I really liked this section of the read-along, for many reasons. I just sailed through these two episodes!
Episode 8: Lestrygonians
This is, at least in my opinion, the most fully visceral episode thus far in the book. There's food everywhere, and Leopold connects the food he sees in person with memories and ruminations on food the entire time. Leopold recalls a sensual day with Molly where she fed him seedcake from her mouth. He thinks about food as it relates to politics and religion. And, in a segment that almost made my stomach turn, he watches a roomful of men shove meat into their mouths and masticate it with disgusting detail, causing Leopold to move on to another pub and eat a light, vegetarian lunch.
I think this episode is one of the most easily accessible of the book so far simply because it is so vivid and visceral. Sure, Joyce turns Leopold's thoughts on food into several symbolic and allusive episodes, but nearly anyone reading this episode could get something out of it.
Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis
I enjoyed this episode because there's so much in here about Stephen's theory of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Being the incredible Shakespeare fan that I am, I loved reading about his theory and putting the pieces together and seeing how it actually is a somewhat workable theory.
Inherent in Stephen's theory, and the others' reaction to his theory, is Stephen's poetic mind and heart. He develops his Hamlet theory because of a poetic connection he feels and assumes with Shakespeare. This rankles the men at the National Library, who prefer their theories to be based upon literary criticism and scholarship. Sometimes, though, the most interesting and best theories when it comes to literary figures about which little is truly known come from the gut reactions and feelings of others. Stephen's theory makes an amount of sense despite it not being based upon any actual facts, and that's what makes it so intriguing.
Running alongside Stephen's Hamlet theory is his paternity crisis again (Convenient that his theory revolves around one of the most intense father-son relationships (From beyond the grave) in literary history, isn't it??). Stephen theorizes that, not only was Shakespeare the literal father to his son Hamnet (The possible source of the name Hamlet), but that through his literary creation, he was a father to the entire world. It would seem, then, that much of Stephen's Hamlet theory is developed based upon his own insecurities regarding his own father (And even his mother).
What did you think about this section? Was it a little easier/harder than the last section? What did you like/dislike? What stuck out to you?
Showing posts with label read-along. Show all posts
Showing posts with label read-along. Show all posts
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Ulysses Read-along, Week 2: Episodes 5-7
Perhaps it was because I read these episodes so far apart from one another, but this section was a slog for me, especially Episode 7. I really had to heavily rely on the annotation this time around.
Episode 5: The Lotus Eaters
The big thing in this episode is the parallel with The Odyssey, in which Odysseus' men eat lotus blossoms and fall into a state of lazy intoxication. In this episode, Leopold wanders aimlessly, pondering all sorts of things, as he kills time before Dignam's funeral.
We also see another side to Leopold and Molly's marriage with Leopold's picking up the letter from his erotic pen pal, Martha. Instead of simply seeing Molly as the adulterous one and blaming the decline of the Blooms' marriage solely on her, we now learn that Leopold likely had a hand in the marriage's degradation, as well. While Leopold resolves never to meet Martha in person, even though she asks, which shows some sort of moral restraint, he also says he plans to use stronger, more erotic language in his next letter to her.
Episode 6: Hades
There's a lot about Leopold's status as an outsider in this episode, mainly connected to his Jewishness. He gets into the funeral carriage last, he doesn't have the easy conversation the other men have, and he's not even called by his first name by the men. Part of this is simply because he is an outsider: These men all have known one another longer than they've known Leopold. But, I also got the sense that the other men hold Leopold at arms' length because he is Jewish. If he weren't Jewish, he may be more on the inside than he is now.
We also see a major return to the fathers and sons theme in this episode, especially when the conversation turns to death and suicide and it becomes known that Leopold's father committed suicide. There is a certain sadness in Leopold's thoughts regarding his father's death, but there isn't the heavy guilt and depression that surrounded Stephen's thoughts of his mother's death earlier in the novel. Perhaps this is because Leopold's father's death is at a farther remove in time than Stephen's mother's death, or it could be because Leopold doesn't hold the guilt that Stephen does.
Episode 7: Aeolus
I have to admit, this was the most daunting episode for me. Maybe my attention span was wandering, but the intrusion of the constant newspaper-like headlines just threw me off track and I had to go back and re-read several sections.
There was a lot of back-and-forth conversation in this episode, a lot of which just seemed to be a bunch of men one-upping one another. If this episode is cross-referenced with the Aeolus episode in The Odyssey, the seemingly random conversations make much more sense (Of course, I didn't look up the parallels until after I had read the episode). In the Aeolus episode, one of Odysseus' men disobeys him and opens up a bag of winds which blows the group off course. In Ulysses, the Aeolus episode is full of puffed-up, arrogant men whose life's work is to write long-winded, sometimes incomprehensible, prose for newspapers.
