James Joyce...

Holy shit!

I'm going out to get me a Joyce Job this very minute.

Happy fucken Bloomsday, cunts. I'll see you all at the bottom of a pint of Guinness.

It's my favourite holiday.

Does anyone wanna re-enact Ulysses with me tonight? MUST BRING OWN ANAL BEADS

Yesterday I started reading ''a portrait of the artist as a young man''...

I finished Dubliners in March. I'm pretty much a fucken proffessor

Happy fucken Bloomsday, cunts. I'll see you all at the bottom of a pint of Guinness.

I hope there's some liver as a chaser...

Yesterday I started reading ''a portrait of the artist as a young man''...

I hope you're gonna follow that up with some Ulysses action.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Don't forget the Wake.

I did my Honours thesis on Joyce. He was mad as a cut snake.
They used to have readings of Ulysses in David Jones' ladies undies dept on Bloomsday years ago :p

They used to have readings of Ulysses in David Jones' ladies undies dept on Bloomsday years ago

Very appropriate.

Inspired, i thought!

Is there anything on for Bloomsday in Melbourne tonight? There's something going down at the Celtic Club but what are the other options?

There's usually something on in Williamstown, isn;t there? Like a walk or something

I'll have a pint of guinness at the welcome. But it is not unusual for me to do that.

Don't forget the Wake.

And the complete loss of marbles that comes with trying to make head or tails of it...

HPDR

has pages didn't read

And the complete loss of marbles that comes with trying to make head or tails of it...

Best read while drunk.

Actually, I found the best way to read it is out load. A background in eschatology also helps - doesn't have to be Vico. The whole cycle-of-ages-fall-of-man stuff is pretty easy to pick up if you give it half a try.

Actually, I found the best way to read it is out load.

Yerp. Anything Joycean can be made almost-intelligible if read in a dodgy Irish accent; I had professors recommend this to me in class, even.

Actually, I found the best way to read it is out load.

Man, I wish that were a Joycean pun. It would've been awesome. But it's just a typo. Bugger.

Better to be James Joyce than John Grisham, so they say.

So, I'm finding Ulysses more difficult to get my head around then a portrait of the artist as a young man.

So, I'm finding Ulysses more difficult to get my head around then a portrait of the artist as a young man.

What're you finding difficult? The structure, or the language, or...?

The James Joyce Portal may help, but I think the guy running it disappeared, so it may not be as regularly updated as possible.

Here's some schemata that will help - it tells you what applies to each chapter. It won't explain exactly what's going on, but it'll give you some ideas that could shed some light.

PS: Portrait shat me to tears. They follow on, though.

Thanks for the links captainfez

It's the structure and overall scope. Although it follows on from portrait Bloom throws and spanner in the works and enormity of Joyce's literary ambition quite confronting.

Having said that I am reading Ulysses for leisure, and am enjoying it. But I can't see myself re-reading it for at least another several years.

With Portrait you only have to get your head around a narrative, which got more complicated got older as Dedalus aged. Then there was all that moral,spiritual,political and philosophical wankery.

I know starting on Joyce is very seductive. It's nice to be familiar with the classics and feel literary accomplished - My advice is to skip Ulysses and just read The Odyssey.

If you want a real headfuck that'll stay with you for the rest of your life, try Pale Fire.

• A Joyce detractor.

I was going to read odyssey first. But I figured reading portrait of the artist as a young man would help to some extent, which It has. I'm about 200 pages into Ulysses, so I will probably finish it, eventually read Homer's Odyssey and then maybe re-read Ulysses.

After Ulysses I reckon I'll start on look homeward angel by thomas wolfe.

i hated portrait, and put it down after 20 pages. i tried ulysses 4 years later, whilst on my way to Dublin, and loved it.

plug on, and drink guinness whilst reading it.

Having said that I am reading Ulysses for leisure, and am enjoying it. But I can't see myself re-reading it for at least another several years.

You'll be surprised. It gets under your skin. I reread it every two years or so, it seems. Always more to find. And remember: read it to yourself! It's a very oral thing.

It's a very oral thing.

That's what got it in trouble with the censors.

That and, you know, everything else.

CaptainFez said 16 minutes ago:
You'll be surprised. It gets under your skin. I reread it every two years or so, it seems. Always more to find. And remember: read it to yourself! It's a very oral thing.

How long does it take you to read, Fez?

How long does it take you to read, Fez?

Depends how concentrated I am with it. I can't remember the actual length of time, but for the size, it seems to pass quickly. It doesn't drag like some others do - for me, I suppose that's the important thing. Maybe three weeks? Maybe less? It doesn't seem like a long time, anyway.

That time o' year again.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY

Kak, pfooi, bosh and fiety, much earny, Gus, poteen? Sez you!

Happy Bloomsday.

Last year I did a big Joyce run of celebrations around Melbourne, including some lectures by the Bloomsday society. This year I am stuck in the house reading and drinking whiskey.

This year I am stuck in the house reading and drinking whiskey.

I'll come over?

Happy fucking Bloomsday.

The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.

Bloomsday on BBC Radio 4

In a landmark project a new dramatisation of Ulysses is broadcast across one day - morning, afternoon and evening. With live commentary from Mark Lawson, broadcasting from Dublin it celebrates the greatest Modernist novel of the twentieth century on the day on which it is set - 16th June.

The dramatisation, by Robin Brooks, follows the novel’s two iconic characters, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus as they wander across Dublin in the course of one ordinary day, the 16th June 1904.

The cast is led by Henry Goodman as Leopold Bloom. With Andrew Scott as Stephen Dedalus, Niamh Cusack as Molly Bloom and Stephen Rea as the Narrator. The supporting cast includes Jim Norton, Lorcan Cranitch, Des McAleer, Frances Barber, Pip Donaghy and Denise Gough. Twenty-five actors have taken part, and the music includes new recordings of songs by Irish soprano Daire Halpin. The drama is directed by Jeremy Mortimer and Jonquil Panting and produced by Jeremy Mortimer and Claire Grove.

The scheduling of the drama across the day corresponds roughly with the order of events in the book, which opens with Stephen Dedalus and ‘plump stately’ Buck Mulligan standing on top of the Martello Tower overlooking Dublin Bay. This scene will be the first of three five-minute pieces broadcast as part of Radio 4’s Saturday Live. This will be followed by further parts broadcast at 10.30am, 12.00pm, 2.30pm, 5.30pm, 8.00pm and 11.00pm. The total duration of the dramatisation is five and a half hours. All 7 parts will be made available as free downloads for two weeks from time of broadcast.

I prefer James Hird but that's just me.