James Joyce - Ulysses

"James Joyce Needed an Editor
How could a book like Ulysses ever have made it to print? The grammar is so disjointed as to make it nearly impossible to read. Additionally, the point-of-view and writing style change in nearly every chapter after the sixth. It should also be mentioned that the story is not very well paced. The book is well over 600 pages long, but the events in the story appear to take place over the course of just a single day.

I have heard numerous people praise this book, but that would seem to be largely posturing because the story is lost under the weight of inadequate editing."


"I believe he has turned many children away from reading."


"Some filthy parts, sure, but by today's standards, not so much."


"I asked around and no one I know thinks about anything while climaxing except for a sexual fantasy. Totally unrealistic."


"This would never get published today."


"Horrible. This would never be published today."


"This is like the abstract art of literature. No meaning. No value."


"I can not see why everyone thinks this book is so great. It reminds me of modern art, where a so called artist splashes paint on a canvas in ten minutes and then passes it off as a masterpiece. It probably took Joyce less time to write this novel than it took me to read it."

IT TOOK HIM TEN YEARS. SO PROBABLY


"Why write a book that has to be decoded? And beyond that was the story really that good? Is it considered great because it doesn't make sense? That's ridiculous."


"Stream of conciousness is great....when it's my own."


"Being someone with a rich interior dialogue it was interesting see inside another mind, though the inner voice of these characters is really off colour!"


"Joyce seems to want to point out the whole time how good he knows English and that is very irretating."


"This book is garbage. A load of pretentious, modernist garbage. Literary experimentation is one thing, but for God's sake, at least make it readable. But no, a stuck-up author who is so full of his own self-importance would only want to write a book that only one of his most esteemed peers could 'fully' appreciate. This is why people hate academics, and high-minded literature, and pretentious prick's like James Joyce."


"My limit for the intellectual masturbation of elite white men is relatively small."


"The few thoughts that are understandable are all essentially smut, perhaps the only recurrent theme of the book. One third of the book is essentially smut. (It SHOULD have been banned.)"


"Sentence structure does matter. Enough said."


"A generally acclaimed 'classic'.

I'll proclaim it not. I quit 'War and Peace' and i highly doubt that I'll ever try again. And I quit Ulysses without giving it much of a chance. I'll leave it to all those who haven't read it and proclaim it wonderful, and to the pedantic insufferable literati..."


"This is a waste of space. How wonderful such space can be used, other longer books like 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Dune' or 'Catch-22' prove."

"I know this is a classic, but I just couldn't get through it. Same thing with Jack Kerouac."

"I feel that this is one of those works no one understands therefore everyone decides it must be great. I suggest burning along with A Passage to India."

"maybe i'm old-fashioned, but i think books should be accessible and readable. it's something john steinbeck understood all too well. he most definitely wrote for the masses and the 'every man,' and it shows in his work. i prefer books that use simple language to expound on profound truths, not necessarily a book that requires me to constanty refer to other sources to help me understand what i've just read."

"I am a college educated English major, but how this random witlessness can share a shelf with Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Hemingway, Orwell or Forster and a number of other fine authors escapes me."

"those who proclaim it the greatest book of the century only have to read any of The Lord of the Rings, Catch-22, 1984 or To Kill a Mockingbird to see they are sadly mistaken END"

"Modern readers equate the word 'classic' with 'boring and hard to read.' But most classics have risen to that status because they are timeless, powerful and entertaining - Heart of Darkness, War and Peace, and Red Badge of Courage come to mind"

"Save your time and energy for something like '1984' by George Orwell, a REAL twentieth century classic."

"the fact is it is boring to the nth degree and simply not up or even close to anything by Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky"

"for a much better read get anything by Hunter S. Thompson. Dr. Gonzo's book will be more coherent, make more sense, and will be better crafted."

"The author kept getting bogged down in details instead of moving the storyline along, because we don't need to know everything about the characters, just enough to keep reading until the climax of the story; if you compare it with something like the Hunt for Red October you'll see what I mean, there the author knows to advance the plot and doesn't waste his time and ours."

WELL. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU FOR HAVING READ UP TO FIVE OTHER BOOKS