It was a banned book and had to be bought mail order. In fact the Paris publishers, ran by the indomitable Sylvia Beach at the time bankrupted herself keeping Joyce and his disfunctional family going during the years it took to publish the book. And although she had done this for him he took the book to an American publishers, after the ban was lifted, selling the rights from underneath her, which meant she could not recoup the losses incurred during Joyces' constant changes to the book. 'And so it goes.'
Read Ulysses in an English graduate class and my prof literally wished us all luck. I barely made it through. Utterly miserable part of the semester. Then we read Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, and my prof wished us luck again 😆😆
I prefer Woolf's writing to Joyce. Dubliners is incredible, but I couldn't understand Ulysses. Whereas I love Woolf's writing. She is doing some wonderful things with stream of consciousness in her works especially in Mrs Dalloway.
She was innovative, and tried new ways of expressing herself, but was never, ever pretentious. Perhaps you haven't read her work? Or need to look up the meaning of the word.
@@William.Kelly7Everything in the universe is a bit pretentious if you have an annoying enough attitude. Converse isnt ture tho. You dont have to be annoying to find a pretentious thing, well, pretentious.
@@oldvlognewtricksSaying "enjoyable" has nothing to do with "good" has about as much weight as claiming "enjoyable" has EVERYTHING to do with "good". Both are extremely subjective blanket statements that lack any real nuance.
@@ASingleSpaghetti That’ll be why there is so much argument for highly popular Hollywood entertainment behemoths being the best quality movies out there oh no wait. Orthogonal variables are orthogonal. Simply stating ‘nah’ isn’t sufficient as a rebuttal. Do you have a counterexample? I have plenty of enjoyable bad movies, and likewise excellent movies that are unpleasant to watch… rendering your point pretty toothless.
@amberspecter yes. It was in the epilogue on the promotional sleeve of Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds... the expurgated version (the one without the gannet)
To be fair... She said it more as a jealous jab rather than an actual criticism. A lot of the prominent British intellectuals of the time (H.G Wells, D.H. Lawrence ,Aldous Huxley and more) hated Ulysses,simply because they couldn't bear the fact that the great English novel of their age was written by an Irishman. Anyone who has read Woolf knows how much intellectual and genius she was there is no way she disliked it because it was cumbersome, she hated it because she much like her fellow intellectuals couldn't stomach the fact that an Irishman could write this(not to mention her classist views on joyce too)
I absolutely love Virginia Woolf's diaries. Every page has a jewel of an insight or observation. And so funny and perceptive about the people she meets.
@@mingthan7028 Yeah. Some people like excitement, others like boredom. But a boring person who blames someone else for being boring, that doesn't make much sense
@@ilovepeoplebro I think I'm one among a very large crowd when I state that Ulysses IS definitely very boring. The crowd that finds it "absolutely entertaining" I bet is probably pretty slim
@@ross6753Ulysses is the funniest book I’ve ever read. The prose is so versatile that the work deftly alternates between highly humorous passages and moments of deep pathos. I don’t know… perhaps I can attribute my enjoyment of the work to my personal background. As someone who grew up in a Catholic family and attended Latin school, it’s not surprising that the tone and attitude of the piece resonated with me. But I would still hold, along with several other people whom I know to be of the same opinion, that Ulysses is one of the most engaging texts I have encountered. As opposed to many of the other works of modernism, whose style is difficult and whose content is oftentimes indecipherable, Joyce has a way of making his work both exuberant and fun-loving.
Joyce had asked if Woolf's publishing house Hogarth Press would print Ulysses. He sent her the first 200 pages to read. However, they printed on a small press at home and could not have completed a print run of any size. They looked into getting an outside printers to complete the run but no British printers would touch it because of obscenity laws. They were lucky because the book bankrupted Shakespear & Company in Paris.
I've never been able to get through it. It's hard work, and I felt deficient in the deeper thought processes! By the way Tom, I noticed you were showing an apparently water damaged paperback. It would be interesting if you'd occasionally say if ever that sort of copy might be worth something? Perhaps even a few valuations on damaged books? As always, kudos n thanks
Finally! For many years now I have been embarrassed by my reaction to Ulysses. I'm reasonably well read and still an avid reader at 59, but I just assumed I lacked the sophistication to appreciate what is said to be the best of all books. Tosh, difuse... brackish. Well said Ms. Woolf! Thankyou for the post.
What an astonishing snob she was. I am proud to be underbred. If only the English could hear themselves. Ulysses is prophetic a generation before itself. Starkly beautiful and personal. Bothing she did even touches Joyce.
