The greatest novel ever!

Not!
That would be, I suppose, the perfect example of the kind of apparently unsophisticated reaction I've heard complained of lately by those who say the book reviews that appear online should at best be called "book reviews" - in quotes - particularly in the current case, when I am referring to that holy of holies, Ulysses.

The offended ones say that the reactions we read online have none of the quality or significance of those we might read in the more admired journals of opinion because they don't emerge from deep knowledge of literature. There are too many things wrong with this argument for me to keep from vomiting a little, but what most deeply concerns me is that it rules out the possibility that the judgment of the cogniscenti is completely wrong. To examine the sources or even to question the ethical bona fides of Ulysses is perfectly acceptible, but to dislike it is, depending on who you ask, infantile or irrelevant.

I refuse, based on the combination of my self-respect and my sheepskins, to consider my reaction to any work of art infantile. As to whether liking or not liking a work of art is relevant or not to the discussion, time has been and will continue to be unkind to art that is highly respected by society in general but unpleasant in actual personal experience. But I don't want to get deep into this argument at the moment. I'll just deliver my infantile, irrelevant take on Ulysses.

The connection to the Odyssey is so loose as to be completely impossible of correct interpretation without Joyce's key. Therefore it fails to be a meaningful element of this work. I think descriptions of the book that say it is "based on the Odyssey" or that it parallels that work were written by people who have not read one or the other or both.

The parade of 18 different narrative styles comes off as artificial and juvenile. Rather unsurprisingly, the newness of new forms has in itself no zest 80 years later. Some of the forms, particularly that of the second-to-last section, are antithetical to pleasant reading and seem like nothing less than an insult to the reader, a joke at his expense. Who is the reader out there that gets any kind of pleasure from reading a page of legal boilerplate simply becuase it was perhaps oh so tres moderne 80 years ago to think of putting that in a novel?

Joyce is the only ideal reader for this work. I think it is reasonable to write a literary work completely accessible only to those of great learning. But that's not what Joyce did. He wrote a work completely accessible only to someone of his exact, peculiar learning. Simply everything Joyce knows or has looked up. This creates a work that no one can enjoy as much as Joyce, and in that I think it's a failure. It reminds me of Pound's Cantos. Once you learn all the allusions and such, the Cantos do something kind of neat, but to feel those allusions in anything like their real significance you have to read all the books Pound read - which is not some perfect compendium of world literature, but his own, peculiar, eccentric selection from it. With only one life to live, I can't dedicate my reading to reproducing Pounds' just so I can take as much pleasure from the Cantos as he did. The same goes for Joyce.

I barely skimmed the 600-page Notes for Joyce as I was reading Ulysses, because I found that simply knowing the bare facts of any one reference didn't make the reading come to life or become more meaningful. Perhaps reading all the original sources Joyce read would do this. But frankly, I was not inspired to care. Ultimately, going to a reference to understand the references is the same as having someone explain a joke (particularly in the cases where Joyce is being "humorous," but really in every case where I'm supposed to be struck with any kind of emotion or resonance by a reference I don't know).

Along the same lines, I found nothing the slightest bit funny in Ulysses, and I love to laugh. I loooooooooooooove to laugh. I'm ready to laugh. I get humor. And Ulysses is not funny. I suppose I could tell at times that things were supposed to be funny, sometimes in a just plain sad punning way, sometimes in a Shakespearian kind of way, sometimes in a satirical way. But it wasn't, any more than puns, Shakespeare or satire is funny. People who genuinely think these things are funny have no sense of humor. But I think most people who say Ulysses is funny are just ridiculous people who are full of themselves. I've heard the math majors laugh at math jokes. I know all about this kind of insider "humor." It is, pure and simple, a celebration of the fact that you know something other people don't and you're therefore better than them. I like to compare people calling this funny to people laughing out loud at musical "jokes" like the Surprise Symphony. Now come on. Be serious. That shit is not funny. And if it's witty, I apparently do not like wit.

Were there a couple of moments I genuinely enjoyed? Sure. I won't go so far as to say it was a total wash. But if I hadn't felt obligated by society (Society!) to read the fucking thing, I would have a abandoned ship a hundred times.

I would call this a work of almost purely historical interest. I would not recommend it to anyone. But such a recommendation would have been meaningless to me, and all others who feel similarly obligated, so take it for what you will.