New Rule: nobody needs to read James Joyce. He was not a good writer. He was all show-off and gimmick. There is no substance to his writing. It is a waste of time. It is pompous. It is boring. Accept reality people.

ULYSSES is one of the most widely discussed, debated, and disputed literary masterpieces of all time, yet surprisingly few of those who discuss it have actually read the book. Reasons range from sloth to intimidation to a flat-out lack of interest. It is important to have some basic knowledge of the premise of ULYSSES prior to reading it; two things are particularly critical to be aware of:

1. ULYSSES is an allegory for Homer's ODYSSEY. The whole thing.
2. All of the events of the novel span fewer than 24 hours.

Trust me, knowing those two things makes ULYSSES make a whole lot more sense.

Since ULYSSES is a notoriously difficult read, its readers have come up with various means by which to approach the novel. Different things work for different people, but what follows is my version of a "Reader's guide to ULYSSES":

1. This one is critical: read James Joyce's A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN before ULYSSES. Not only does the former serve as a sort of primer for the latter, but A PORTRAIT introduces Stephen Dedalus, a key character in ULYSSES. Many of the events and circumstances of A PORTRAIT are referred to in ULYSSES, and Joyce will by no means spoon-feed you the connections.

Supplemental pre-ULYSSES reading includes Homer's THE ODYSSEY and Joyce's DUBLINERS.

2. Remember: this is supposed to be a funny book. If events seem absurd, disgusting, or nonsensical, there's certainly a reason.

3. Take... your... time. I spent six weeks reading ULYSSES, and sometimes would spend up to five minutes on one page if I was confused or spacing out. This novel is, frankly, dense enough to sink in a pool of mercury. You aren't going to understand every pun, cultural allusion, or plot point even. Accept it: spend as long as you need, infer whatever you can, try your best, don't get frustrated.

4. Do NOT give up! I read this as a 17-year-old; this is NOT an unreadable book! It is a very tough read, but not impossible. If you don't ever abandon ULYSSES, you're bound to finish it. Chapters are long; if you're burning out in the middle of one, just finish the next paragraph, stick your bookmark between the pages, and put ULYSSES on your nightstand for a while.

All told, this is one of the greatest and most rewarding novels ever written. Give it a chance, prepare as suits you best, and have a nice read!

I have always considered stream of consciousness as a technique best used for short works in the order of one to ten pages, more than that becomes tiresome.

The author of the review mentioned above points out that in order to understand what's going on, people should read "The New Bloomsday Book", that way they'll save themselves the problem of looking like fools amongst the elites. I'll just say one thing to that; if you need to read a piece of research ("The New Bloomsday Book", etc) in order to appreciate a work of art, visual, literary or otherwise, then the work of art in question has no value whatsoever. I do not need to buy a thick volume on the history, theory and imagery of surrealism to appreciate Dali's paintings, and I sure don't need it to appreciate a work of literature.

And of course there is the "you didn't like/understand it, you're a fool" attitude, very common between so called intellectuals and college poseurs, but, what could anyone do but laugh at that?

"Ulysses" has the reputation of being unreadable - or readable only for literature students and professors - but also of being the most influential work in 20th literature. The latter might be true, because most books written afterwards have somehow used the stream-of-consciousness-technique and the non-linear storytelling. Mostly, the book is really about language and its relation to the modern world. Joyce wanted to use a different approach to language to make it consistent with the increasing complexity of every-day-life in a big city. I think that even modern movie experiments such as David Lynchs "Mulholland Drive" go back to Joyce' ideas to really dig deep in the complicated psyche of an individual, for which traditional storytelling is not sufficient.

But is it really unreadable? The book certainly needs some preparation and some effort from your side, more than most other books. But once you are well prepared, the Ulysses is actually well readable, and at most time even a lot of fun. And often you do not wonder why it was heavily criticized at the time it came out. For example, most of modern literature which uses a lot of profanity and vulgarity looks like children books when compared to the Circe-chapter, a sado-masochistic fantasy of the protagonist. Joyce' language skill makes this chapter breathtaking, a pure adventure.

At other times, the book is a pure delight, for example "Wandering Rocks" or "Penelope". If you listen to your intuition, even the latter (which is the most legendary chapter of the "Ulysses") is not difficult to read. But then, there are also parts where Joyce' experiment with language fails: For example the "Oxen of the Sun" is just bothersome and really unreadable.

As I said, the book is only fun if you are well prepared for it. You should definitely read Joyce "Dubliners" first, which is an easy to read collection of short stories. It introduces some of the characters which return in the "Ulysses", and this gives you helpful background information. Even more important, read "Portrait of the Artist", which is a portrait of Steven as a young man. He has a main role in "Ulysses", and "Portrait" already introduces a lot of the central ideas of Steven and "Ulysses" in general.

Other books which are comparable in style and intention but easier to read are Virginia Woolfs' "Miss Delloway" and John Dos Passos' "Manhattan Transfer", definitely two books which warm you up for the idea of "stream of consciousness".

All in all, Ulysses is an experiment with language which is a lot of fun, but which does not work for all parts of the book.

How does should one read Ulysses at the beginning of the 21st century? The Modern English Library rated James Joyce's magnum opus the greatest English-language novel of the 20th century. Was their judgment correct? Perhaps (though a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man does not fall far behind). However, Joyce's novel, which traces the misadventures of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and then Molly Bloom, is of course an echo of the Odyssey. It is also an affirmation of the Hebraic and Hellenic cultures in the West. But that is not really how it should be read. Ulysses is perhaps even more difficult to comprehend now than it was when it was first published in Paris through the Shakespeare Book Co., because Joyce alludes to modernist Irish literature, art, and architecture with breathtaking speed (though it is still far more cogent than Finnegan's Wake). However, you must read Ulysses, it is a rich cathedral of European artistry, from Joyce's command over the vernacular to his groundbreaking `stream-of-consciousness' form. The first section of the novel deals with Stephen, and it can be regarded as a kind of carry-over from a Portrait of the Artist (though a bit more accomplished in form), while the middle section deals with Bloom, one of the strongest characters in the history of Western literature, and certainly one of Joyce's greatest achievements. Bloom is the thrust of the novel. He is the middlebrow that bridges Stephen (the intellectual) with Molly (the tramp), and his observations are the most lucid and revealing about the state of civilization at that time and place. But Ulysses is always funny, and moving and beautiful at the same time. The closing of section one ought to illustrate the strange majesty of Joyce's prose: "He [Stephen] turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up the crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship" (51). This curious novel, which unfolds over the course of a single day, will undoubtedly continue to astound and perplex readers and scholars eternally. The way to work your way through Ulysses if it is your first time, is to be mindful of the details; Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated is an excellent resource for a listing and explications of the more arcane allusions in Ulysses. Hugh Kenner's critical book is also a first-rate work of criticism for those who want further explication of the `meaning' and significance of the work as a whole. For those who are truly courageous, you can begin to look into the Post-Modernist interpretations of Ulysses from fellows like Derrida and DeMan, but you should be wary of them, as they are often more complex than Joyce was to begin with.