So, what did you think of this section of the novel? Are you still with me? Did you like this part, or hate it?
Episode 5: The Lotus Eaters
The big thing in this episode is the parallel with The Odyssey, in which Odysseus' men eat lotus blossoms and fall into a state of lazy intoxication. In this episode, Leopold wanders aimlessly, pondering all sorts of things, as he kills time before Dignam's funeral.
We also see another side to Leopold and Molly's marriage with Leopold's picking up the letter from his erotic pen pal, Martha. Instead of simply seeing Molly as the adulterous one and blaming the decline of the Blooms' marriage solely on her, we now learn that Leopold likely had a hand in the marriage's degradation, as well. While Leopold resolves never to meet Martha in person, even though she asks, which shows some sort of moral restraint, he also says he plans to use stronger, more erotic language in his next letter to her.
Episode 6: Hades
There's a lot about Leopold's status as an outsider in this episode, mainly connected to his Jewishness. He gets into the funeral carriage last, he doesn't have the easy conversation the other men have, and he's not even called by his first name by the men. Part of this is simply because he is an outsider: These men all have known one another longer than they've known Leopold. But, I also got the sense that the other men hold Leopold at arms' length because he is Jewish. If he weren't Jewish, he may be more on the inside than he is now.
We also see a major return to the fathers and sons theme in this episode, especially when the conversation turns to death and suicide and it becomes known that Leopold's father committed suicide. There is a certain sadness in Leopold's thoughts regarding his father's death, but there isn't the heavy guilt and depression that surrounded Stephen's thoughts of his mother's death earlier in the novel. Perhaps this is because Leopold's father's death is at a farther remove in time than Stephen's mother's death, or it could be because Leopold doesn't hold the guilt that Stephen does.
Episode 7: Aeolus
I have to admit, this was the most daunting episode for me. Maybe my attention span was wandering, but the intrusion of the constant newspaper-like headlines just threw me off track and I had to go back and re-read several sections.
There was a lot of back-and-forth conversation in this episode, a lot of which just seemed to be a bunch of men one-upping one another. If this episode is cross-referenced with the Aeolus episode in The Odyssey, the seemingly random conversations make much more sense (Of course, I didn't look up the parallels until after I had read the episode). In the Aeolus episode, one of Odysseus' men disobeys him and opens up a bag of winds which blows the group off course. In Ulysses, the Aeolus episode is full of puffed-up, arrogant men whose life's work is to write long-winded, sometimes incomprehensible, prose for newspapers.
So, what did you think of this section of the novel? Are you still with me? Did you like this part, or hate it?
Monday, August 30, 2010
Ulysses Read-along, Week 1: Episodes 1-4
Congratulations! You've survived your first week/experience with Ulysses!! How was it? Did you make it all the way through the first four episodes?
First, some notes on the novel as a whole.
The action of Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through one day in Dublin - June 16, 1904. The novel begins around 8 a.m. and concludes later that night. Fans of Ulysses and Joyce celebrate Bloomsday on June 16 each year.
Joyce based this novel off Homer's The Odyssey, the story of Odysseus' journey, wanting to show life as a journey. Whereas Odysseus runs into all sorts of epic dangers and intrigues - gods, monsters, massive storms - Bloom's "journey" is full of the dreariness and humdrum events of the everyday - eating lunch, getting drunk, etc.
A few things to think about throughout the novel:
1) Parallels to The Odyssey
2) Mocking of religion - Joyce was raised Catholic and educated by Jesuits, but he gave up the faith once he reached adulthood
3) The Irish identity - The late-19th and early-20th centuries brought a renewal of interest in Irish nationalism, folklore and history
4) The search for a father/son
5) Remorse
6) Compassion as a heroic quality
There are many, many more themes and motifs and things to think about throughout this novel, but these are some of the biggies that I've run into in both my reading thus far and my research on this novel. Any others that you think should be added to the list?
Now, I'll give some of my thoughts on the episodes individually. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts!
Episode 1: Telemachus
The first thing I noticed when stepping into this novel was how different the Stephen Dedalus we meet here is from the Stephen Dedalus we've left at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That Stephen is overconfident, bohemian, and atheistic. We left him ready to take on the art world in Paris, but he has apparently failed to do just that in the two years between the close of Portrait and the opening of Ulysses, leaving him feeling a failure. In addition, Stephen has been rocked by the death of his mother, who asked him to pray over her deathbed. Stephen, no longer adhering to the church or any religious tendencies, refuses, leaving him with guilt that he still carries into the action of Ulysses.
