Sailed Into Ithaca - After 20 years!

 Today marks a day of a personal achievement for me. I finally finished James Joyce's Ulysses! My third attempt in 20 years. Just like Odysseus I set out on this path about 20 years back just because everyone who was anyone said this was a must-read. In my first attempt I didn't get past Proteus. When Stephen waxed on about "Ineluctable modality of the ineluctable visuality"I decided that those who claim to have read the book belonged in a "paradise of pretenders" and I wasn't going to be one of them. The unfortunate aspect of giving up this early was that I didn't even encounter Bloom - the Ulysses of the book. Second time around I picked it up because I read Joseph Campbell's Mythic Worlds, Modern Words and he showed me how much there was to mine in Joyce's work. So I picked it up again and this time was going to read along with Frank Delaney and his "re:Joyce" podcast. Unfortunately he passed away in the middle of it and I gave up but I went further along than I ever imagined with Delaney as my guide.

I thought I would pick it up again in 2022, the 100th anniversary of the publication of the book but didn't get around to it.  I have always wanted to visit Ireland but had decided long back that I would do it only after I read Ulysses. I love Irish writing and have read many from the who's who of Irish literature - Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, J.G. Farrell, John Banville, Colm Toibin, Anne Enright, Edna O'Brien, Roddy Doyle, Flann O'Brien, Seamus Heaney, Joseph O'Connor all the way to Sally Rooney. But the crown jewel was still missing. Although I have read Joyce's Dubliners there was a Ulysses shaped hole in my bookshelf. Suddenly I realized I was a year away from turning 50 and it made me think - if not now then when?

So I decided to give it a go hoping that third time will be the charm. I remembered Joseph Campbell saying that The Odyssey was a feminine book, while The Iliad was a masculine one. The reason it took 10 years for Odysseus to get back to Penelope in Ithaca was that he had to purify himself of all the bloodshed and violence and get ready to meet the eternal feminine. The 10 years was prep work for him. Well, I believe the last 10 years was prep for me to read Ulysses too without realizing it. Here are 5 ways in which the world prepared me for Ulysses:

1. I am now middle-aged and therefore closer to Bloom's than to Stephen's age and have had more experience with life in general
   
2.  Maybe because of #1, I have spent a lot of free time reading Shakespeare and listening to opera by Mozart and Verdi and these helped me catch quite a few references in the book.
3. Coincidentally my daughter had to read Emily Wilson's The Odyssey for her 9th grade English and it was an amazing refresher for me. 
4. I have been meditating for a year or so and it gave me an insight into how random thoughts arise in our brain. Joyce's stream of consciousness technique is similar to watching my thoughts during meditation and once I understood that, the reading became so much easier.
   
5. I told myself that I don't have to get all the references and insights in this reading and it was OK to not understand/ even skip the occasional, obscure passage in the book (the book could have used a great editor)
   

 Of course even Odysseus couldn't have done it without his guide Athena and I needed other guides to help me along. Here are the resources that helped me in my journey.

1. Kevin Birmingham's The Most Dangerous Book - although this has nothing to do with the plot of Ulysses this is a dramatic tale of how the book got published in the US and the Court battles the book faced because of its "obscenity." This is a terrific book to read to understand a bit about Joyce and all the brave women who helped publish this book by taking on the US Post Office and Censorship regimes. This is a gripping page-turner of a book and will make you want to read Ulysses.
2. Patrick Hastings' The Guide to Ulysses is a terrific resource for first-time readers as it gives you a chapter by chapter summary and key highlights to look out for. Hastings has been teaching Ulysses to high school Seniors so he knows a thing or two about how to help someone read this tough book.
3. Harry Blamires' The New Bloomsday Book is the one must-have guide to get through the text
4. Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated is for those who want to get every single reference in the book. It is the most exhaustive guide out there and pairs well with the Modern Library version of "Ulysses"
5. Quick refreshers on Joyce's Dubliners, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Homer's Odyssey are very helpful too
   

One does not need any of these guides to get through the book, but I personally felt the top 3 made my reading more pleasurable. I know I am going to be re-reading this book a few more times at least and some day I hope to be in Dublin for Bloomsday to celebrate the heroic aspects of the mundane, everyday, ordinary life.

I guess some of you might wonder - was it worth it?

yes i said yes (sorry I couldn't resist)

March 21st, 2023