A lot of comments here are either praising Woolf for taking Joyce down a peg, or berating Woolf for not being able to see the full genius of Joyce. It's either Woolf is a master writer who knows exactly how to make a classic while Joyce is an undeserving hack with a catalog of novels filles with monstrous pretentiousness, or it's literally the exact other way round. Gentlemen, ladies, enbies, you're all correct. James Joyce's novels are rambling, near incoherent messes that break the very concept of narrative, and should be considered required reading for anyone wishing to grow up and out of their more adolescent phase of reading simple stories to soothe the mind. And Virginia Woolf's novels are exactly the same way. I couldn't get through either Dubliners or To The Lighthouse before I hit 25, and that's okay. Trust me, there's genius and madness to be found in both. The trick is to be well read enough to understand the difference. Edit: Speaking of madness... It's been about a week and a half since I made this comment, and the replies immediately derailed from any discussion of the content of the comment or the video, and is now concerned with me "pandering" to the "latest trendy madness," which is (let me just gather my notes here) the simple acknowledgement of the historically based and factual reality that a significant portion of the world's population identifies with neither of the two arbitrary gender specific boxes we put people in at birth because of their genitals. Yes, I do respect non-binary people. No, I do not think respect must be earned. I respect all people until they do something to deserve to lose that respect, which does not include a person's identity, and which does include any statements or actions they may make as a personal decision. In which case I could call a not insignificant number of people in this reply section who will choose to ignore the objectively correct reality of the world, "utter imbeciles without compassion for their fellow man unless they fit into the unbelievably restrictive categories we arbitrarily place on inherently complex human beings in order to not hurt their ickle wittle brains too hard," and I would not lose an ounce of credibility in my argument. And for the record, yes, I couldn't finish Dubliners when I was younger, because frankly, I found it more boring than my church service. I have grown since then, mentally, socially, emotionally, and I advise several commenters in these replies to do so before society moves past the need for them.
Ulysses was and still is not everyone’s cup of tea. It demands hard work from the readership because it’s unlike anything the reader has ever read or will ever read. Woolf’s “roast” is basically a rant birthed by frustration-Ulysses can frustrate the reader.
Its important to have read at least some literary criticism of Ulysses before reading the novel. His Finnegans Wake makes Ulysses look like an Enid Blyton book. Joyce was god-like in his literary visions. He will never be matched.
I just finished portrait of an artist as a young man, and it was hard to get through. Not because i thought it was pretentious or anything, i just didnt care about the story. Probably will be a long time before i attempt anything else joyce
@@paxtonplato9771 Well it's subjective one English writer or the other, I find the book gibberish detailing the tribulations of a cuck, but you like it obviously 👈🙄
@@paxtonplato9771 Oh come RUclips the cuckoo word isn't against jesus, stop deleting my replies 🙄 Okay as for you, I find Ulysses by James Joyce absolute pretentious gibberish with a daft plot, however you seem to think it's of some worth, I can't argue your subjective opinion, have at it, I know the Irish push him because he's the only notable Irish writer who wasn't Anglo/Irish 😑 Everyone knows who the greatest writer in the English language is and I don't need to tell 😕
Her description also accurately summarizes my perception of a lot of media today. All flash and no substance, more concerned with high handed pretention than with just actually being worthwhile
I'll be honest. Your off-handed comment of "she paid a considerable amount for the book; 4 pounds" made me curious because 4 pounds seems like a trifle amount. However, £4 in 1922 would equal £285 today. Which is $360 (yes, I'm American 😅). Anyway, yeah, I understand why she was so angry that the book was so bad. She literally paid a small fortune (compared to that time period) for that book.
I enjoyed it. The advice I'm glad I followed was to keep reading when you know you are missing things. Once you get to the end, you'll either want to read it again -- and you will struggle less -- or you will put it down never to pick it up again but never wondering if you had quit on it too soon.
I so like the fact that in this day and age you are such an insightful collector of literature. I apologize for my ageism bias. It seems so many young people I meet are only interested in the digital world.
She shot at the king but didn’t kill. Ulysses is as high a height as English has reached as a language. You’d have to turn to Goethe or Dante or Cervantes or Basho to find a peer
I have read the first five chapter many times and put it down everytime. I didn't care about the characters enough to continue. One of the few books I have ever put down without finishing.