There are a lot of references to Shakespeare's Hamlet in this episode, with direct parallels between Stephen and Hamlet. I just love any kind of Shakespeare references in literature. But where Hamlet broods over his uncle's murder of his father, Stephen broods over the loss of his mother. His mood isn't helped any by the cajoling of Buck Mulligan, who jokes that Stephen killed his mother by refusing to pray over her.
Perhaps the thing I noticed the most in this episode was the constant references to Irishness and Irish poets/history/folklore. Yeats is referenced constantly (Another thing that makes my geeky heart glad!), and Buck sings or quotes a few Irish folk songs. The Irish nationalism movement was big around the turn of the century, with Yeats leading the way trying to create a national literature. Sometimes, the constant referencing makes the narrative a little inaccessible, especially for anyone completely unfamiliar with Ireland, but a good annotation, and even an Internet search, helps a lot!
Episode 2: Nestor
Whew. Talk about an overload of things to think about! Two pages in, and I sat back in my chair and contemplated a little Aristotelian theory for a few minutes, mostly brought on by passages such as this:
In the course of Stephen's lesson to his students, he thinks a bit about whether or not Pyrrhus and Julius Caesar were destined for greater things had they not been cut down in the prime of their lives. Was their destiny (and the destiny of others like them) just to become quickly rising stars snuffed out at the peak, or did one happenstance rob the world of the potential great things that could have happened?
There was a repeat of the near-constant focus on Irishness and maintaining and Irish identity in this episode, especially as Stephen talks with Deasy. Deasy babbles endlessly about historical events, blaming all the wrongs in the world on two major groups -- Jews and women. Instead of looking and moving forward, Deasy is stuck in the past (Not somewhere Stephen wants to be), remembering the famine and blaming everyone under the sun. I know that the anti-Semitism is going to come back to haunt us later on in the book (Leopold Bloom is a Jew, after all), so I'll have to get used to it, but I just could not wait for Deasy to get out of the picture. He just strikes me as one of those people that I don't like to be around in real life: Everything's everyone else's fault, never their own.
Episode 3: Proteus
Wow, was there ever a massive focus on death and decay in this episode, mostly because we're getting the entire episode (With the exception of one line of dialogue) through Stephen's mind. There's brown and decay and death and drowning men all over the place, which speaks a lot to Stephen's mindset. As I said before, this is a very different Stephen from the one we saw in Portrait: He's downtrodden and feeling like a failure, and he's watched his mother die. It's no wonder, then, that his thoughts while walking down the beach turn toward death.
There's also a lot of shifting in this episode, which is convenient since Proteus was a shape-shifting god (See what I did there? All nice and neat!). One of the major shifts is in Stephen's perception of his surroundings. The episode begins with Stephen contemplating his own reactions and perceptions of his surroundings. Since we're getting all of this through Stephen's interior monologue, we only get Stephen's perceptions as well. However, as the episode progresses, Stephen begins to perceive his surroundings in a much more real fashion, leading up to actual physical actions -- urination, picking his nose, etc. Stephen then uses this shift in perspective to actually create something: A poem inspired by the cocklepickers.
Episode 4: Calypso
Finally, Leopold Bloom arrives on the scene. We've returned again to the beginning of the day, and Joyce has Stephen and Leopold both observe the same cloud to give the reader a clue that Episodes 4 and 1 are taking place simultaneously. There are also a few other correlations between Stephen's and Leopold's narratives, including that both men fix breakfast for others, both are dressed in mourning, and both leave the house without their keys.
However, for all the similarities Joyce creates between the two episodes, there also are some striking differences. For one, Leopold is obviously a much more sympathetic, likable character than Stephen: He prepares Molly's and the cat's breakfasts before he makes his own without complaining, whereas Stephen almost angrily helps serve Haines his breakfast. There's also much more focus on Leopold's physical movements than there is on Stephen's -- Most of Stephen's narration is thought-driven. The two men's perceptions of things also differ. Where Stephen's perception of an object leads him to ponder some abstraction, such as the observation of the passing cloud leading Stephen to think of death, and that abstraction tends to lead right back to Stephen, Leopold's perception of an object causes him to ponder much larger concepts outside himself. In other words, even the way that Leopold thinks about things shows that he's a much more sympathetic, other-centered character than Stephen.
So, that's the end of the first section. How are you feeling? Are you still in this to win this?
What was your favorite/least favorite part of this first section? Did anything completely stump you? What are your thoughts overall about Joyce's writing?
First, some notes on the novel as a whole.
