Reading Ulysses with Bishop Brennan

[altariel]

I decided that this would be the year that I would read Ulysses. I've made two attempts on it before, but stalled a little before 200 pages in (my edition is 700 pages long): so, after Lestrygonians.

This time round I've got myself an audio reading to help me through. It's an unabridged reading from Naxos Audio, read by Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan. (You will perhaps know Jim Norton as Bishop Brennan from Father Ted.)

Anyway, this has definitely been the way to go. I started a couple of days before Bloomsday, and after a month I'm halfway through. I've not been worrying myself too much about chasing up all the references, but have used these summaries to give me some guidance at the start of each chapter. This time I found the text on Gutenberg (probably naughty, it doesn't come out of copyright until the end of the year), and have been reading on my Kindle. The text doesn't have references, which has speeded up the process somewhat. I imagine it's very easy to get lost in the various schemata. I don't mind missing everything as long as I'm getting the gist. Either it works as a novel with some characters in it or else it doesn't.

I am happy to report that it does. Damn, though, it's funny. Jim Norton is great. The characters spring to life, and the complete bewilderment you have when reading cold as to focalization is circumvented by him voicing it for you. The episode I just read/heard, Cyclops, is a case in point: the (unnamed) narrator had a very distinctive down-to-earth Dublin voice, and all the ancillary characters have their own voices. Then all the tangents (and long lists) are given in a different, brisk tone (making them very funny). Best of all, we hear Bloom's speaking voice (we have hitherto heard Bloom primarily via stream of consciousness as warm, humane, rather sad) as someone else hears it... whereupon he becomes prissy, argumentative and rather annoying.

There's no way I could have done all that myself. As a result, I'm cracking through, and it's become completely accessible. So if you ever thought you might give it a go, this could be one way in.

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Huh! I've never thought of doing it that way. A very interesting approach, I'll have to keep it in mind.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is about 27 hours long, so it is a commitment. But I shelled out fifty quid on the recording, which provides an extra impetus.

[kathyh]

Well done you. I never even made it through "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" so the thought of "Ulysses" has always filled me with terror. Using an audio reading to help is a brilliant idea.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I read Portrait at Uni after a supervisor suggested it. I don't remember a single thing about it, although I distinctly remember lying on my bed reading it. On reflection, I think it might have contributed to my giving up on Catholicism - and I think that might have been my supervisor's intention! :-)

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I was given "Portait' as a set text and really enjoyed it, but simply couldn't face Ulysses...

The audio book sounds like a way round that, yes :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's been a time and cash commitment - the recording was £50 - but that's provided a spur to finish. I've been enjoying it hugely.

[muninnhuginn]

Your description of the audio recording makes it sound absolutely brilliant. Have you found the rather lovely pictorial guide to the routes through Dublin that Frank Delaney put together? I think it may be out of print. It might make for an interesting accompaniment to the listening.

I love Ulysses and go back to different sections, but I haven't reread the entire thing since A-levels (yup, some of us are loony enough to have done Joyce as our set author).

Finnegan's Wake is, however, too terrifying a prospect.

[tiggerallyn.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Delaney's book (it goes for stupid money used), but I have been listening to his weekly podcast on Ulysses, "Re:Joyce (http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/)," which is immensely enjoyable, even if he did take a year to get through the first chapter (and thinks it will take about 28 years to get through the entire novel).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

he did take a year to get through the first chapter (and thinks it will take about 28 years to get through the entire novel)

Brilliant! Thanks for the link!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Just signed up for the podcast. Only a year behind! But so far so brilliant. Thank you!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of following the map - make the reading experience exactly like reading The Lord of the Rings!

Jim Norton and Marcella Riordan have apparently also recorded an abridged version of Finnegan's Wake, if you're tempted...

[muninnhuginn]

I suppose it might be possible to use Google Street View to do it, too. It's quite tempting, in fact. If I weren't in the middle of 2011-is-the-year-of-rereading-Stephen-Donaldson I might try it myself.

The Finnegan's Wake adaptation sounds interesting, too.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Good idea!

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should give this a go. I got a few chapters into Ulysses last year, before saying the eight deadly words of fiction: "I don't care what happens to these people".