When I was 16 I started to read Ulysses and after about 20 pages I was under the impression that Joyce hated me personally. I tore it apart and threw it in the trash
Thank you...and Virginia.... I've not much time left and always wondered if I was about to miss out. Maybe I'll just start watching Marvel movies for the last few whatever.
I didn't like reading the book myself, but the audiobook is fantastic. A great narrator who takes a breath in all the right places made a huge difference to me.
@@tomwayling O I m sorry, thank you. I m new here! Really love your channel! I m an artist and illustrator and i m so glad I found your channel! Best Wishes.
I actually haven't read Ulysses but I did use the very end of it has the opening of a Chamber Opera that I wrote a couple years ago. Lends itself very well to music surprisingly
I had a friend in college who loved Ulysses. Turned out he was stoned all the time. He read one sentence at a time, enjoyed it, then read the next one. I tried it his way and it didn't work for me. I always though Ulysses was incomprehensible.
@@SM-ef7yp O'cmon, egocentric? There is no artist without some higher than usual amounts of egocentricity! ..and, that includes James Joyce and Virginia Woolf! I have read many of her essays over the years to discover other literary figures, and as one would expect, she doesn't write to pander to the whims or tastes of her readers!... she is true to herself and her incredible intelligence! There is a certain kind of "correctness" that people look for these days to "normalize" everyone.... it has killed or alienated many potentially good artists!!
@@bluesque9687 If you read Woolf's essays and that's how you interpret her stances, fair enough. Knowing few of her novels and Joyce's prose, I just think that she's very petty and tries to undermine his creations. But maybe it's because of my love towards Ulysses and awareness of its influence on contemporary literature, philosophy and even ancient studies!
For reference, £4 in 1922 is equivalent to about £188 as of February 2024
Thanks
WTF
It was a banned book and had to be bought mail order. In fact the Paris publishers, ran by the indomitable Sylvia Beach at the time bankrupted herself keeping Joyce and his disfunctional family going during the years it took to publish the book. And although she had done this for him he took the book to an American publishers, after the ban was lifted, selling the rights from underneath her, which meant she could not recoup the losses incurred during Joyces' constant changes to the book. 'And so it goes.'
I would have been absolutely furious if I paid half that much for any of Joyce's books lmfao.
Tbf, if I paid thay much for any book and it wasnt an absolute favourite, id be upset too
She really just went "You're a third rate writer with a fourth rate book."
Kaiba out
she said he has talent, but misuses it.
pure jealous
No, she says he is a really good writer and therefore does not need to resort to writing pretentious drivel.
@@starlinguk you havent read any Woolf if you think she's not pretentious lol
"But as Joyce is nearly 40, it's scarcely likely" 🔥🚨🔥🚨🔥🚨
The worst that she say is "No"
Her:
😂 Bro, imagine getting rejected but it's done in her style of prose 💀
Would it help YOU grow out of it?
Dude 😂
Let us all remember that Nora Joyce told James, "Why don't you write books people can actually READ?!?"
Read Ulysses in an English graduate class and my prof literally wished us all luck. I barely made it through. Utterly miserable part of the semester. Then we read Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, and my prof wished us luck again 😆😆
God yes. Found them both insufferable, Wolfe just more tersely so.
I've STARTED To the Lighthouse so many times. Best I can do is 50 pages 😂
@@neo-xy3fr same i read the same first 50-60 pages so many times cuz it's so beautiful then I don't understand anything lol
I prefer Woolf's writing to Joyce. Dubliners is incredible, but I couldn't understand Ulysses. Whereas I love Woolf's writing. She is doing some wonderful things with stream of consciousness in her works especially in Mrs Dalloway.
Im about to read that book @@angelacraw2907
Damn! A burn so hot, it still stings after a century 😂
I don't know who it's stinging, but they must be quite sensitive 😂
It also fits Infinite Jest ...
I'm not sure that Joyce would have been bothered by her. After all he went on to write finnegans wake . She must have been in a real tizzy over that.
I needed that. The real rap battles of history.
After that I imagine she had a stroke reading Finnegan's wake
Finnegans Wake
@@nedcassley5169 do they now?
@@DoctorDisco42 Davenports may be slept on, but not Finnegans.
Woolf calling someone else’s writing pretentious and brackish is fucking hillarious.
She was innovative, and tried new ways of expressing herself, but was never, ever pretentious. Perhaps you haven't read her work? Or need to look up the meaning of the word.
@@wordsculpt She’s my favorite author but you can’t read the Waves (my favorite book) endless soliloquys and not find it a bit pretentious.
