Pihlanto Pekka
29 Much Ado about (Almost) Nothing?

A tremendous effort A textbook for literature students? Stream of consciousness An indication of homesickness Mostly far from Homer's Odyssey Some good moments as well Palautetta Lähetä palautetta!   A tremendous effort First, a warning for the Ulysses lovers: my review is very subjective and critical! To make it short at the outset, the reading experience was not very positive. The work of the reader - and the author as well, I believe - was a tremendous effort. Joyce tried to fool the reader by making the story as hard to understand as possible. The book is full of puzzles to be resolved by the reader. The "truth" was uncovered only little by little. It would have been easier to read the book from the end to the beginning, i.e. the two or three last chapters first. In that way, the reader would know immediately, for instance, who is Molly and what is her real relationship to Leopold Bloom and, in particular, what is Boylan's role here, and what is it all about. At least in the end we saw that perhaps the most important figure in the book is the triangle drama of Molly, Boylan and Bloom. Further, by applying this backward reading way, reader would quickly see, who are the most important persons in the novel: in addition to the three above-mentioned, Stephen Dedalus, and perhaps late Dignam.   A textbook for literature students? Another confusing thing is the multiplicity of the styles used in the book. Of course, it is admirable that Joyce has experimented with several new ways of presenting text, but mostly this seems to have been an aim in itself. In other words, the styles have not a positive function in conveying ideas from the author to the reader - on the contrary. Quite so, Ulysses seems more a textbook for literature students than a novel for "usual" readers. In the "play form", for instance, there was, however, one advantage from the reader's point of view: it was now clear, who was speaking. But, what was spoken in this chapter about! Bloom's megalomaniac and wild ideas have in my opinion no functional purpose, neither were most of them funny.   Stream of consciousness Joyce tried to describe the stream of consciousness as authentically as possible, and this was new at that time. He was interested in the way the human mind works. But too often he seems to have described thoughts of a confused or intoxicated people, see e.g. Molly's sleepy thinking in the last chapter.   An indication of homesickness In many cases I thought, that today's publisher would not accept this kind of text without substantial revisions. The rather thin story (the triangle drama and Bloom's wandering in Dublin) is corrugated with endless side stories with slight interest, for today's reader at least. I suppose that one of Joyce's aims was to "eternalise" Dublin and its inhabitants such as he knew them. This is perhaps a kind of indication of his homesickness, because he lived permanently abroad when writing the book. Perhaps readers, who have visited Dublin, enjoy the exact descriptions of the city, but they left myself rather cold.   Mostly far from Homer's Odyssey As to the background story, the Odyssey, I feel the use of Homer's work in this way is almost an insult. At least, the connection between the two books is a kind of irony. Leopold Bloom as a character is far from Ulysses. The only clear resemblance to Ulysses is Bloom's wandering, but it happens in short time and on limited geographical area. Even less "fit" is between Molly and Penelope! Penelope, the most faithful wife, and Molly a reckless adulteress! Also the other references to Odyssey the reader can find are more or less halting. However, Hades, Sirens and Circe, in particular, are to some degree humorous connections to Odyssey: for instance, Circe changed Ulysses' men to pigs - and Stephen Dedalus, indeed, behaved like one in the brothel.   Some good moments as well All right, there might be also other details, which were funny, but the total picture was as I described above. I'm sure, without the organisation and social pressure provided by our reading circle, I wouldn't have read the book to the end. As a matter of fact, I tried to read it decades ago, but didn't finish the task. Of course, in the book there are some good points and features as well. For instance, the character of Leopold Bloom is finely created. The man is a kind of anti-hero, a sad person, who has a rich inner life, which seems to keep him alive. - All in all, I'm satisfied that I read Ulysses, because it is so famous and has been said to be one of the most important novels of its century. However, as you see from the above - it's not my cup of tea.

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Asko Korpela 20040218 (20040218) o o AJK kotisivu o Joyce