It took almost 18 months (with about 3 months of not reading it at all, Oxen of the Sun almost did me in). I read it in 5 page increments, while reading annotated notes along with it, reading online summations of sections, and listening to a bbc produced reading of the book. With all of this, I can safely say that I have but scratched the surface. There are endless depths hidden within the pages of this book. I read something to the affect that Ulysses contains all of human existence and experience. That is truer than can be known without diving into it yourself. Few things in this world can truly inspire awe....James Joyce's Ulysses is one of those things.

Det tog en jävla massa år att läsa boken. Jag köpte den när den kom ut på pocket för första gången. Hon som var butikschef för Akademibokhandeln på Örebro Universitet var alldeles eld och lågor och jag rycktes med. Läste första kapitlet med en gång men la därefter ifrån mig den i något år.
Då upprepade jag övningen och läste första kapitlet. Den här gången stannade jag någonstans i andra. Jag kom fram till att jag hade för svårt att läsa den. Mina tankar hann vandra iväg på annat istället för att koncentrera sig på vad jag läste. Och persongalleriet var förvirrande att följa med i.
När jag började om igen i somras försökte jag vara ambitiös och följa läsningen med anteckningar. Ett träd över personer i boken och deras relationer sins emellan. Det blev dock snabbt för tråkigt, speciellt när jag hittade en utmärkt sådan på nätet.
Nu har jag äntligen kommit igenom den. Men nä. Jag gillade den inte. Passager, ja, men inte helheten.
Problemet är att jag känner mig lite korkad, som med alla viktiga verk jag inte uppskattar. Jag ser en del av vad som influerat, men för boken självt har jag svårt att ha överseende.
Formen är hela tiden viktigare än innehållet. Strömmen av medvetande är delen som fungerar bäst, men att byta stil för varje kapitel fungerar ganska dåligt. Vissa passager är mest krystade i sin stilistik, formen är överstående innehållet.
Sen känner jag att jag saknar vissa nycklar till boken också. Jag kan inte göra några kopplingar till ”Ilidaden” eller ”Odyséen” och kan inte sätta in Joyce i relevant sammanhang litteraturhistoriskt heller.
Jag hoppas nästan få ut mer av boken när jag läser om den i fortsättningen än vad jag fick av att läsa den.

Yes! Third time's the charm. So I guess it's true in many ways that you don't read Ulysses, you re-read it. Because I re-read those first 200-ish pages many times. But also (Yes) it seems like a novel you really should read twice to have a fair shot at absorbing a decent amount of it. I read it along with my BFF from grad school, which helped a lot, and we just let it wash over us without worrying a whole lot about references, aligning it with The Odyssey, following the action at all times, etc.

As a story (Yes) I was very interested in Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly, and what would happen to them. Bloom was disgusting and sympathetic in an Everyman but also a Forever Outsider, tenderhearted way. Molly was complicated and got to love sex without really being condemned for it. And Stephen Dedalus hits close to home for some of us.

Having taught a year-long History of the English Novel a few times (which includes Portrait of the Artist) the more I read Ulysses the more essential it felt to get through it. As experimental as it may be, Ulysses also feels like the early novels of the 17th century, putting a bunch of totally disparate types of writing together and calling it a single text. And also trying to figure out to keep burrowing more deeply into the mind of a totally ordinary person. Though Joyce also has both bigger ambitions and more skepticism about his project.

Anyway (yes!) read it if you want to. It was worth the effort.

I can't say I really wanted to read this, but it's been on my literary bucket list for a long time. This isn't because of its status as a masterpiece of modernist literature, although that is hard to ignore. But I couldn't really go through life without reading what is arguably one of the most significant novels ever written, due to my strong family ties to Ireland and my love of the country. James Joyce is, of course, one of Ireland's famous sons. And so, with the turn of the new year, I began to slog my way through Dublin on June 16th, 1904.

I wasn't sure what to expect, except that I knew it would be challenging. And it was. Parts of it lost me completely. Other parts I engaged in a great deal. Although it isn't easy to get through, in the end, I absolutely found it rewarding and worth the time.

Ulysses receives quite a bit of flack from people: it's been accused of being too self aware, too difficult, too long, the kind of thing you read just so you can say you've read it, an exercise in graduate student pretentiousness.

I can't agree with those people: the experience of reading Ulysses, though difficult, is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. Every reading yields a whole new meaning from the text: and I am confident that every one will continue to give me something new and wonderful to love about the book. Joyce is called a master for a reason: he reveals the complexities in all of us by describing one simple day in the life of a simple man just trying to make his way. There is something detestable and yet completely endearing about Leopold Bloom, and even as the reader hates him, he or she realizes how masterfully Joyce has recreated the inner workings of the human mind.

It is WORK reading the book: the Gifford "Ulysses Annotated" and the "New Bloomsday Book" are both wonderful companions to the Joycean reader. Whether its your first time picking up Ulysses or the millionth, there is something to be learned, and new emotions to be felt.

really dense, sometimes rewarding

Cannot believe I finished Ulysses. At least 60% went completely over my head and probably 25% of the rest was simply confusing, but I did it! The final part was worth it.

I've been meaning to read Ulyssess for years, and checked it out from the the library three or four times with that very intention. I'd delay starting it to the point that I could no longer renew it again, and end up having to return it to the library. Finally, I decided that 2017 would be the year I finally slogged through it, and it was just as painful an experience as I had anticipated. I don't like stream of consciousness narratives as a rule — I read to get away from my own mostly mundane thoughts — and this book was almost 800 pages of exactly that. I understand that this novel is incredibly experimental and influential, and has had a huge impact on countless books and criticism written since then; I read the book largely to understand that influence. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.