@@wordsculpt even your description is pretentious
@@William.Kelly7Everything in the universe is a bit pretentious if you have an annoying enough attitude. Converse isnt ture tho. You dont have to be annoying to find a pretentious thing, well, pretentious.
Pretentious? Moi?
You have to read it like an Irish drunken poetic rambling. Then it's perfectly enjoyable 😂
You’re going to lose you mind when you find out that ‘enjoyable’ has almost nothing to do with ‘good’.
@@oldvlognewtricksSaying "enjoyable" has nothing to do with "good" has about as much weight as claiming "enjoyable" has EVERYTHING to do with "good". Both are extremely subjective blanket statements that lack any real nuance.
@@ASingleSpaghetti That’ll be why there is so much argument for highly popular Hollywood entertainment behemoths being the best quality movies out there oh no wait.
Orthogonal variables are orthogonal. Simply stating ‘nah’ isn’t sufficient as a rebuttal.
Do you have a counterexample? I have plenty of enjoyable bad movies, and likewise excellent movies that are unpleasant to watch… rendering your point pretty toothless.
@@oldvlognewtricksthere is nothing like an objectively good book my guy
Not at all
Yes, but don't miss Joyce's profound, incisive, & intellectually provocative retort of "Your mother's so ugly..."
Really?
@amberspecter yes. It was in the epilogue on the promotional sleeve of Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds... the expurgated version (the one without the gannet)
Every short this guy posts is super interesting
Virgina Woolf being condescending?! Perish the thought 😂
Honestly, I think it's a bit rich coming from her and her absolute acid trip of a narrative style.
Exactly
Facts
It's an unpretentious acid trip, it tries to get to the heart of human experience, and the heart of human experience is twisty and trippy
@@amberspecternah she was awful
Her stream of consciousness style is still much easier to follow than Joyce's
I find Ulysses scans better if recited out loud, like a poem.
To be fair... She said it more as a jealous jab rather than an actual criticism. A lot of the prominent British intellectuals of the time (H.G Wells, D.H. Lawrence ,Aldous Huxley and more) hated Ulysses,simply because they couldn't bear the fact that the great English novel of their age was written by an Irishman. Anyone who has read Woolf knows how much intellectual and genius she was there is no way she disliked it because it was cumbersome, she hated it because she much like her fellow intellectuals couldn't stomach the fact that an Irishman could write this(not to mention her classist views on joyce too)
Precisely.
Look who's talking. Her and her characters who need an eternity to get to the flippin lighthouse.
"She" and her characters.
That's peer feedback for you 😂😂😂😂😂
Ulysses is a writer's flex. It's a great example of, "that's really cool, but it's kinda dumb, too."
Whereas this comment is just really dumb.
She paid basically the buying power of £300 in today’s money for a book and then burnt that shit without fire.
£280 actually, but your point still stands
I absolutely love Virginia Woolf's diaries. Every page has a jewel of an insight or observation. And so funny and perceptive about the people she meets.
havent read her diary but i read she actually wanted to be friends with him after reading it. I've read it and it was great
What’s great about it.
@@Wakamolewonderit’s got loads of words in it, stuff like that yknow. and the words are on pages. pretty cool yknow
@@Wakamolewonder The writing. DERP
as someone who just finished to the lighthouse, i have to say she’s talking out her ass
Nah.
The way that You express yourself explains why you had a problem.
@@wordsculpt Nah.
Well, she was right about it: Ulysses is dreadfully boring. But then so was she
Indeed, literary enjoyment is derived from subjective taste, particular mood and age.
@@mingthan7028 Yeah. Some people like excitement, others like boredom. But a boring person who blames someone else for being boring, that doesn't make much sense
@@ross6753"boring" in your mind is "absolutely entertaining" for someone else
@@ilovepeoplebro I think I'm one among a very large crowd when I state that Ulysses IS definitely very boring. The crowd that finds it "absolutely entertaining" I bet is probably pretty slim
@@ross6753Ulysses is the funniest book I’ve ever read. The prose is so versatile that the work deftly alternates between highly humorous passages and moments of deep pathos. I don’t know… perhaps I can attribute my enjoyment of the work to my personal background. As someone who grew up in a Catholic family and attended Latin school, it’s not surprising that the tone and attitude of the piece resonated with me. But I would still hold, along with several other people whom I know to be of the same opinion, that Ulysses is one of the most engaging texts I have encountered. As opposed to many of the other works of modernism, whose style is difficult and whose content is oftentimes indecipherable, Joyce has a way of making his work both exuberant and fun-loving.
