In this book is offered a reading that focuses on style instead of plot and structure and that restores the notion of temporal process to the reading of Ulysses in two ways: by regarding the changes in style as rhetorical experiments that move in certain general direction and by regarding the effects of these experiments on the reader’s expectations. Great thanks to Fruchtzwerg for being so helpful to all of us!!!!!
Called the greatest novel of the 20th century, this stream-of-consciousness epic tells a modern version of the ancient Ulysses, only this one takes place in one day in turn-of-the-century Dublin. It is difficult, funny, witty, and one of the most revolutionary novels of all time.
Frank Budgen's "James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses", first published in 1934, is the only first-hand account we have of the growth of Joyce's great work. The record of the painter's friendship with Joyce in Zuerich in 1918-19, when Ulysses was being written, it is also an acute critical commentary on the novel itself.
Special thanks to Stovokor for great help serving on englishtips every day!!!
James Joyce's Ulysses: A Reference Guide by Bernard McKenna
Perhaps the most important literary achievement of the 20th century, Ulysses is also one of the most challenging. This reference introduces beginning readers to Joyce and his novel, removes some of the obstacles readers face when confronting his text, provides background information to facilitate understanding of the nuances of the book, and illuminates the critical dialogue surrounding his work. With the help of this guide, beginning readers will discover the rewards of reading the novel and find that they outweigh the potential obstacles to understanding Ulysses. To introduce readers to Joyce and his work, the volume begins with a short biography and a survey of the importance and cultural impact of Ulysses. Most beginning readers find it difficult to follow Joyce's plot, and so they abandon the text in frustration. Thus the book includes the most detailed available plot summary of Joyce's novel. The chapters that follow overview the novel's publication history; its historical and cultural contexts, including Modernism, Irish literature and history, and political and social trends; major themes and issues; Joyce's narrative art, including his character development, language, images, and style; and the academic and critical response to the work. The volume closes with a bibliographical essay.
Added by: stovokor | Karma: 1758.60 | Fiction literature | 29 April 2008
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Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is a readable book.
