Introducing Project Joyce - Ulysses
I, Srivatsan Manivannan (”Oh, please... Call me Q!”), introduce to you the fabulous Project Joyce. In this space, I’ll post daily reflections of my reading of Ulysses and, upon its completion, The Dubliners, both by who is arguably the greatest writer of all time - James Joyce. The title, inspired subconsciously by the notable Project Voice of spoken-word poet Sarah Kay, is a challenge to complete the book while understanding what happens to a person while reading it. I hope this documentation will be useful both academically and personally, to note details and the effects of this classic in the contemporary of a 20 y/o student of the liberal arts and humanities.
While many have called Ulysses unreadable, boring, drab, and as Charles Bukowski might put it, without “juice”, I believe that it holds within it an essence far greater than what a cursory surface-level understanding would realize. In its references, in its allegory to Homer’s Odyssey and related mythology, and in its moulding of the structures of myth to language, it results in a masterpiece unlike any other. Levi-Strauss definitely agrees.
I’ll make sure to mix in personal experiences, happenings, thoughts, and recollections, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion which is much like Ulysses itself, and I will attempt to not bore the reader to death with posts that are, as Wodehouse puts it, “stark and poignant.”
Before beginning on my endeavour, I must make certain facts clear.
Firstly, I have already read Joyce’s Ulysses before, albeit in a hurried manner merely to unlock the non-existing achievement of finishing the classic. I plan on rectifying that error with this pursuit, and making a more relational and historical analysis of the text with the careful reading I plan for this time. Of course, plans rarely work out the way you want them to. So let’s just say I’ll do my best, considering the chaos of the everyday struggles of living a purposeless life.
Secondly, I will be using the Penguin Classics reprint of the Ulysses from the year 2000, edited by Declan Kiberd, with the first version along with an introduction by him being published in 1992. All indicated page numbers will reference the 2000 edition. [ Refer: Joyce, James. "Ulysses, ed. Declan Kiberd." (1992). ]
Your comments and views, even if opposing, are valued, keeping to the constraints of mutual respect and attempted empathy.
So, the loveliest friends, readers, and the most terrible beings alike, please bear with me with this little blog, read if your head permits it, if it hurts find a Doctor, and don’t worry, the rest of the blog will be more interesting than this introduction. I tried not to sound too uptight, but I don’t think my attempts to apply to the widest audiences possible will work out anyway. So I’ll just do my thing, yes. My thing. Yes. That. Whatever that is.
“Stately , plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead...”