"A first rate writer respects writing too much to be tricky" Pretty rich coming form the woman who wrote Mrs Dalloway.
SO REAL
And Orlando.
Still great books
It takes one to know one.
Still a better love story than twilight.
Joyce had asked if Woolf's publishing house Hogarth Press would print Ulysses. He sent her the first 200 pages to read. However, they printed on a small press at home and could not have completed a print run of any size. They looked into getting an outside printers to complete the run but no British printers would touch it because of obscenity laws. They were lucky because the book bankrupted Shakespear & Company in Paris.
I've never been able to get through it. It's hard work, and I felt deficient in the deeper thought processes!
By the way Tom, I noticed you were showing an apparently water damaged paperback. It would be interesting if you'd occasionally say if ever that sort of copy might be worth something? Perhaps even a few valuations on damaged books?
As always, kudos n thanks
Great short video. Your voice is both clear and informative yet relaxing. The silence of the libray is also relaxing. magical . 🌖 🌟 📙
Has she read anything she’s written? She’s maybe the most tricky author I try to read regularly.
I've only read Orlando, but didn't find it too tricky? Could you clarify?
(A serious question)
It seems she’s mostly commenting on the fact that he has a really wonderful idea that was just executed lazily
Yes. I love her.
Woolf is much easier to read than Joyce.
Finally! For many years now I have been embarrassed by my reaction to Ulysses. I'm reasonably well read and still an avid reader at 59, but I just assumed I lacked the sophistication to appreciate what is said to be the best of all books. Tosh, difuse... brackish. Well said Ms. Woolf! Thankyou for the post.
Not all books will jive with every person.
Thank you for putting my thoughts and feelings into so precise wording.
I completely agree with you.
59 and still insecure.
To be fair, if Woolf says a book is terrible, that's really to be taken as a compliment. Seeing how horrendous her works are.
What an astonishing snob she was. I am proud to be underbred. If only the English could hear themselves. Ulysses is prophetic a generation before itself. Starkly beautiful and personal. Bothing she did even touches Joyce.
She is the biggest snob who ever lived
Really.....Woolf is english?
@@barbaralindhjem2488yeah, you can notice by the fact she refers to the irish author as inferior
This is brilliant 😂
I love her analysis of the book. It's my favorite thing by her.
😂
A lot of comments here are either praising Woolf for taking Joyce down a peg, or berating Woolf for not being able to see the full genius of Joyce. It's either Woolf is a master writer who knows exactly how to make a classic while Joyce is an undeserving hack with a catalog of novels filles with monstrous pretentiousness, or it's literally the exact other way round.
Gentlemen, ladies, enbies, you're all correct.
James Joyce's novels are rambling, near incoherent messes that break the very concept of narrative, and should be considered required reading for anyone wishing to grow up and out of their more adolescent phase of reading simple stories to soothe the mind.
And Virginia Woolf's novels are exactly the same way.
I couldn't get through either Dubliners or To The Lighthouse before I hit 25, and that's okay. Trust me, there's genius and madness to be found in both. The trick is to be well read enough to understand the difference.
Edit: Speaking of madness...
It's been about a week and a half since I made this comment, and the replies immediately derailed from any discussion of the content of the comment or the video, and is now concerned with me "pandering" to the "latest trendy madness," which is (let me just gather my notes here) the simple acknowledgement of the historically based and factual reality that a significant portion of the world's population identifies with neither of the two arbitrary gender specific boxes we put people in at birth because of their genitals.
Yes, I do respect non-binary people.
No, I do not think respect must be earned.
I respect all people until they do something to deserve to lose that respect, which does not include a person's identity, and which does include any statements or actions they may make as a personal decision.
In which case I could call a not insignificant number of people in this reply section who will choose to ignore the objectively correct reality of the world, "utter imbeciles without compassion for their fellow man unless they fit into the unbelievably restrictive categories we arbitrarily place on inherently complex human beings in order to not hurt their ickle wittle brains too hard," and I would not lose an ounce of credibility in my argument.
And for the record, yes, I couldn't finish Dubliners when I was younger, because frankly, I found it more boring than my church service.
I have grown since then, mentally, socially, emotionally, and I advise several commenters in these replies to do so before society moves past the need for them.
You couldn't get through 'Dubliners'?
Dubliners is not even remotely difficult to get through though. Are you stupid?
@@spencerburke he also said "enbies", of course he's illiterate
@@carpinchosexenjoyer1893 Yes, that's very odd to see. Do some people really use that term? In a non-sarcastic way?
