#13 - Ulysses

This reading list is generally supposed to be a casual thing, a pastime to go before video games, but after homework. With time and my usual flair for obsessions however, it has quickly gained a stranglehold on my free time. Ulysses is a notable example. Upon cleaning up the previous couple of books in rapid succession, I found myself hungering for more. The problem was that Ulysses decided to be almost impossible to find. The Ottawa Public Library, my beloved OPL, allowed me to put one on hold, claiming a week's delay at most. A fortnight later I was still bookless. Old hobbies, from geocaching to speaking to my family, were swiftly being considered as viable alternatives. Thankfully, a miracle occurred. Sitting in the Bell High School library, which while a lovely building faces a misguided sense of direction, I decided to look for the Joyce classic. Having tried 3 times previously for reading list books, and this being a much less common find, I was stunned not only to find Ulysses among a Joyce box set, but the exact edition that I was hoping for (with an orange binding, no less).

With Ulysses, the question of edition matters more than most. Originally published in 1922, it had over 2000 spelling and grammar errors in its original form, adding to its already renowned incomprehensibility. However, because of its sheer girth, no attempt at revision was made until 1960, when Random House and the Bodley Head both published the same updated and reset edition, including a copy of the landmark decision in which Ulysses was deemed not obscene by the United States Supreme Court. This edition was accepted until 1984 when a team of German literary scientists (you heard me) led by a Mr. Gabler released a critical and synoptic edition, pieced together from firm copies and manuscripts. This was lauded until its credibility was called into question by John Kidd, who claimed that the Gabler edition corrupted intent, destroyed art, etc. The next decade was the Joyce Wars, in which the 1922 original, the reset 1961 Random House, and the synoptic 1984 Gabler all competed for supremacy. In the fray a simplified "Reader's Edition" was released and has been thoroughly mocked.

It was mocked because, by all intents and purposes, Ulysses is designed not to be understood. The plot is simple. Follow Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly Bloom on this average Dublin day of June 16th, 1904. This date has since become known as Bloomsday, and has annual festivals associated with it. However, James Joyce wrote this book with the express intent to keep scholar's attentions for over a century. At this point, that certainly seems within his reach. So far, we know that from one perspective the entire novel correlates to the Odyssey, with each character being matched and each episode (the chapters) relating stories in many formats. These formats include: a 200-page play called Circe, chronicling a series of nightmarish delusions; Wandering Rocks, a collection of 19 vignettes of the same bit of time and space through various characters; and Penelope, the final 50 page stream-of-consciousness rant that is comprised of 8-10 sentences...and only 2 punctuation marks. In addition, Joyce manages to stutter, cough and sneeze his way into inventing new words, contributing to the staggering total of 30,030 unique words in the novel, the most of any in the English language. Finally, the book is just too damn smart. You would need a minimum of a Bachelor's degree in multiple forms of literature, classical music, ancient and modern history, some science and math, political sciences, psychology and of course multiple Ph.D's in English to catch all of the references Joyce has to offer. Every character, from the student Stephen to the average bum at the bar, can hold their own in a conversation on any topic. Let me rephrase that. Every male character is able to. The women, particularly Molly Bloom, are instead shown as wild, carnal creatures. Gerty McDowell, the object of Bloom's affections in Nausicaa, the famously "obscene" episode, even disdains intellectualism, wanting instead to simply be taken into some wild man's arms.

Through all of this though, reading Ulysses was a pleasure, an honour. Although at times I've felt masochistic for saying so, I enjoyed every bit of its struggle. In other books I have mentioned feeling a light buzz in my head, a feeling of fullness. Ulysses took that and amplified it. It wasn't just a steak, it was a thick, marbled Kobe beef ribeye. It wasn't read, it was absorbed. I couldn't read it in class or at odd intervals like others. Ulysses demanded time and respect. I eventually took to sitting in the basement listening to jazz music to tune out background noise while I read. It thoroughly exhausted me to read it too long, my eyes actually closing as I kept pushing onwards. When March Break rolled around, I begged and pleaded my way until I was finally allowed to bring it. Even on vacation, it took until Thursday afternoon, sitting in some breezy nook, to read and enjoy the last three episodes. After I finished Penelope, I sat with my head ringing for a full 10 minutes before opening up my notebook and writing all this down. It is a powerful, all-encompassing book. Ulysses is a book I hope to read over and over again. Basically, I have a helluva crush on Ulysses. Because of that, I am proud to put Ulysses next to Don Quixote as my second:

10/10