The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
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The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
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Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#2This part is fun:
A few days later the book showed up at Random House—it had passed through customs. Furious, Ernst personally marched the package over to the customs office and demanded that it be searched. When the inspector opened it and found Ulysses, he muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake, everybody brings that in. We don’t pay attention to it.” Ernst insisted that he seize it.
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#3> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene.
LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book!
The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able to get through the prose you aren't going to be turned into a sex maniac by it.
I did appreciate the explanation of how the novel became so infamous so quickly, with lurid portions of the book apparently being excerpted in newsmagazines of the time. It always seemed strange to me that such a dense and nigh-unreadable novel would attract the ire of censors. How would they have even gotten to the objectionable material?
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#4> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…
> The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book!
Or Joyce is just that impenetrable. Have you seen Finnegans Wake?
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#5I love book bannings! Like facebook fact checks and twitter shadow bans! Bring 'em on, log and track me, shadow ban me and save everything.
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#6> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…
The difficulty in reading this book is usually greatly exaggerated. It takes a while to come to grips with, but it is not in the least impenetrable. It’s one of my favorite novels. It’s certainly no Finnegan’s Wake, which I pick up and read a page of every few years, only to put it down, saying, “not this time”.
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#7> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…
If you really want to be corrupted read his letter to his wife, https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-joyce-love-letters-nor...
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#8> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…
The difficulty in reading this book is usually greatly exaggerated. It takes a while to come to grips with, but it is not in the least impenetrable. It’s one of my favorite novels. It’s certainly no Finnegan’s Wake , which I pick up and read a page of every few years, only to put it down, saying, “not this time”.
Similar to Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest. I recommend to people to just fight through the first 200 pages and you end up in the flow and things begin to come together.
Gravity’s Rainbow in particular is confusing for a long while but when it begins to come together it’s rewarding.
Agreed - Finnegan's Wake is impossible. Try the audio version and it’s somehow even more difficult. I was tempted to eat a bag of mushrooms and listen to it but alas, perhaps one day far in the future.
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#9> Despite Quinn’s persuasive argument—Ulysses was so dense and convoluted that no one could possibly understand it, much less be debauched by it, he argued—a three-judge panel, using the Hicklin test, concluded that the book had the potential to corrupt youth and was therefore obscene. LOL. The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! The best part is that it is true. If you have enough constitution to be able…
> The kids are too dumb to be corrupted by this book! Or Joyce is just that impenetrable. Have you seen Finnegans Wake?
Joyce changed a huge amount and FW is at the end of that. Go back to Dubliners or Portrait and he isn't impenetrable at all. Ulysses is somewhere in between.
Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difficulty in reading this book is usually greatly exaggerated. It takes a while to come to grips with, but it is not in the least impenetrable. It’s one of my favorite novels. It’s certainly no Finnegan’s Wake , which I pick up and read a page of every few years, only to put it down, saying, “not this time”.
Similar to Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest. I recommend to people to just fight through the first 200 pages and you end up in the flow and things begin to come together. Gravity’s Rainbow in particular is confusing for a long while but when it begins to come together it’s rewarding. Agreed - Finnegan's Wake is impossible. Try the audio version and it’s somehow even more difficult. I was tempted to eat a bag of mu…
Your advice is spot on. For me it was 100 pages. It was decades ago, but I still remember being puzzled, feeling like I didn’t know what was happening, but being pulled along by the unique quality of the prose. 100 pages in, the lightbulb went on. It’s as if the book teaches you how to read it.