Thread: Joyce's Ulysses

I've never read any Joyce, but I've read The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, which uses stream of consciousness as well. I loved it - but you have to have a method. You can keep a journal, and write down each fragment of the plot and try to put them in a logical order based on clues. This can be tedious though, and often warrants rereads. Discussing the book also helps, as somebody mentioned earlier. If you work in a group, all your collective ideas will create a clearer picture.

OR you can opt for my personal favorite method, which is to skim through a plot summary beforehand. Might be considered cheating, I don't know. Even just having a basic idea of the novel's story can help drastically.

I've read most of Joyce's work.

Dubliners > Everything else IMHO

Best of luck.

By the way, my best advice for grappling with his stream of conscious style is reading it once outloud for timing so that one understands it in terms of timing and transition.

I wrote a paper on Ulysses when studying British literature, over a decade ago. It is not an easy read, but reading it deeply was for me a rewarding experience. A good knowledge of Homer's Odyssey will definitely help, and researching some of the lives of the Saints alluded to will bring some light on it. A basic knowledge of Irish history would also help, as would some background reading from a good anthology of Irish Literature including political essays. Not an impossible read, but it demands work.