“I want to be clear in saying I regard "Ulysses" as a supreme example of craft and literary brilliance, but I don't think it is the great English-language novel, only maybe the most important. J.D. Wombacher said it very well in one of the earlier reviews: "My own view is that Ulysses is an example of a writer not doing his job." If a writer's job is to create a novel in such a way as to let the reader in, this is not only a valid sentiment, but a boldly honest one.
You start out thinking this isn't going to be as bad as every says. We watch an awkward young man named Stephen deal with his supersmug semi-friend and an annoying British interloper high atop the city of Dublin, in Martello Tower. Stephen is aware of the fact his "pal" Buck is really a bit of a user, and patronizing as hell, and in subtle, clever, and often funny ways, Joyce lets the reader see how. Then we watch poor Stephen alternately try to instruct a bunch of Anglo-Irish brats and deal with a supercilious headmaster, who fancies himself an expert on everything from livestock to why the sun will never set on the British empire.
Then Stephen goes to the beach, and what follows in the third chapter, "Proteus," is something that would make any good editor cry out for a rewrite. Joyce noted that his writing skills by the time he got to "Ulysses" were of such an advanced degree that he could do anything he wanted to with the English language, but there's ample evidence in the finished work that such absolute power can corrupt absolutely.
At least Joyce seems to realize this, too, somewhat. He shifts the focus to another social outcast, a Jewish advertising salesman named Leo Bloom who busies himself with the stream of life around the fair city of Dublin so as to avoid going home, where he knows his fat wife is about to carry on an affair with a callow bounder.
The results are some of the most affecting chapters ever written, each one slightly askew from the next, but forming a kind of whole that takes into account the whole history of literature, while advancing that history into unexplored territory with stream-of-consciousness narratives and multiple perspectives. Chapters like "Wandering Rocks," "Sirens," and especially "Cyclops" work on so many levels they make the head spin, and Joyce the humorist (he claimed one of his principal goals in writing "Ulysses" was to make the reader laugh) rivals Twain in his humanistic humorousness. Witness this sardonic exchange in "Cyclops," my favorite chapter.
"Dead?" says Alf. "He is no more dead than you are!"
"Maybe so," says Joe. "They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow."
But do we really need the mindgames of "Oxen Of The Sun," or the play-form phantasmagoria of "Circe," which lead us into blind alleys and throw enough red herrings to kill us with mercury poisoning? People say you need to read the Greek legend this all is based on, and I didn't, but I don't think I'm alone in finding this tangent strained. When Stephen finally ditches his false friend, he does so off-stage as it were, and it is never explained what transpired. Critics have their ideas why the connection between Stephen and Bloom, once made, is so vital, but it eluded me, even with all the supplemental reading I did.
The end result is a writer writing essentially for himself, and for those who will play his games. That leaves out the rest of us.
I'm glad I read this book, and hope God grants me the time to read it again someday. But don't believe the hype. Read "Ulysses," but don't sweat what you don't get. Many of those who say they do "get" it are kidding themselves. Better to be honestly perplexed, and humbled by the experience. Humility has its virtues, and Joyce might have benefited from it more in writing this, creating a real masterpiece for the masses rather than an ivory tower to which only he held the key.
”
