Book Discussion #3,4,5

Ms. Haiku

Are you ready? FinsburyParkCarrots agreed to lead the discussion in "Ulysses" by James Joyce. However, as noted in Book Discussion #2 he suggested that we read "A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" by the same author, and "The Odyssey" by Homer first. So, for December 1st and onward for about 3 months we will discuss any of these three books. Discussion is still available for "Mrs. Dalloway." I'm trying to find time to reread it, so I can be more clear on what I want to say.

soulsinging

oh my god, ulysses was utterly incomprehensible to me and i had it taught by one of our school's best professors... though to be fair i was heavily intoxicated when i read most of it. im VERY familiar with portrait of the artist and the odyssey though.

how long has this been going on? i love this sort of thing! do you pick volunteers to lead discussions? id be willing to help out sometime... i did major in 20th century lit in college. perhaps catch-22?

Ms. Haiku

soulsinging wrote:

oh my god, ulysses was utterly incomprehensible to me and i had it taught by one of our school's best professors... though to be fair i was heavily intoxicated when i read most of it. im VERY familiar with portrait of the artist and the odyssey though.

how long has this been going on? i love this sort of thing! do you pick volunteers to lead discussions? id be willing to help out sometime... i did major in 20th century lit in college. perhaps catch-22?

We just started in October with "DaVinci Code", and then in early November the choice was "Mrs. Dalloway" which is still going. If you lead a discussion that would be GREAT! We probably won't pick another book for a while since we have 3 already as a package deal. However, as you know the works, please join in.

EvilToasterElf

Fromthe Davinci Code to Ulysses in 3 months. Well, I have Ulysses sitting on my shelf. But I don't know how much of it I'll really be able to get through, I've got to really motivate myself for this one I think.

Ms. Haiku

EvilToasterElf wrote:

Fromthe Davinci Code to Ulysses in 3 months. Well, I have Ulysses sitting on my shelf. But I don't know how much of it I'll really be able to get through, I've got to really motivate myself for this one I think.

Well, basically, a tentative outline is Portrait in December, Odyssey in January, and then the big-mac-daddy Ulysses in February. Will you still be around?

EvilToasterElf

Bibliobella wrote:

Well, basically, a tentative outline is Portrait in December, Odyssey in January, and then the big-mac-daddy Ulysses in February. Will you still be around?

Possibly, not too sure. The question is if I'm not around will I still have internet access.

Ms. Haiku

I won't be able to participate in December, but I'll get back into the groove in January. We could table the start of these discussions until January. However, if someone is all ready to discuss in December by all means discuss away.

Ms. Haiku

So, I'm about on page 9 of Portrait, and I'm not completely lost, in fact, in fact it's has some very grabbing language. I wish I understood the language more. How old is Stephen?

Spunkie

I am joining the book discussion beginning with "A portrait of the artist as a young man", and "Ulysees". I'll put down Ullysses and read "A portrait..." first.

This is my first book discussion on-line, so who-ever knows the ropes, please fill me in on format.

Thank-you.

Spunkie

I have learned that "Joyce usesd Homer's epic the Odyssey to recreate the activities of Bloomsday, 16 June 1904..." Therefore, I will obtain a copy of this book and fully participate in all three book discussions.

I love "Once upon a time and it was a very good time there was.." This is a terrific way to start a novel! Only a few pages into "A portrait", I have smiled, laughed, and loved the brilliant mind of the storyteller.

decides2dream

Bibliobella wrote:

So, I'm about on page 9 of Portrait, and I'm not completely lost, in fact, in fact it's has some very grabbing language. I wish I understood the language more. How old is Stephen?

i read that ages ago, enjoyed it overall. yes, some of the language was difficult...but it was not as difficult as i had imagined/heard at all. now ulysses...don't know about that one...haha.....seems.....daunting. i've never read the oddessey.....hmmmm.

eh, right now i have books piled high to get to......but i am intrigued...may pop in now and again.

FinsburyParkCarrots

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/por/PART1.html

Spunkie

good link... "Joyce wrote prose like poetry." No kidding. I find this statement to be true and adored the writer instantly. Should I find my mind wandering off while reading, I miss the ebb and flow of Joyce's words and backtrack immediately.

as for the age question... well, Dedulus is out of the nursery and at the big people's table at dinnertime... he's learning his own right from wrong and wonders of politics... he's studying at "college"... and most importantly, at the end of the first chapter he is standing up for himself and his belief in the "justice/punishment" system. i'd have to say these are important formative years.

