Idioticon

There are a bunch of words in Ulysses that are either big or in other languages or unique to Ireland, contemporary to the writing of the book. So we now have a glossary. If you see a word you don’t know, and you look it up and find out what it means, toss it in there.

To access the glossary either see the links at the lower left-hand corner of the page, or just go here: http://fuckyeahreadingulysses.tumblr.com/words

-M

@11 months ago
#glossary #words #linguistics #idiotcon #james joyce #ulysses #reading #lit #books #guide 

Who/What/When/Where/Why

But mainly “why.”

We’re a group of people reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. I’m sure we all have our own reasons, but none of us have read it, and we figure why the hell not read it in some semi-organized way. It’s a big book, and  this tumblr gives us a chance to collect our thoughts, discuss the text and aggregate whatever we come across in some sort of semi-organized way.

Ostensibly most posts will have to do with thoughts on the book, but there will be a helpful links page to consolidate all outside information, too.

We started last Saturday (yes, we did the ‘Bloomsday’ thing), so we’re a week in. Unclear how long this will take.

-M

@11 months ago with 2 notes
#Ulysses #James Joyce #Lit #Books #Reading #Readers #Bloomsday #first 

Well, that settles that, then

This looks interesting, and definitely backs up the hints from the first few chapters that this will be a continuing theme in the book: James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Construction of Jewish Identity: Culture, Biography, and ‘the Jew’ in Modernist Europe

I wasn’t sure if Leopold Bloom was an atheist or a Jew, but it seems that he is, in fact, Jewish. It’s a thread I wasn’t expecting to come across in the book, but one that jumped out at me pretty quickly. I’m not sure how much this will play up, but I’m really interested to see where Joyce goes with it. Stephen Dedalus is a Catholic character (there’s that famous chapter in Portrait of the Artist just describing his view of Catholic hell), so I wonder if highlighting these cultural differences will be used to make some point about Irish identity, or if it’s more useful/central for the Odyssey connection (which, unfortunately, I’m not exactly well versed in—any light shed in this area would be super helpful).

-M

@11 months ago
#Judaism #Leopold Bloom #Irish #Ulysses #Odyssey #Lit #Books