Final thoughts on Ulysses – #1

I don’t seem to know what to do with my reading time now that I’ve finished Ulysses! I pick up the Kindle and put it back down again because I don’t have to chug through a few chapters of Joyce before bed.

I mentioned to my mom that I was trying to think of a final thought on this book and she said, “how about ‘yay, I’m done!’” That pretty much summed up my thoughts upon finishing.

Now that I can reflect on it a few days later I can honestly say that I’m glad I read it. I didn’t necessarily care for the ending.  (SPOILER ALERT) I would’ve liked to have Stephen or Bloom wax poetical in the end, not journey through random thoughts from Molly all of a sudden, even with her varied and interesting issues!

I do wish I had read this book in college. The Odyssey was required reading for all incoming freshman at that time and I think it would’ve been great to read this book right after Homer to really delve fully into all the parallels. Plus, a lot of time is spent in college pondering deep life questions and discussing everything under the sun, so that would’ve been another perfect fit!

I’m now looking forward to reading the next Joyce book, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I’m interested to see if Joyce writes in this same manner in all his books or if he was just exploring in this one. I think I would really enjoy this author more with just a few more punctuation marks along the way.

Read on…

H