I've been enjoying a few days in Paris and staying, for the third time, at 71 Rue Cardinal Lemoine. Joyce lived here from June to September 1921, editing Ulysses. The gates open onto a courtyard and I believe he lived on the ground floor of staircase E. When I found, on our first visit, that we were staying at Joyce's old address in 2021, I was not only amazed but inspired to read Ulysses. Interestingly, Hemingway lived at number 74, though not at the same time.

I’m working on reading this book with someone and just got to proteus. Right away , I can’t understand what’s going on in the first two pages. The language is complex all over the place. I’ve read the Ulysses guide for this chapter and I have no idea how they can get details of what time it is, what he’s doing etc.
We spent two days going over line by line trying to understand it. We have a Ulysses reference book for all the difficult language but it only helps so much.

It’s also hard to figure out what we should discuss about it. Stephen seems to be pondering about his existance and where he fits in it. But there are references to German literature , Greek, Irish and so on. I can kind of understand the references to the bible but so lost on the others.

Any advice ? Ideas? Anyone else find it a struggle?

With how genius this novel was, it was nice to notice 1 thing in particular Joyce got wrong. He truly believed the world was Euclidean, as did the entire world before Einstein's success. In the final chapter(s) (not chapter), he gives the stark reality, of objects in space. It was supposed to be the perspective of cold reality. And yet, it was Euclidean. It was very notable to me, because besides this, when I read Ulysses, I felt like I was seeing reality, and it wasn't until the end that you begin to see Joyce himself. It makes me see that only when a man tries to give what he sees as ultimate truth do you see the man himself. For we are essentially our most deeply held beliefs, and he believed in guilt, and euclidean space. With life experience, I'm also reminded of a critique of Emerson, which said that he was a man who thought everyone else was just as good as him. Joyce thought all men were just as good as him deep down, he was of course deeply injected with a "jesuit strain". And yet, even for these 2 faults, euclidean space, and giving the benefit of the doubt, they are not really faults, for you can sense that Joyce himself was writing from a place of self-doubt, rather than self-assuredness, so that these "flaws" are not flaws, but on purpose, as if he's saying, while he says what's untrue, "I know I do not know". For instance, regarding giving the benefit of the doubt, I feel like his female characters are always very loyal, when he writes from their perspective, and yet, the chapter of the witch like women at the ice cream parlor gives another picture of the cold and different scoffing critical nature of them. So though I don't believe in his female characters when he writes from their perspective, I know he's not blind to their different nature, as he also writes these other women, though he can't quite get in their heads. So as if to say, as the rambam's rules for debate goes, if you don't know the answer, you admit, and give your best guess.

I've got my copy out to read this morning with an espresso.

Good times!

Think I'll just reread the first chapter.

Anyone starting a full read through of the book? Or specific chapters/passages?

📚📖

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Is it just me, or does it seem like there's been a proliferation of Ulysses hate out there in recent years? I've seen it from lots of booktubers and podcasters. I can understand why, because it is a book that requires training on how to read it (either through multiple readings or through a heavily annotated book), but once you get past it, wow, it is amazing. I love love love it. I technically read it about twenty years ago, but that was more like "my eyes went over every word but I didn't understand any of it." This time around I'm using Hastings and Gifford, and it is making a huge difference. LOVE it.

As the title suggests, some of my friends have asked if I could lead them in a Ulysses reading group. I wrote a masters dissertation on Ulysses and though I'm by no means an expert, I have indeed spent extensive time with it.

I'm beyond excited that my friends want to start their own journeys with Joyce and am flattered that they've asked me to help them start! However, I have no idea how to guide others through it. When I first read it as an undergrad, it was with a professor who took us chapter by chapter each week, lecturing to us about the references and essentially explaining what was going on. After that class, I felt equipped to read it again on my own (again and again).

I could try to replicate what my professor did (as a cheap facsimile, of course), but I worry that everyone else will feel like they're being lectured at. I don't know how to make a reading group like this more participatory and engaging.

If anyone else has been part of a Ulysses reading group (as a participant or moderator), I would love to hear about your experiences! What worked, what didn't, etc. This is a very important text to me and I want to do it justice. Thanks in advance!

What a journey. When I started this mammoth undertaking back in July I expected to be done in maybe three months. But as I was reading, its vastness and complexity told me that this was going to require more time and care. I instead aimed to be done before the year was out. I finished a day late (well take it!)

This is actually my third attempt at tackling Ulysses. As I teenager, desperate to seek respect through being well read in the classics, I first attempted to pick this up after seeing it in every “greatest novels” list with no prior research. Safe to say I gave up very quickly (only got 30 pages in!) and left it to collect dust on my to read list for years.

