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Title: James Joyce's Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert ISBN: 0-394-70013-9 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 January, 1955 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A must-have
Comment: James Joyce has more books written about him and his works than possibly anyone else in the english language - barring Shakespeare. There are countless guides through the labyrinth that is Ulysses, and all do their job well, some better than others. This one, by Stuart Gilbert, was the first and is still the best. Originally written in the thirties, it remains the definitive guide to Joyce's masterpiece of modernism. Gilbert was a close friend of Joyce's, and it was written under the scrutiny and supervision of Joyce himself, making this the closest thing to a guide written by the author himself (which would probably be unintelligible in itself!). This small, helpful book guided me through one of the most difficult but most rewarding reading experiences of my life - and saw me through safely to the other side, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is taking the plunge for the first time.
Rating: 5
Summary: You should probably read this.
Comment: I suppose it is pretty hard to add anything to this monstrous string of reviews. But I will comment because (obviously like so many others) I found this book to be very important. The fact that so many reviews exist shows that this book has effected a lot of people (enough to expend their precious energies writing about it). As you can see, not many really ride the middle ground about it. People seem to love it passionately or they hate it passionately. This should be enough to recommend it to anyone. We all should be after books that are going to change us, challenge us, effect our lives and loves. This is a book that has done that for a great many people. If you have not read it, take the time. I do not think that you'll sit in your easy chair and say 'well, it was okay,' and flip on the television.
Personally, I found the book to be lively and entertaining. It was also challenging and arduous. Sometimes I couldn't put it down and sometimes I couldn't pick it up. Sometimes I thought it was a stupid book and sometimes I thought it was the best work of fiction that I had read. Ulysses is overall 'real.' It discusses truth, it changes a lot, like life. All the characters can be seen as stable in their lives, yet metaphysically sort of lost and wandering. That is like Ulysses. It is also a lot like you and I. There are jarring events, changes of style, unexpected devices and layers and layers of erudition. There are also normal everyday joes going about life as usual, to which we can all relate. It was not easy, and that is like life, also. Like life, it has a lot to teach you. And you can come back to this book many times and still find it fresh. It probably will seem an entirely new beast when you return.
Unlike some of the reviewers, I wouldn't recommend annotations. Trust yourself and trust Joyce in undertaking the work. Perhaps you'll miss things here or there. That is okay. You'll still 'get it,' in the end, if you make it. Part of it is seeing if you can make it, so you sort of fail in your test of yourself if you immediately resort to consulting some sort of 'dictionary of Joyce.' For anyone that sees this book as too daunting, let me just say that I'm not an English major or in a literature related field. I'm a music student, just a plain old undergraduate joe that read this book. I read the book without annotations except for one period where I was stuck and thought I didn't understand. I checked the annotations out from the library and I found that I did understand (at least as well as the annotator) and that I just needed to keep going to figure it out, just like in finding out how a Dickens plot is going to unfold. I would recommend against taking that step. Leave the annotations on the shelf. I'd recommend that you, another plain old non - literature joe or jane, try it. Trust yourself and try it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential reading
Comment: Gilbert has written a classic analysis of Ulysses . This book provides both the initiate and the fanatic with a broad basis for comprehension of Joyce. It include historical documentation of the settlement of Ireland, connections of Troy and Ireland, an interesting view of Viking/ Greek parallels, aspects of occult knowledge. Failure to read this and you will not get 1/3 of the intricacy of Joyces works.
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Title: Ulysses by James Joyce ISBN: 0679722769 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 June, 1990 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford ISBN: 0520067452 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 1989 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses by Harry Blamires ISBN: 0415138582 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: James Joyce by Richard Ellmann ISBN: 0195033817 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: November, 1983 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: A Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses: Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) by James Joyce, Margot Norris ISBN: 0312115989 Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.50 |
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