting a long time for anything good to pop up.

👁️The Odyssey – The Cyclops part
aka: "Nobody messes with Odysseus... except maybe his own ego."

There’s something oddly nostalgic about the Cyclops story, like a dad joke in epic form. I’m pretty sure my own father tried to get me with the "Noman" trick at some point growing up (my version says Noman, though I've heard others go with Nobody).

I got a tone crossover for Ulysses, but not a ton else. It’s classic trickster hero stuff... sneaky, clever, then immediately overconfident. "I’ve just blinded a man-eating monster and escaped certain death… let me now yell my real name at him while he’s throwing boulders at me from the shore."
Sure, Odysseus. Real smooth. 🤦‍♀️

Epic? Yes. Humble? Not so much.
But hey, it makes for a great story, and honestly, this whole bit reads like something you'd hear from a friend after a few beers at the pub bar (the lingo is rubbing off on me). Wild, chaotic, and somehow... charmingly unhinged.

🫣 Episode 13: Nausicaa

Friends....

I came for the literary ... no, I don't really know what I came for. I do know I expected difficult syntax, symbolic layers, and internal monologues. What I did not expect… was Bloom… behind a rock… at the beach… while fireworks exploded… 👀 and a woman named Gerty showing him her ankle like it was some sacred rite of flirtation.

This episode is... well... it’s funny. It’s icky. It’s bold. It’s disorienting. It’s... Joyce?

🔥 And then, buried in the voyeuristic mess, this fantastic line:

"Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home."

I feel like I'm in a fever dream. I really felt like I related to the last lines...

"...and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo

This chapter was harder to read than I expected, which is saying a lot. But it’s also weirder, funnier, and more grotesquely human than anything I’ve read in a while.

🧼 Soap. I’m never looking at it the same again.

Ahhh, the wet clammy shirt arrives...

It's a completely bonkers chapter (and the one that originally got the book banned), but oddly beautiful in a weird way too.

Also, just give it time... The real fever dream is still to come! 😆

oh God!! 😳

Just remember that it was Sammy's idea to read this so all trauma you endure is all her fault :P

🤣🤣

🫧 The Odyssey: Book 6 – Nausicaa

So, another jump back to line up with Ulysses... and, oh no... I can tell this is a "calm before the storm" moment, isn't it.. isn't it?

Athena, ever the meddler, gives him a glow-up so he doesn’t look like a swamp monster. Nausicaa gives him clothes, a bath, and directions.

That’s it. No soap. No fireworks. No ankle rituals. Just an awkward, sweet meeting with a princess and a freshly scrubbed hero.

…Joyce said, let’s ruin that! 😳

🏛️ Phaeacian palace ahead....

Hey, don't blame me, Jenny brought it up first! I just pounced on it like a rabid animal...😆

Yeah. I originally suggested Finnegan's Wake, but the consensus was that this one would be easier. Or less confusing. Or less likely for me to encounter a random (sent anonymously) hit-man.

Oh this one is definitely easier. This one is like Where's Spot? in comparison 😆

I mean, take this illuminating piece of prose from page 2:

"What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons catapelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod’s brood, be me fear! Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms, appalling. Killykillkilly: a toll, a toll. What chance cuddleys, what cashels aired and ventilated! What bidimetoloves sinduced by what tegotetabsolvers! What true feeling for their’s hayair with what strawng voice of false jiccup! O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!"

And it becomes more and more incomprehensible from there...

How do you not understand that? Really? I mean it is obvious.

It is clearly the first three questions in round one of University Challenge, and the answers are; Twenty eight, The tadpole state of a frog, and The purported sexual prowess of Catherine the Great.

What the actual....

note to self: Finnegan's Wake is an audiobook only read

Jenny wrote: "How do you not understand that? Really? I mean it is obvious.

It is clearly the first three questions in round one of University Challenge, and the answers are; Twenty eight, The tadpole state of ..."

😂

Ashley wrote: "What the actual....

note to self: Finnegan's Wake is an audiobook only read"

It is widely believed that FW is 100% just Joyce messing with people 😆

I have a couple of chapters left, and will finish this weekend. I have been so impressed with this edition that Sammy made me buy (teehee) that I decided to write an Ode as my creative post.