The action of Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through one day in Dublin - June 16, 1904. The novel begins around 8 a.m. and concludes later that night. Fans of Ulysses and Joyce celebrate Bloomsday on June 16 each year.
Joyce based this novel off Homer's The Odyssey, the story of Odysseus' journey, wanting to show life as a journey. Whereas Odysseus runs into all sorts of epic dangers and intrigues - gods, monsters, massive storms - Bloom's "journey" is full of the dreariness and humdrum events of the everyday - eating lunch, getting drunk, etc.
A few things to think about throughout the novel:
1) Parallels to The Odyssey
2) Mocking of religion - Joyce was raised Catholic and educated by Jesuits, but he gave up the faith once he reached adulthood
3) The Irish identity - The late-19th and early-20th centuries brought a renewal of interest in Irish nationalism, folklore and history
4) The search for a father/son
5) Remorse
6) Compassion as a heroic quality
There are many, many more themes and motifs and things to think about throughout this novel, but these are some of the biggies that I've run into in both my reading thus far and my research on this novel. Any others that you think should be added to the list?
Now, I'll give some of my thoughts on the episodes individually. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts!
Episode 1: Telemachus
The first thing I noticed when stepping into this novel was how different the Stephen Dedalus we meet here is from the Stephen Dedalus we've left at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That Stephen is overconfident, bohemian, and atheistic. We left him ready to take on the art world in Paris, but he has apparently failed to do just that in the two years between the close of Portrait and the opening of Ulysses, leaving him feeling a failure. In addition, Stephen has been rocked by the death of his mother, who asked him to pray over her deathbed. Stephen, no longer adhering to the church or any religious tendencies, refuses, leaving him with guilt that he still carries into the action of Ulysses.
There are a lot of references to Shakespeare's Hamlet in this episode, with direct parallels between Stephen and Hamlet. I just love any kind of Shakespeare references in literature. But where Hamlet broods over his uncle's murder of his father, Stephen broods over the loss of his mother. His mood isn't helped any by the cajoling of Buck Mulligan, who jokes that Stephen killed his mother by refusing to pray over her.
Perhaps the thing I noticed the most in this episode was the constant references to Irishness and Irish poets/history/folklore. Yeats is referenced constantly (Another thing that makes my geeky heart glad!), and Buck sings or quotes a few Irish folk songs. The Irish nationalism movement was big around the turn of the century, with Yeats leading the way trying to create a national literature. Sometimes, the constant referencing makes the narrative a little inaccessible, especially for anyone completely unfamiliar with Ireland, but a good annotation, and even an Internet search, helps a lot!
Episode 2: Nestor
Whew. Talk about an overload of things to think about! Two pages in, and I sat back in my chair and contemplated a little Aristotelian theory for a few minutes, mostly brought on by passages such as this:
It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms.
In the course of Stephen's lesson to his students, he thinks a bit about whether or not Pyrrhus and Julius Caesar were destined for greater things had they not been cut down in the prime of their lives. Was their destiny (and the destiny of others like them) just to become quickly rising stars snuffed out at the peak, or did one happenstance rob the world of the potential great things that could have happened?
There was a repeat of the near-constant focus on Irishness and maintaining and Irish identity in this episode, especially as Stephen talks with Deasy. Deasy babbles endlessly about historical events, blaming all the wrongs in the world on two major groups -- Jews and women. Instead of looking and moving forward, Deasy is stuck in the past (Not somewhere Stephen wants to be), remembering the famine and blaming everyone under the sun. I know that the anti-Semitism is going to come back to haunt us later on in the book (Leopold Bloom is a Jew, after all), so I'll have to get used to it, but I just could not wait for Deasy to get out of the picture. He just strikes me as one of those people that I don't like to be around in real life: Everything's everyone else's fault, never their own.
Episode 3: Proteus
Wow, was there ever a massive focus on death and decay in this episode, mostly because we're getting the entire episode (With the exception of one line of dialogue) through Stephen's mind. There's brown and decay and death and drowning men all over the place, which speaks a lot to Stephen's mindset. As I said before, this is a very different Stephen from the one we saw in Portrait: He's downtrodden and feeling like a failure, and he's watched his mother die. It's no wonder, then, that his thoughts while walking down the beach turn toward death.
There's also a lot of shifting in this episode, which is convenient since Proteus was a shape-shifting god (See what I did there? All nice and neat!). One of the major shifts is in Stephen's perception of his surroundings. The episode begins with Stephen contemplating his own reactions and perceptions of his surroundings. Since we're getting all of this through Stephen's interior monologue, we only get Stephen's perceptions as well. However, as the episode progresses, Stephen begins to perceive his surroundings in a much more real fashion, leading up to actual physical actions -- urination, picking his nose, etc. Stephen then uses this shift in perspective to actually create something: A poem inspired by the cocklepickers.
