Chekhov’s Mistess

Stately, Plump…

An approach to reading Ulysses

As for the future it is useless to speculate. If I could find out in the meantime who is the patron [saint] of men of letters I should try to remind him that I exist: but I understand that the last saint who held that position resigned in despair and no other will take the portfolio.

                                                  – James Joyce, 1915

Such is the life of an artist. This collection represents my choices for an approach to Ulysses out of the myriad books by or about James Joyce. Please understand that these are the suggestions of a devoted reader, not an academic or Joyce expert (although, as Jacque Derrida says, “But when it comes to Joyce, what is an expert?).

James Joyce by Richard Ellmann


This is the best starting place for Joyce studies. Ellman not only fascinatingly details the life of a fascinating mind, but goes into much of the backstory (as well as anyone can tell) for the characters in his books – typically amalgams of people he encountered throughout his life.



Re Joyce by Anthony Burgess



In my opinion, this is the most intelligent book on Joyce’s works. Anthony Burgess  – a great novelist himself, is best known for A Clockwork Orange – writes about Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as if he were chatting with you, his old friend.



Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford


There are many ways to approach Ulysses. I read much of it through the first time without any aids and then did a very careful reading the second time around (and I do mean around). Now I only really spend any time reading it at the Bloomsday celebration at Symphony Space in NYC, which doesn’t make reading annotations practical. But, for the close reading, keep this annotation at hand. It will shine a light on some of the layers of erudition that only a classical education, Catholic upbringing and Irish heritage could give you otherwise.



Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov


Nabokov takes an iconoclastic approach to Ulysses in throwing out the Odyssean structure and focusing primarily on the “art” of the work itself. If you don’t want to think about the academic approaches to the novel, read this and the Burgess, or if you want to merely keep the academics in check, read this and the Burgess in addition to the others.

This book also contains lectures on works by Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, R.S. Stevenson, Proust and Kafka, given during Nabokov’s professorships at Wellesley and Cornell (before Lolita became famous and allowed him to retire from academia). The book is worth having for any of these pieces.



James Joyce’s Ulysses: Critical Essays by Clive Hart, David Hayman


A collection of well written scholarly essays (an oxymoron?): One for each episode of the novel. Each is written by a different person, assuring a variety of perspectives. These are worthwhile and accessible pieces.



James Joyce’s Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert


I believe that much has been done since Gilbert wrote this book, but it is the original scholarship on Ulysses. Gilbert was a friend of Joyces and much of what is written here was approved by him. The book follows strictly along Odyssean lines. Don’t be dismayed by Gilbert’s first advice, which is to go and read The Odyssey in Greek.



A Companion to James Joyce’s Ulysses: Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives by Margot Norris


Optional: This book will be of interest to the student of literary criticism, but may be of value to the general reader who can endure it. Actually, the Derrida essay, “Ulysses Gramaphone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce” alone makes the book worth having.



Occasional, Critical, and Political Writings by James Joyce, Kevin Barry, Conor Deane


Finally, a work by Joyce himself. You could probably do without this book if you read the Ellman biography, but it is interesting nonetheless. Contained here most of the exile’s writings from precocious early pieces to a series of articles in Italian, which are not translated.

This is the ISBN of a similar book: 0801495873, but I think it is less complete.



Ulysses (Gabler Edition) by James Joyce, Hans Gabler


The story of Ulysses from manuscript to bound book is extremely interesting (for instance, one of the early typists’ husband threw sections of the book in a fire out of outrage over the language). Hans Walter Gabler’s edition is only one version, with over 5000 changes from the one it sought to correct. Controversy ensued. You can read a bit about it in the archives of the New York Review of Books. I’m at a loss as to which version is the “right” version, but this is the one I chose.



Dubliners by James Joyce


Joyce’s writing could probably be considered one large piece of work, with Dubliners and Portrait being considered in some ways early chapters of Ulysses. They are both much easier to read and what Dubliners lacks in linguistic inventiveness, it makes up in subtlety.



A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce


This is a great book in its own right, I’ve read it a couple of times. Portrait tells the life story of Stephen Daedelus (ostensibly Joyce), who is a major character in Ulysses. This is one of those books that leaves you with fond memories of certain scenes that bring you back to it time and again.



Chamber Music and Poems Penyeach: Poems by James Joyce
Chamber Music and Poems Penyeach: Poems

Well, the Pomes aren’t a penny each now, but they didn’t do much for Joyce while he was alive. Chamber Music contains the poems that brought attention to Joyce from people like W.B. Yeats, who was later helpful in getting his career off the ground. It is interesting to think what literature be like if he focused all of his energy on poetry instead of his poetic prose.


yes I said yes I will Yes. : A Celebration of James Joyce, Ulysses, and 100 Years of Bloomsday by NOLA TULLY


This is brand new. It’s a short little tribute to Joyce and Bloomsday with an introduction by Isaiah Sheffer, who presides over our annual Bloomsday celebration at Symphony Space in New York, and a forward by Frank McCourt, a regular reader at that event.




Ulysses on audio (Unabridged)


Hey, if you can’t read it yourself, have someone else do it for you.




Note that Finnegans Wake is omitted from this list, but there is a very good list at the Finnegans Wake Society in New York City



Read widely, think well, and write often.

comments

Have you checked out the Penguin Live Series on Joyce?  I just finished the volume on Charles Dickens and it was excelant.  I have heard good things about the Joyce volume by Edna O’brien I believe.

    – kevin holtsberry (08/03  at  02:18 PM)

Actually, now that you’ve suggested the O’brien book, I would have to amend my comment on the Ellman book as being a great starting place. I didn’t read the biography until I had already read most all of Joyce’s fiction. I did read a much shorter biography in advance of reading Ulysses though, which at least gives you a familiarity with the backdrop for the fiction, and then of course, “Portrait” is also autobiographical. Thanks for the suggestion.

- Bud parr

    – Chekhov's Mistress (08/03  at  08:10 PM)

Nice, comprehensive list . . . for accent, you could also suggest the “Joyce Portraits,” a collection of photographs of the man & his; and, of course, the (in)famous letters. I’d suggest the selected, if you can find them; but you’re in NY, so you probably can . . . oh, and then there’s Stephen Hero, which is even more autobiographical, and Giacomo Joyce, too. It does go on.

    – Stuart Greenhouse (08/03  at  08:27 PM)

Those are good editions, I’m sure. I only included books I’ve read on the list though. I’ll have to look for Joyce Portraits when I am next at Gotham Book Mart, which has a terrific Joyce section (in addition to being a bookstore and literary haunt of old, they house the Joyce Society and the Finnegans Wake Society, neither of which I’ve been to, but the manager of the store is somewhat of a joyce “expert").

- Bud Parr

    – Chekhov's Mistress (08/04  at  02:03 PM)

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• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: August 02, 2004
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

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