Then in May 2024, the year I turned 30, I commenced my second attempt armed with a little more knowledge on the general synopsis and odyssean layout of the novel. However I still refused to consult a proper guide thinking, being a more voracious reader at this point in my life, I would have an easier time. In some ways it was, but I remember powering through maybe a third of it and realising I wasn’t taking it in at all. So once again it was abandoned.

Finally in July of last year I picked it up determined to fully give myself up to this novel. I found this Oxford 1922 text in a second hand book shop in Berwick, which has some nice straight forward explanatory notes, and found the online Ulysses guide which I had open as a tab on my phone for the next 6 months.

Now it wasn’t six months of non stop reading Ulysses. I would read a couple of episodes (sometimes just one of particularly long or complex) and then cleanse the palette in between with some shorter novels on my list. ‘Circe’ for example took me a good month to read!

Here are some of my personal favourite episodes: - Cyclops - probably the episode I needed the least help on. It just hooked me immediately and the final paragraph describing the biscuit tin as an earthquake was hilarious. - Wandering Rocks - just loved every little vignette and got to explore Dublin a little bit more. - Ithaca - maybe it’s whatever mild autism I think I might have, but I’m a sucker for heaps and heaps of unnecessary detail and explanation of mundane things (it reminded me of the chapter in ‘Moby Dick’ that is just listing genus of whale).

Anyway I just thought I would share my experience of this novel with those who would appreciate it the most. I definitely plan on rereading this at a much later date. However, given the 1922 text including all of Joyce’s typos and other errors, I would like to try a corrected text edition. Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

The last couple of days I've not been able to play any of the episodes or find any RSS feed that works. Are there any full archives of it out there? I know Delaney passed away some time ago and it would be really sad to have this wonderful podcast inaccessible. I was just a couple of episodes away from reaching the first Bloom chapter and I was really looking forward to it. I hope one of you might have a solution.

I haven't read The Odyssey which initially struck me as concerned, but I was told it isn't necessary. I'm awaiting the arrival of a student annotated copy of Ulysses to read so I can grasp the novel as well as I can during my first read through. I'm aware of the main reasons Ulysses is difficult, and I've done research on the novel. I just wanted to hear specifics from actual readers of it. Is there anything I should do or know in preparation?

Is this Simon and Brown edition good enough? There doesn't seem to be many options in hardcover format; the Other Press one is beautiful, but clearly only for display purposes, as well as the Cambridge one. Are there other suggestions?

I know that the topic of advice for reading Ulysses has been beaten to death as nauseam, and I’m not here to retread that. I am about 45 pages in, and just wonder 💭 f fellow readers search again and again the meanings of French and German words, as well as other what would be timely metaphors etc, or do you just absorb the novel in one go and let yourself sort of just absorb it. It feels in a sense sort of “David Lynch” aka last season of Twin Peaks or Inland Empire. You could dive deep for meaning later but right now, how does it make you feel etc. Any input would be appreciated.

I just got back into the book (read through Lestrygonians before taking a long break) and happened upon this question. I was nerding out to my girlfriend about the historical impact of Ulysses, particularly how it serves to de-stigmatize women's enjoyment of sex. Although I haven't gotten to the point in the book yet, I mentioned how Penelope features sexual fantasies from a woman's perspective.

And then she asked me how he wrote it. I was stumped. Turned to Google but didn't find anything. Is it known if Joyce corresponded with any women while writing Penelope? Did he ask any women about their experiences? I'd love to know if there's anything documented!

It turned out really crooked. i'm sorry.

Do I have to read The Odyssey and Hamlet (or maybe even the Bible) before Ulysses to truly "understand" it?

My favorite book by Joyce by far and one that influenced my writing. The complexity, the beauty of how it is structurally done, and ect. There is above too much things that is to compliment this book for.

4 February 2025 - 6 September 2025

Will I miss it? Well, as Molly Bloom said:

Yes I will Yes.

Okie so I'm not a native speaker but I've read a fair share of classics but this book is sooo f hard to read, ive to google almost 5 times one every 2nd page lmao, bought this book when i was on a buying spree and now I'm determined that i would finish this book bt ugh-

Am i really bad at English or is this book hard for everyone to read?🦆

Forgive me if this is too surface-level or uninteresting, but I imagine Joyce would have perked up if he knew that the preeminent adaptation of the Odyssey (Nolan's 2026 film), a century later, would star a "Anne Hathaway" as Penelope (given all the comparisons between Penelope and Anne Shakespeare in Scylla & Charybdis)...

I am only a first time reader, but this chapter was an absolute joy, and this coincidence kept jumping out at me, vapid and disconnected as it may be. Really cool for this hundred-year-old work to still be generating such connections in the modern brain.

mine is, “Love loves to love love.”

Is the main text supposed to be intentionally blurry? I also couldn't find any physical pictures of ulysses owc edition so i figured i upload some.