Episode 4: Calypso
Finally, Leopold Bloom arrives on the scene. We've returned again to the beginning of the day, and Joyce has Stephen and Leopold both observe the same cloud to give the reader a clue that Episodes 4 and 1 are taking place simultaneously. There are also a few other correlations between Stephen's and Leopold's narratives, including that both men fix breakfast for others, both are dressed in mourning, and both leave the house without their keys.
However, for all the similarities Joyce creates between the two episodes, there also are some striking differences. For one, Leopold is obviously a much more sympathetic, likable character than Stephen: He prepares Molly's and the cat's breakfasts before he makes his own without complaining, whereas Stephen almost angrily helps serve Haines his breakfast. There's also much more focus on Leopold's physical movements than there is on Stephen's -- Most of Stephen's narration is thought-driven. The two men's perceptions of things also differ. Where Stephen's perception of an object leads him to ponder some abstraction, such as the observation of the passing cloud leading Stephen to think of death, and that abstraction tends to lead right back to Stephen, Leopold's perception of an object causes him to ponder much larger concepts outside himself. In other words, even the way that Leopold thinks about things shows that he's a much more sympathetic, other-centered character than Stephen.
So, that's the end of the first section. How are you feeling? Are you still in this to win this?
What was your favorite/least favorite part of this first section? Did anything completely stump you? What are your thoughts overall about Joyce's writing?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Ulysses Read-Along: The Schedule
Anyone remember this post from (*ahem*) May?
The one where I proposed a read-along of Ulysses beginning August 1 and promised to have a schedule by the end of July?
Well, uh... I'm a slacker. No other excuse except that.
However, I have finally managed to break down the book into 9 chunks (There are only a couple longer than 100 pages, and not by much) for the read-along, if anyone is still interested.
So, starting August 30, we'll discuss one section of Ulysses each Monday, commiserate about our collective Joycean headaches and try to make it through this monster of a book.
All page numbers are based on my version of the book, which is this one:
You may have to do as I did and flip through your book (With the help of this Wikipedia article) and label each section. Mine always start with a line of all-caps, but not all the episodes are easily distinguishable. I have more than a few crossed-out episode names in my book.
I also have this annotation, which I think will be helpful in getting through this. You could borrow it from your library, buy it or e-mail me with questions that I can try to answer.
![Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses [Revised and Expanded Edition]](http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0520067452&tag=literaril-20)
Without further ado, here's the schedule:
August 30: Part I: The Telemachiad in full (Episode 1: Telemachus; Episode 2: Nestor; Episode 3: Proteus) and Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 4: Calypso -- Approximately 67 pages
September 6: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 5: Lotus Eaters; Episode 6: Hades; Episode 7: Aeolus -- Approximately 80 pages
September 13: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 8: Lestrygonians; Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis -- Approximately 68 pages
September 20: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 10: Wandering Rocks; Episode 11: Sirens -- Approximately 73 pages
September 27: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 12: Cyclops -- Approximately 54 pages
October 4: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 13: Nausicaa; Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun -- Approximately 82 pages
October 11: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 15: Circe -- Approximately 180 pages (OK, I lied... This is a loooong one!)
October 18: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 16: Eumaeus; Episode 17: Ithaca -- Approximately 125 pages
October 25: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 18: Penelope -- Approximately 45 pages
Whew! I'd suggest getting started on the first couple parts ASAP to stay ahead of the game!
If you plan to join, just leave a comment on this post. You're not at all obligated to post on your blog about this, but feel free to do so. I think handling the read-along in comments is just fine!
The one where I proposed a read-along of Ulysses beginning August 1 and promised to have a schedule by the end of July?
Well, uh... I'm a slacker. No other excuse except that.
However, I have finally managed to break down the book into 9 chunks (There are only a couple longer than 100 pages, and not by much) for the read-along, if anyone is still interested.
So, starting August 30, we'll discuss one section of Ulysses each Monday, commiserate about our collective Joycean headaches and try to make it through this monster of a book.
All page numbers are based on my version of the book, which is this one:
You may have to do as I did and flip through your book (With the help of this Wikipedia article) and label each section. Mine always start with a line of all-caps, but not all the episodes are easily distinguishable. I have more than a few crossed-out episode names in my book.
I also have this annotation, which I think will be helpful in getting through this. You could borrow it from your library, buy it or e-mail me with questions that I can try to answer.
