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The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

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Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#51

Post by nemo44x »

ericmcer wrote: post #14
nemo44x wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought Gravity's Rainbow got more confusing as time went on, if you just flow through it yeah its not too bad. But to fully understand the 100s of characters disappearing, reappearing with new names, etc. I definitely found myself consulting notes in the later pages to remember what role someone had played 400 pages earlier. The earlier chapters you can just absorb with no thought for how it contributes to the who…

I felt that by page 180 or so it really starts to hone in on Slothrop’s journey and it stabilizes. You can page back to revisit a character you faintly recall. It was around then I felt I had a grip on it.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#52

Post by nemo44x »

asimpletune wrote: post #40
jandrese wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like after 100-200 pages of Gravity's Rainbow one of two things can happen: 1. The reader can't figure out what the hell is going on anymore or who anybody is. They give up and stop reading. 2. The reader can't figure out what the hell is going on anymore or who anybody is. They stop trying to make sense of the book and just read the words. "Sure this guy has a toilet stuck to his foot now, and can prevent b…

The literary device in the novel is effect preceding cause. Like, very early in the book the hypersonic v2 - and how series it is for things to blow up and then you hear it - is introduced, but if you miss it then that then you miss all the other times we see the same concept.

And to be fair, Pynchon reiterates that quite a bit throughout the novel. And it is a fascinating thought every time. Terrifying really.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#53

Post by nemo44x »

prionassembly wrote: post #15
nemo44x wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem I have with Infinite Jest (I have a paperback edition; USD/my currency is expensive and I'm not made of money) is that the tome is too big for its binding and will seemingly fall apart at any time; and too heavy to hold in your hands in a reading chair (as opposed to propped on a table).

People cut it in half. It’s a thing!

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#54

Post by pstuart »

hereforphone wrote: post #18

We don't ban books anymore. We ban tweets, or Facebook posts, or other social media contributions. The drive to censor remains.

It's at the discretion of the platform. Why don't you test the limits of HN? At a certain point you will be "censored" here.

And if that happens is it because dang hate's your freedom or you've pushed the limits of tolerable behavior?

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#55

Post by hereforphone »

pstuart wrote: post #54
hereforphone wrote: post #18

We don't ban books anymore. We ban tweets, or Facebook posts, or other social media contributions. The drive to censor remains.

It's at the discretion of the platform. Why don't you test the limits of HN? At a certain point you will be "censored" here. And if that happens is it because dang hate's your freedom or you've pushed the limits of tolerable behavior?

Pushing the "limits of tolerable behavior" are why the books were band as well.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#56

Post by totetsu »

Jun8 wrote: post #32
nicklecompte wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that the novel itself was originally serialized, and the chapter in question (Nausicaa) is one of the easiest in the novel - further, the “obscene” part is right at the beginning of the chapter. So this wasn’t a case of censors plumbing an 800-page novel and discovering something, or of a snippet being excerpted in newspapers - a scandalous specific issue of a literary journal started the whole controver…

Judge for yourself: Here's "Nausicaa" : http://web.uvic.ca/~mvp1922/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Episo... I personally found that calling this indecent is really pushing it. Maybe because it presented some light erotic ideas in an unexpected medium (a young girls stream of consciousness).

Is this okay to open at work?

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#57

Post by tkgally »

QuinnWilton wrote: post #35
jhedwards wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite way to read Finnegan's Wake is to get some friends and perhaps some drinks, have everyone pick a random spot from the book and read it out loud. The book is a circle so it doesn't really have a proper beginning, and the way the narratives are intermeshed to the point that they are incomprehensible means that the narrative is secondary, so concepts such as beginning and middle don't really matter anyway. I…

Finnegan's Wake absolutely exists to be read, or even sung, out loud. If you've never gotten the appeal, just try listening to the start of an audiobook version. There's a Youtube series that covers the first few chapters that I adore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HgCjtd2iPU

A commercial unabridged version has just been released. The excerpts I heard sounded very skillfully done: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/james-joyc...

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#58

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

nemo44x wrote: post #8
leephillips wrote: post #6

Earlier 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…

I'm not convinced you can compare Ulysses to Gravity Rainbow and Infinite Jest. Ulysses is not a postmodern book. Apart from their length, there are few things bringing these books together.

Gravity Rainbow has Pynchon's inimitable prose, constant segue between language register and mingling between the trivial and the profound. Infinite Jest is rambling and convoluted but it is extremely funny from the get go. Both can be a joy to read even if you don't finish them.

Ulysses on the other hand asks more from its readers. You can pretty much ignore the references in Gravity's Rainbow and still get (or not get) the point. Meanwhile, Ulysses is full of oblique metaphors and layered references which make it impossible to understand without knowledge of the referenced material.

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#59

Post by logifail »

> Because Ulysses could not be legally published in the United States, it could not be copyrighted

I'm struggling to understand that particular statement. Can anyone explain?

EDIT: "Copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium"[0]

If you write out your original thoughts on a piece of paper, that's fixing them in a tangible medium, right?

[0] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

Re: The Banning of Joyce's Ulysses

#60

Post by barrkel »

QuinnWilton wrote: post #35
jhedwards wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite way to read Finnegan's Wake is to get some friends and perhaps some drinks, have everyone pick a random spot from the book and read it out loud. The book is a circle so it doesn't really have a proper beginning, and the way the narratives are intermeshed to the point that they are incomprehensible means that the narrative is secondary, so concepts such as beginning and middle don't really matter anyway. I…

Finnegan's Wake absolutely exists to be read, or even sung, out loud. If you've never gotten the appeal, just try listening to the start of an audiobook version. There's a Youtube series that covers the first few chapters that I adore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HgCjtd2iPU

I just want to say the title of the book is "Finnegans Wake", not "Finnegan's Wake".
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