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think you would enjoy this reading very much.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Way back when I was studying literature, Ulysses was of course something we had to read. Our lecturer at the time suggested, very unofficially, the following way of getting through it: Stay awake for 36+ hours. Ingest waaaay too much caffeine. Read it all in one go, adding more caffeine as needed.

I can personally verify that it is an interesting experience. I do, however, remember very little of the actual book...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

This reading is about 27 hours long, and I was tempted to try getting through it over a weekend... but I'm just a bit too old for that kind of adventure now.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I remember the first time I read it (early 1990s?) I was floundering for a while, then hit my stride during Scylla and Charybdis (it was the discussion of Hamlet, as I recall), and after that never looked back - though I did wonder whether to go back to the start at that point, but decided it was better to charge onwards.

And for once my default icon is the correct one.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, that whole episode is a hoot (and I stalled just before it last time round). "Sirens" was a bit of a slog, even with the reading.

I only have TS Eliot icons for the occasion, alas.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Huzzah, and go you.

Maybe I should have tried this method during my EngLit degree. After plodding through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I shied away from tackling Ulysses (although one of my favourite lecturers was a wonderful Joyce fangirl - and I am using this word on purpose). But this sounds actually entertaining - and far less intimidating than the freaking big book of references that our library helpfully provided and which was thrice as thick as the novel itself!

(Generally speaking, all my six years at uni were like one round of David Lodge's Humiliation Game after the other. :D)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly enjoying this way of doing it. And I've just started listening to the Re:Joyce podcasts that tiggerallyn recced upthread - they're very accessible and lively.

I would win/lose every round of the Humiliation Game, I think!

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

I read it last year, and one way I did it was by reading sections of it out loud. That really did help! No attempt at accents, however. :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I read chunks out on my second attempt - and I did try the accents, but very quietly!

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

One of my lit teachers said the best way to enjoy Paradise Lost was to declaim it out loud. I did actually try this when everyone else was out of the house. She was right. It was much more fun like that.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I got Anton Lesser to do it for me. (OK, not actually, it was a recording.)

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Hurrah!

I might do this if I can ever bring myself to re-read.

*mutters darkly about having to read it in the first week of the first term of her first year as an undergraduate*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking of first-year you slogging through it! Didn't your edition lack notes?

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

It's a wonder I didn't give up there and then.

My edition lacked notes because I was trying to be very careful with my grant, and not overspend, and I'd noticed that there was a cheap Penguin edition and an expensive Penguin edition (the library copies had all disappeared in about 30 seconds). So I bought the cheap Penguin edition because I hadn't noticed the expensive one had notes.

And then I got terribly depressed about being stupid in the seminar because everyone else had the edition with notes and was therefore saying what sounded like lots of insightful things to little, terrified undergraduate me who was relying on her own brain and not sure how to read to that level in a week after spending two years on six books for A levels. It wasn't until much later that I realised that all these seerius intelekshuls were just cribbing from the notes in their editions. I am pretty sure I was the only person in the room who had a full grant, incidentally.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

all these seerius intelekshuls were just cribbing from the notes in their editions

Dreadful show-offs.

[wormwood-7.livejournal.com]

I downloaded Ulysses from Gutenberg four months ago. Maybe a late summer reading project? You have inspired me.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Go for it! There are some differences between the Gutenberg text and the one on the recording, but all minor. Briefly threw me the first time I came across on, though, so thought I'd mention it!

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I was down at the Forty Foot for a swim a few months back when I saw a guy with a group of tourists. He was reading out of Ulysses and stripping off his clothes till he was down to his vest and shorts and then headed down the stone steps and jumped into the sea, ending the monologue "and thus said Zarathustra!" while the tourists clapped. And well might they clap, it was the middle of March and bloody freezing cold.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*Joins in the applause mightily!*

[archbishopm.livejournal.com]

but stalled a little before 200 pages in (my edition is 700 pages long)

IIRC back in the day me and some other dudes hypothesized that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason devolves into graphic pornography after page 200 cos beyond that no-one had ever read and so could disprove it. Perhaps if read out loud its characters might spring to life?

Or you know perhaps not.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason devolves into graphic pornography after page 200

It's true! The slash sequences with Hegel start on p. 224.