Without further ado, here's the schedule:
August 30: Part I: The Telemachiad in full (Episode 1: Telemachus; Episode 2: Nestor; Episode 3: Proteus) and Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 4: Calypso -- Approximately 67 pages
September 6: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 5: Lotus Eaters; Episode 6: Hades; Episode 7: Aeolus -- Approximately 80 pages
September 13: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 8: Lestrygonians; Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis -- Approximately 68 pages
September 20: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 10: Wandering Rocks; Episode 11: Sirens -- Approximately 73 pages
September 27: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 12: Cyclops -- Approximately 54 pages
October 4: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 13: Nausicaa; Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun -- Approximately 82 pages
October 11: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 15: Circe -- Approximately 180 pages (OK, I lied... This is a loooong one!)
October 18: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 16: Eumaeus; Episode 17: Ithaca -- Approximately 125 pages
October 25: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 18: Penelope -- Approximately 45 pages
Whew! I'd suggest getting started on the first couple parts ASAP to stay ahead of the game!
If you plan to join, just leave a comment on this post. You're not at all obligated to post on your blog about this, but feel free to do so. I think handling the read-along in comments is just fine!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Ulysses Read-along, anyone?
You know that monster of a book that everyone's always afraid to pick up? The one that gives you anxiety just thinking about it? The one that you know you should read, but just can't seem to find the time for?
For me, that book is Ulysses. I read portions of it in college and loved it, and the full book has been sitting on my shelf for the past four years.
Well, I say, NO MORE!!
I'm going to do something about that book sitting on my shelf, taunting me. I'm going to break it down into smaller, more manageable sections. Anyone who wants to tackle this is more than welcome to join me!
Starting August 1, I will be hosting a read-along of Ulysses. I'll lay out a (manageable!) schedule sometime in July, hopefully around 100 pages per week or so, and we can discuss each section. I'll also have an annotation of the book (It's nearly as long as the book itself!) available, so feel free to ask questions!
Who's in?
For me, that book is Ulysses. I read portions of it in college and loved it, and the full book has been sitting on my shelf for the past four years.Well, I say, NO MORE!!
I'm going to do something about that book sitting on my shelf, taunting me. I'm going to break it down into smaller, more manageable sections. Anyone who wants to tackle this is more than welcome to join me!
Starting August 1, I will be hosting a read-along of Ulysses. I'll lay out a (manageable!) schedule sometime in July, hopefully around 100 pages per week or so, and we can discuss each section. I'll also have an annotation of the book (It's nearly as long as the book itself!) available, so feel free to ask questions!
Who's in?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Gone With the Wind Read-Along: Chapters 19-27
This book just keeps on rolling! I thought last week's section was eventful, but this week's was so much more so.
I really grew to like Scarlett during this portion of the book. For the first five or six chapters, she was still pretty selfish, but she came into her own later on. She has to take charge and lead everyone out of Atlanta as the Union soldiers come into town, she has to get them to Tara and she has to take charge and run Tara because no one else can. She actually stops being petrified of hard work (Even though she resists it for as long as she can manage) and she stops whining about the little inconveniences.
Mitchell says that Scarlett reaches a point of no return; from this moment on she will never be the same. I hope that's true, because I enjoyed seeing Scarlett as a strong, not just a smart-mouthed, woman able to take care of things on her own.
There was a lot more tension and drama in this portion of the book, also. Melanie goes through a hard labor, there's a lot of fighting around Atlanta, the city begins to burn, Scarlett and the others refugee toward Tara, there's very little food left to feed nine people, the Union comes through Tara, etc., etc. Mitchell does a great job of rendering a sense of urgency in the scenes.
My favorite scene in this section of the book was when the Union soldiers ransack Tara as Scarlett stands and watches. She is tired of the Union taking things that belong to her family and those she cares about, and she decides to make a stand. I laughed out loud when she shoved the Union soldier's wallet down the baby's diaper. I never would have thought of that! And, I was so glad she finally began to show a little bit of love toward Wade by rescuing Charles' sword from the soldiers.
So much has happened in this novel already, and I'm not nearly halfway through. I can't wait to see what happens next.
I really grew to like Scarlett during this portion of the book. For the first five or six chapters, she was still pretty selfish, but she came into her own later on. She has to take charge and lead everyone out of Atlanta as the Union soldiers come into town, she has to get them to Tara and she has to take charge and run Tara because no one else can. She actually stops being petrified of hard work (Even though she resists it for as long as she can manage) and she stops whining about the little inconveniences.
Mitchell says that Scarlett reaches a point of no return; from this moment on she will never be the same. I hope that's true, because I enjoyed seeing Scarlett as a strong, not just a smart-mouthed, woman able to take care of things on her own.
