Comments on: ‘Worst is beginning’: Reading Ulysses http://blog.oup.com/2010/06/ulysses/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Tue, 21 May 2013 22:08:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » Happy Bloomsday http://blog.oup.com/2010/06/ulysses/#comment-291340 OUPblog » Blog Archive » Happy Bloomsday Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:09:09 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=9598#comment-291340 [...] the meantime, I encourage you to read this short excerpt from Jeri Johnson’s introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ulysses, in which [...] [...] the meantime, I encourage you to read this short excerpt from Jeri Johnson’s introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ulysses, in which [...]

]]> By: Stan http://blog.oup.com/2010/06/ulysses/#comment-168413 Stan Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:41:39 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=9598#comment-168413 Thank you, I enjoyed returning to this. <i>Ulysses</i> can be a daunting prospect for a new reader. Its immense influence and aura of impenetrability and academic obscurity draw attention away from how much fun it is to just read (especially aloud, in an Irish accent!). Here and there it can be difficult or tiring, but never without cause; decades later it remains as fresh, funny, musical and magnificent as it must have seemed upon publication. To anyone keen to try it for the first time, I'll happily recommend OUP's edition of the 1922 text, and I'll mention Harry Blamires's <i>The Bloomsday Book</i> as a very helpful guide to the main structures and themes in the book. It wasn't until after I finished Joyce's great work that I set about reading various analyses and criticisms, but that approach mightn't suit everyone. Thank you, I enjoyed returning to this. Ulysses can be a daunting prospect for a new reader. Its immense influence and aura of impenetrability and academic obscurity draw attention away from how much fun it is to just read (especially aloud, in an Irish accent!). Here and there it can be difficult or tiring, but never without cause; decades later it remains as fresh, funny, musical and magnificent as it must have seemed upon publication.

To anyone keen to try it for the first time, I’ll happily recommend OUP’s edition of the 1922 text, and I’ll mention Harry Blamires’s The Bloomsday Book as a very helpful guide to the main structures and themes in the book. It wasn’t until after I finished Joyce’s great work that I set about reading various analyses and criticisms, but that approach mightn’t suit everyone.

]]>