Now I'm super glad I didn't jump straight into Ulysses. Thanks for the discussion group.

burtschips

tish wrote:

I miss the ebb and flow of Joyce's words and backtrack immediately.

quote]

That is true. Not so much for Portrait, and I'm not sure about Ulysses as I have not read it, but Finnegans Wake is an example of a book where you have to be completely in tune with the ebb and flow of the writing, if you loose it you've lost it, and for me it is still not possible to keep intuned for an extended period. You've got be in the ebb and flow but you need more than a lifetime to make the connections. So it is probably similar for Ulysses. I 've got a cousin who is at one with everything that Joyce did and his other passion is Fawlty Towers.

Spunkie

"He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry." -A portrait of the artist as a young man.

Ms. Haiku

Yeah, I haven't hit that part yet.

Spunkie

(that quote was from page six of the first chapter- hey catch-up it's almost December!!)

also... since i'm heading into the fourth of the five chapters, i have a better idea of Stephen's age... at the end of chapter 3 (innocence lost) young Dedalus is 16... chapter two had two years at Belvedere, a summer, and Sept-x-mas with no school ($)... chapter one was waiting for home/x-mas at Clongowes Wood College... so I'm guessing Stephen was age 13 when he developed "moral courage" in adolescence.

"anyone? anyone? Bueller?" (ha ha - thx pit)

Ms. Haiku

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/por/PART1.html

I can handle 25 pages. I may be able to participate in this one in December if it's just on the first part, which would be cool. Or rather, I'll just participate as much as I can on December 1st. Thanks for the link, Mr. Carrots!

Ms. Haiku

When i read the notes I finally understood why I didn't understand the book. It seems that the author is writing in stream of consciousness form. As a technique I can see how this would grab the attention of the reader if well done. In this case, the language grabs enough that I'm interested. However, due to cultural differences I can not track the story as well. Since this is stream of consciousness form maybe that's the point anyway. I don't know if further through the book if I will flow with the stream as pointed out in the notes Fins linked, but it would be quite the accomplishment to write like this with an end in site. How did others view the writing style?

FinsburyParkCarrots

If you ever get a chance to peruse a copy of the partially restored Stephen Hero, Joyce's 1904 first draft of Portrait, you'll note that it is written in a realist omniscient mode with standard focalisation from Stephen's perspective.

Portrait adheres essentially to this realist form (bar in the last few pages, which are written in diary form in the first person). The novel doesn't use interior monologue in the way that you see in Ulysses; there's isn't multiperspectivalism and the novel is in many regards realist in its concentration on one protagonist. There are moments of realist narrative, such as the argument the child Stephen overhears at Christmas dinner between his father, Mr Casey and Dante. Google Charles Stewart Parnell in Wikipedia to get historical contexts.

The reason why the novel seems stream-of-consciousness is because the language of the narrative is consonant or dialogic with the words that Stephen is likely thinking. The level of focalisation is such that there are occasions when, though Stephen's thoughts are portrayed in the past tense and third person (a realist mode, putatively from an omniscient narratorial perspective), we feel plunged inside Stephen's consciousness. In fact, the absence of obtrusive and ironic narratorial interjection - as you'd see in Jane Austen's novels when the authorial narrator pokes fun at, say, Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey - suggests either self reflexivity between the authorial voice and Stephen, or a silent ironic distancing between a narrator who can portray when Stephen is taking himself far too seriously, and Stephen himself. (I go with the latter suggestion, as we'll discuss later.)

It's likely that if you apply traditional modes of critical analysis to this novel, you're going to be stumped many times in your reading. This is because, though as I say, the text is realist in ways, it's also modernist in its narrative structure. Like a poem, it foregrounds discourse over story. It's a bildungsroman, a novel of education and advancement, but it doesn't have an obvious plot as such like you get in another bildungsroman such as Dickens's David Copperfield or another typical novel of the previous century. The chapters climax with moments of being or epiphanies on Stephen's part.



Do a little research on Ireland and its colonial relationship with Britain between 1882 and 1922 (particularly up to 1904, the setting date for Ulysses) and the Irish education system at the time. Also look up on epiphany, focalisation/focalization (both spellings) and modernist literature.

Ms. Haiku

Ok, I'll do the research. On a point earlier noted, the link you passed along suggested the writing as stream of consciousness, and because the scenes so quickly turn that seems to make sense to me. Are you saying that his thoughts are turned into scenes, and that creates the flow affect? Scenes are thoughts primarily as opposed to experiences. In other words there is no grounding in the present. What makes this more like a poem?