An Ode to The Cambridge Ulysses, An Annotated Text

It’s hard, I said, before it began
Bring it on, I said, as the challenge neared
Looming large in the distance, as challenges can
Getting closer and closer I looked on in fear
The day arrived, knees trembling, I ran
Toward the bookshelf. 900 pages, I cheered!

To read Ulysses as I will learn
Confudlement, confusion, wonder and sin
Stand side by side as pages turn
Turn forward, then back. “God pass me the gin."
Wait, what? I said as I read this tome
This book, I say, “Is it English it’s in?"

Footnote is read. Now I see the truth!
That obscure reference is now so clear!
Usquebaugh! Ephebe! Whiskey and youth!
Who knew what it meant? Well, Joyce did, I hear
And a Cambridge scholar or maybe a sleuth.
I’m now one of those. No really! Forsooth!

Hah! I love this. Bravo!

Love it! 😆

Jenny wrote: "I have a couple of chapters left, and will finish this weekend. I have been so impressed with this edition that Sammy made me buy (teehee) that I decided to write an Ode as my creative post."

Sorry, not sorry...

Episode 14 – Oxen of the Sun 🐂👶📚

Alright, so I had to go and look this up, because while I could feel something wild was happening stylistically, I didn’t quite have the words for it...

Turns out, this chapter doesn’t just take place in the maternity hospital, it is a kind of birth. Joyce is mimicking the gestation and development of the English language itself. From what I found:

"Joyce mimics the evolution of prose from ancient Latin-style sentences through medieval, Renaissance, 18th-century, Romantic, and Victorian styles—ending in chaotic slang, pub talk, and crude parody."

This is just… brilliant, honestly. The way the form mirrors the content? It might actually be my favorite chapter so far.

Right? I love that chapter. I read it a few times.

Reading an author who writes with such intent, makes it a bit hard to read a poorly edited cozy mystery right after. Just saying.

🤸 The Odyssey: Books 7–8 | “Welcome to the Weird Olympics”

I know these books don’t sync directly with Ulysses in the Tandem Read, but honestly, they are totally worth a spotlight.

💪 Discus. Foot races. Wrestling. It's giving peak bro-energy.
Odysseus: “I will out-athlete all of you while dissociating.”

Also, side quest: we pause the plot for a divine Jerry Springer moment where Aphrodite gets caught cheating on Hephaestus with Ares. Cue a pile-on of gods showing up just to laugh and gawk. No notes.

Anyway, then we’re back to music and heartbreak. The bard sings, and Odysseus tries hard not to do a full Greek soap opera confession.

Loved it... Phaeacia is weird, and I’m into it.

Ashley wrote: "This is just… brilliant, honestly. The way the form mirrors the content? It might actually be my favorite chapter so far."

When people say Joyce was a genius, they're not just blowing smoke... 😉

My only concern with this chapter is that he's still wearing the same shirt he was in the last one (view spoiler)[ the one he used to clean himself up with after his voyeuristic episode... It makes me just a little 🤢 (hide spoiler)]

Sammy wrote: "Ashley wrote: "This is just… brilliant, honestly. The way the form mirrors the content? It might actually be my favorite chapter so far."

When people say Joyce was a genius, they're not just blowi..."

🤮

My creative post. under a spoiler tag because there are some minor story spoilers and I guess major stylistic ones 😆


Sammy's Ulysses experience #5 in the style of Molly Bloom's soliloquy:

(view spoiler)[

I wonder what book we shall read as a team there’s so many options but oh Jenny mentioned Joyce I do love Joyce and Ulysses is one of my favourites hey it looks like that’s what we’re gonna read yes that’s awesome yes I wonder if any of them have any idea what they’re letting themselves in for probably not but it’ll be an experience I think brains melting all over the place I wonder if anyone will end up loving it as much as I do maybe not on the first read but it’s one of those books that needs frequent re-reads and gets better every time ohhhh Jenny is getting the baby book she’ll love it I’m sure it gives so much insight into the book and helps alleviate brain-melt too now we just have to wait until it’s time to start oh I’m not waiting I’m starting the month with this one but will limit myself to a chapter or two a day so I can really take it in yes here we go, I remember the opening sequence so well Buck Mulligan is a bit of a (view spoiler)[twat (hide spoiler)] really but I can just feel the sense of anticipation for the rest of the novel this is going to be great yes Stephen is based on Joyce and you can really tell by the existential musings not that I understand much of it mind but it is soooo soothing to listen to especially in an Irish accent Bloom is an interesting character too but do we really need to know about his bowel movements I don’t think so but it does create such an effective contrast ok listening some more oh I wonder what I should make for dinner today pasta, no we had that yesterday I’d love to make a shepherd’s pie but the offspring won’t eat it weird creature that he is I suppose I’ll do something with chicken as that’s his favourite maybe chicken and grapes yes oh crap I’ve just missed the last 5 minutes of the book better rewind and listen again ah yes Molly is sending her man out the door so she can get herself ready for some extra-curricular fun times hussy that she is not that her husband is much better what with letching over random women in the street and all oh no now I’ve remembered the wet clammy shirt I swear Joyce is doing his best to make everyone queasy with this book and baffled and maybe give them just a touch of an inferiority complex but oh it’s so worth it even if he throws in random fever-dream brothel visits I mean really, does Bloom need to go to a brothel when he’s just been interfering with himself in public I guess he does because there he is I wish the neighbours would be quiet it is very hard to read with them yak yak yakketing away all the time squawking loudly all day and all hours of the night I’m beginning to understand how neighbourhood feuds get started oh and now my husband has come to pester me I guess no more reading for me right now does him being bored really mean I should step away from the book maybe he should try reading it himself that’ll keep him busy for a day or three yeah no chance of that his tastes in literature don’t exactly tend to the highbrow in fact I’m pretty sure it has no brows at all has he even looked at anything that wasn’t popcorn fiction in the past decade maybe two even oh well guess it’s just you and me James even if you are trying to ick me out and make my brains leak from my ears well I guess that’s enough for now I should probably post this before I run out of month to do so in. (hide spoiler)]

Sammy wrote: "Ashley wrote: "This is just… brilliant, honestly. The way the form mirrors the content? It might actually be my favorite chapter so far."

When people say Joyce was a genius, they're not just blowi..."

boys are gross. it is a fact of life that stands the test of time

Sammy. Brava.
I loved that.

You don't need to tell me that Judith. I live with two of them and I feel like I'm having to clean stuff 24/7 😒

Thanks Jenny 😁

It is my goal to finish TODAY, instead of tomorrow. We will see if I can manage it. I'm home all day, so... 🤞

This weird "play" or whatever I'm reading this Episode is getting me good.

Here's my creative post. A pictorial trip through Ulysses by James Joyce

Part 1: Telemachia

Episode 1: Telemachus


Episode 2: Nestor


Episode 3: Proteus


Part II: Odyssey

Episode 4: Calypso


Episode 5: Lotus Eaters


Episode 6: Hades


Episode 7: Aeolus


Episode 8: Lestrygonians


Episode 9: Scylla & Charybdis


Episode 10: Wandering Rocks


Episode 11: Sirens


Episode 12: Cyclops


Episode 13: Nausicaa


Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun


Episode 15: Circe


Part III: Nostos

Episode 16: Eumaeus


Episode 17: Ithaca


Episode 18: Penelope

I tried to put the parts under spoiler tags so it wouldn't be so long but it was being weird

Nicely done!

OMG! It's terrifying how much one of the sailors in your Eumaeus picture looks like my dad when he was in the navy!!

love it!

LOL!

Good luck with the appraisal tomorrow

Thanks. Spent all day polishing the whole house. you can eat off the floors right now! (though not sure why you'd want to...)

https://www.alexandria.wiki/read/Ulys...

I found this site, registration and access is free. You can read the book and discuss it with the AI assistant as you do. I did a quite a bit "wait, what just happened" and got happy little summaries and discussion.