There was a lot more tension and drama in this portion of the book, also. Melanie goes through a hard labor, there's a lot of fighting around Atlanta, the city begins to burn, Scarlett and the others refugee toward Tara, there's very little food left to feed nine people, the Union comes through Tara, etc., etc. Mitchell does a great job of rendering a sense of urgency in the scenes.
My favorite scene in this section of the book was when the Union soldiers ransack Tara as Scarlett stands and watches. She is tired of the Union taking things that belong to her family and those she cares about, and she decides to make a stand. I laughed out loud when she shoved the Union soldier's wallet down the baby's diaper. I never would have thought of that! And, I was so glad she finally began to show a little bit of love toward Wade by rescuing Charles' sword from the soldiers.
So much has happened in this novel already, and I'm not nearly halfway through. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Gone With the Wind Read-along: Chapters 10-18
I'm going to have to reach back in my mind a little bit on this week's post. I ended up reading the chapters in three-chapter sections, and I read the first section on Monday. Whew. A long time ago!
The story really has started to get moving. It was a bit slow in the first nine chapters, mainly because we had to receive our introductions to all the characters and the setting. But, in this section, the story starts to take off.
I love how we get to see Rhett so much more often in this section. He's absolutely my favorite character thus far. He is a blockade buster and speculator, and makes no bones about the fact that he's in his job for nothing other than the money. He doesn't agree with the "noble" reasons everyone gives for the war, and speaks out against the Confederacy's chances to win at every chance he gets. I admire his ability to have his own opinions and principles and stick to them, regardless of what anyone else says.
Once again, I was not terribly fond of Scarlett. She continually ignores the fact that Ashley is married to her sister-in-law, yet she still thinks of him as being in love with her. She dreams incessantly about him returning from the war and the two of them running off together. I guess I could chalk this mindset up to the fact that Scarlett is still very young in both age and emotional maturity, but her constant talk of Ashley as "hers" just rubs me the wrong way.
Two of my favorite scenes in this section of the book take place surrounding significant military events.
The first great scene is when all the women in town are gathered at the newspaper office, waiting to hear of the casualties at Gettysburg. Despite the fact that there are dozens of women around, the scene is eerily quiet. Then, when the casualty lists come out, Mitchell does a great job of showing the devastation of women who lost loved ones and the relief of those whose loved ones were not on the list.
My second favorite scene comes as the state militia is riding/marching out to assist the army against Sherman's march toward Atlanta. It's a heartbreaking scene to read, as the group is just one long parade of young boys and old men who should not be going to war. Scarlett's horror at seeing some of the men, especially Mr. Wilkes, setting off to the battlefield is obvious.
So far, I am really enjoying this book (Still!). I can't wait to see what happens next.
The story really has started to get moving. It was a bit slow in the first nine chapters, mainly because we had to receive our introductions to all the characters and the setting. But, in this section, the story starts to take off.I love how we get to see Rhett so much more often in this section. He's absolutely my favorite character thus far. He is a blockade buster and speculator, and makes no bones about the fact that he's in his job for nothing other than the money. He doesn't agree with the "noble" reasons everyone gives for the war, and speaks out against the Confederacy's chances to win at every chance he gets. I admire his ability to have his own opinions and principles and stick to them, regardless of what anyone else says.
Once again, I was not terribly fond of Scarlett. She continually ignores the fact that Ashley is married to her sister-in-law, yet she still thinks of him as being in love with her. She dreams incessantly about him returning from the war and the two of them running off together. I guess I could chalk this mindset up to the fact that Scarlett is still very young in both age and emotional maturity, but her constant talk of Ashley as "hers" just rubs me the wrong way.
Two of my favorite scenes in this section of the book take place surrounding significant military events.
The first great scene is when all the women in town are gathered at the newspaper office, waiting to hear of the casualties at Gettysburg. Despite the fact that there are dozens of women around, the scene is eerily quiet. Then, when the casualty lists come out, Mitchell does a great job of showing the devastation of women who lost loved ones and the relief of those whose loved ones were not on the list.
My second favorite scene comes as the state militia is riding/marching out to assist the army against Sherman's march toward Atlanta. It's a heartbreaking scene to read, as the group is just one long parade of young boys and old men who should not be going to war. Scarlett's horror at seeing some of the men, especially Mr. Wilkes, setting off to the battlefield is obvious.
So far, I am really enjoying this book (Still!). I can't wait to see what happens next.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Gone With the Wind Read-Along: Chapters 1-9
Last week, I found this post by Amy at My Friend Amy. She was proposing an informal read-along of Gone With the Wind and The Wind Done Gone. I've had a used copy of GWTW sitting on my shelf for awhile now, so I thought joining in as other bloggers read the book would be fun.
