Why James Joyce's Ulysses Matters 100 Years Later | Dr. Sam Slote #43

Comments · 19

• TH

  @theneutralgroundpodcast · 4 years ago · pinned

  I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Consider subscribing to the channel, if you haven't done so already. I always appreciate the support.

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• CH

  @ChasingLeviathan · 4 years ago

  I always appreciate the reminder that art should first and foremost be appreciated. There's such a temptation to approach something like Ulysses as a chore, which ultimately defeats its intended purpose.

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  @37Dionysos · 2 years ago

  You can watch Joyce work from his notes and grasp/enjoy 100% more of what each part of "Ulysses" is doing with the rare very readable little paperback "Ulysses on the Liffey" by Joyce's great biographer Richard Ellmann. The book shows you Joyce's outlines for each episode and so the levels of aesthetic, philosophical, ethical and moral "arguments" about life that Joyce was working through---and you see/admire the more that Joyce was not so much the "indifferent" artist as he was a very reticent and understated proponent of a more free, joyful and loving human being for all of us. Read "Liffey" and then read "Ulysses" again and you'll see the real cutting edge of Joyce's mind dissecting and refreshing human being itself.

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• TH

  @TheMakersRage · 2 years ago

  Great to see professor Slote looking so well. Had a great time as an undergrad at TCD studying the maestro ☘

• PU

  @puffin51 · 3 years ago

  I can only report &nbsp;that my own experience of &quot;Ulysses&quot; was as different from this report as it is possible to be. I had to read it in whole as an undergrad. I didn&apos;t understand quite a large portion of it - that is, &nbsp;In those passages I could not construct what the narrative was, or even if there was a narrative at all. But from what I <i>could</i> understand, I didn&apos;t want to understand more. I was completely indifferent to the doings of the protagonists. I couldn&apos;t care less what happened to them. But more, I found myself coldly hostile to the real narrator, that is, the author.- the whole purpose seemed to be a desperate, almost a pathological, need to demonstrate his own cleverness - to dazzle, or rather, to benumb the reader with his erudition, education, superior intellect, sophistication. That is, it seemed to me to be an immensely prolix and and astonishingly elaborate expression of a monstrously swollen ego.<br><br>Please understand, I knew nothing of this when I began. I knew it had a reputation for difficulty, and was not put off - I had read and enjoyed Hardy and Sterne, had a nodding acquaintance with Dante (in translation), and a decent familiarity with Shakespeare. But immediately, the fathomless contempt of the author for all his characters struck me. Shortly after that, I realised that he felt the same way about his audience. And that was the end of any possibility of my goodwill.<br><br>I tried to change to another unit - no good. I consulted my tutor, who seemed a decent enough sort, but who told me that any reaction along those lines would merely be evidence of my incomprehension of the text, and could never be admitted. I had to pass the unit, so I read it, all of it, forced down my nausea at my own pusillanimity, wrote the required essay, received an A for it - as dreary a collection of dully subservient cliches as I ever uttered, and one that I was thoroughly ashamed of, and still am - and went my way. It was decades before I could bear to open any novel that attracted the praise of the literary establishment. That was the sum of James Joyce&apos;s effect on me.<br><br>I am sorry if this comment is not uplifting. But it is thoughtful. I was, and am, painfully aware of chagrin - repelled by the cowardice, faithlessness, dishonesty and pusillanimity of Joyce&apos;s characters, I emulated them. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. And the fact that my experience would have caused Joyce immoderate mirth only sharpens that shame.

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• RO

  @RoundSparrow · 2 years ago

  @<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixXPo6RriYg&amp;t=1691">28:11</a> verse Romans 11:32 is key to much of Joyce&apos;s work. the numbers 11 and 32 reappear throughout the works, as does the meaning in metaphors.

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• DI

  @dijonstreak · 11 months ago

  a LOT of assumptions going on here..........he neverMET him. !! &nbsp; &nbsp;totally unqualified to answer some of these questions.......