First, I must warn you that I have never read this book, nor have I seen the movie. I know, shocking, isn't it? It's just something that hasn't appealed to me until recently, even though I love the Civil War era. As a result of 25 years of complete lack of exposure to GWTW, outside of the occasional clip or famous line, I had no idea what to expect. I likely will draw some conclusions as I read this book that those of you who have read the book/seen the movie may laugh at because they're likely very naive in terms of what happens later, but I like to live under my rock, thank you very much.
Here's what I thought of the first nine chapters:
I think Mitchell does a great job of portraying life in antebellum Georgia. The settings are lush and green, the manners are genteel and the people are charming. I can already see why, simply on the strength of her writing alone, Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for this book.
I have to discuss Scarlett O'Hara, as she is the main character and all. At first, I really liked her. She was just sassy enough to endear her to me, and she had a little extra spark that wasn't considered "proper" in a Southern belle. Then, she became a shallow little teenager. I had to keep reminding myself that she is only 16 years old, which accounts for her selfish behavior and flighty ways, because she was so obsessive about finding a husband. She has no ability to be nice or charitable to any other female, other than her mother, because she's always in competition with them.
She continued to grate on my nerves when she decided to marry Charles even though she didn't care for him. But, again, I had to remind myself that she was only 16 and a lot of 16-year-olds do really stupid, selfish things. However, she didn't get any better in the selfish department after getting married, becoming a widow and having a baby. If anything, she got worse because she became so jealous of all the girls her age who didn't have to live under the same restrictions she did.
Even though we only see him briefly in the first nine chapters -- once at the Wilkes' barbecue and once at the hospital fundraiser -- I really, really like Rhett Butler already. He impresses me as a Mr. Darcy: A man who has a bad reputation and makes for a really good foil to the main character. I think there's definitely a lot more to him than meets the eye, but we shall see.
I also really like Melanie. She's quiet, kind and definitely more deserving of Ashley Wilkes (What we know of him now, at least) than Scarlett is.
I'm really excited to read the rest of this book over the course of the next several weeks. I'm glad Amy decided to host this read-along and break the book down into manageable sections because, if I were to tackle it straight off my shelves and on my own, I think I might just end up putting it aside for something else because it's just so long.
First, I must warn you that I have never read this book, nor have I seen the movie. I know, shocking, isn't it? It's just something that hasn't appealed to me until recently, even though I love the Civil War era. As a result of 25 years of complete lack of exposure to GWTW, outside of the occasional clip or famous line, I had no idea what to expect. I likely will draw some conclusions as I read this book that those of you who have read the book/seen the movie may laugh at because they're likely very naive in terms of what happens later, but I like to live under my rock, thank you very much.
Here's what I thought of the first nine chapters:I think Mitchell does a great job of portraying life in antebellum Georgia. The settings are lush and green, the manners are genteel and the people are charming. I can already see why, simply on the strength of her writing alone, Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for this book.
I have to discuss Scarlett O'Hara, as she is the main character and all. At first, I really liked her. She was just sassy enough to endear her to me, and she had a little extra spark that wasn't considered "proper" in a Southern belle. Then, she became a shallow little teenager. I had to keep reminding myself that she is only 16 years old, which accounts for her selfish behavior and flighty ways, because she was so obsessive about finding a husband. She has no ability to be nice or charitable to any other female, other than her mother, because she's always in competition with them.
She continued to grate on my nerves when she decided to marry Charles even though she didn't care for him. But, again, I had to remind myself that she was only 16 and a lot of 16-year-olds do really stupid, selfish things. However, she didn't get any better in the selfish department after getting married, becoming a widow and having a baby. If anything, she got worse because she became so jealous of all the girls her age who didn't have to live under the same restrictions she did.
Even though we only see him briefly in the first nine chapters -- once at the Wilkes' barbecue and once at the hospital fundraiser -- I really, really like Rhett Butler already. He impresses me as a Mr. Darcy: A man who has a bad reputation and makes for a really good foil to the main character. I think there's definitely a lot more to him than meets the eye, but we shall see.
I also really like Melanie. She's quiet, kind and definitely more deserving of Ashley Wilkes (What we know of him now, at least) than Scarlett is.
I'm really excited to read the rest of this book over the course of the next several weeks. I'm glad Amy decided to host this read-along and break the book down into manageable sections because, if I were to tackle it straight off my shelves and on my own, I think I might just end up putting it aside for something else because it's just so long.
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