@@spencerburkeyup, most people who choose to respect non binary folks do.
Ulysses was and still is not everyone’s cup of tea. It demands hard work from the readership because it’s unlike anything the reader has ever read or will ever read. Woolf’s “roast” is basically a rant birthed by frustration-Ulysses can frustrate the reader.
Holy crap imagine what she thought of Finnegans Wake!
I've always loathed Virginia Woolf, and now I have another reason.
Its important to have read at least some literary criticism of Ulysses before reading the novel. His Finnegans Wake makes Ulysses look like an Enid Blyton book. Joyce was god-like in his literary visions. He will never be matched.
I agree with her. That book is awful
Thank you for interesting facts and stories that I would never known otherwise.
That's £230 today!
And why do we care what she thinks?
Because she's one of the greatest authors in English literature 😕
People don't give opinions depending on whether you agree with them or not. (i.e.. You don't have to care what she thinks.)
Reminds me of vladimir nabokov 😂
I just finished portrait of an artist as a young man, and it was hard to get through. Not because i thought it was pretentious or anything, i just didnt care about the story. Probably will be a long time before i attempt anything else joyce
You should consider reading 'Dubliners', probably the most normal thing Joyce wrote. An excellent book.
"hard ti get through" how old are you, i understood it as a teen.
She wasn't wrong. It's a terrible book.
Greatest novel in the English language by far .
@@paxtonplato9771
Haha no 😁
@@barbararice6650 Nice try mate 👍
@@paxtonplato9771
Well it's subjective one English writer or the other, I find the book gibberish detailing the tribulations of a cuck, but you like it obviously 👈🙄
@@paxtonplato9771
Oh come RUclips the cuckoo word isn't against jesus, stop deleting my replies 🙄
Okay as for you, I find Ulysses by James Joyce absolute pretentious gibberish with a daft plot, however you seem to think it's of some worth, I can't argue your subjective opinion, have at it, I know the Irish push him because he's the only notable Irish writer who wasn't Anglo/Irish 😑
Everyone knows who the greatest writer in the English language is and I don't need to tell 😕
Very fancy way of saying “damn this guy needs an editor”
Well if that's what she thought of Ulysses, I need to hear her take on Finnegans Wake
I love James Joyce. I read all of his works last year. That's really disappointing to think that she thought so lowly of him and his work.
Your British accent on top of your articulate, erudite presenations is really the cherry on top. Respectfully, one of your American cousins.
Plus: he looks like a young Feargal Sharkey.
Her description also accurately summarizes my perception of a lot of media today. All flash and no substance, more concerned with high handed pretention than with just actually being worthwhile
lol. She was a jerk.
To be fair Wolfe comes off as posh and pretentious too
Virginia Woolf was full of crap. If anyone wrote "tosh" it was her, she'd know all about it.
I'll be honest. Your off-handed comment of "she paid a considerable amount for the book; 4 pounds" made me curious because 4 pounds seems like a trifle amount.
However, £4 in 1922 would equal £285 today. Which is $360 (yes, I'm American 😅). Anyway, yeah, I understand why she was so angry that the book was so bad. She literally paid a small fortune (compared to that time period) for that book.
I enjoyed it.
The advice I'm glad I followed was to keep reading when you know you are missing things. Once you get to the end, you'll either want to read it again -- and you will struggle less -- or you will put it down never to pick it up again but never wondering if you had quit on it too soon.
It's funny to me that these are also 2 of my favorite authors!
I so like the fact that in this day and age you are such an insightful collector of literature. I apologize for my ageism bias. It seems so many young people I meet are only interested in the digital world.
I’ve only ever read excerpts for school assignments, but that’s because I didn’t enjoy reading it either. 😂
She shot at the king but didn’t kill. Ulysses is as high a height as English has reached as a language. You’d have to turn to Goethe or Dante or Cervantes or Basho to find a peer
Which one of those wrote in English?
@@jandocherty5834 none
Yes, as far as the language it is Shakespeare level
I'm not afraid of her
I could not agree more.
Wow. I had a tough time sometimes convincing my students that beloved and famous writing was also disliked, often by others in the same anthology!
I’d go with Joyce over Woolf any day of the week.
Sounds like she was jealous.
Ulysses is brilliant, but just not as brilliant as Joyce and others have said so.
Did any other book's reputation have so much to live up to?
Ulysess was ridiculous.
I have read the first five chapter many times and put it down everytime. I didn't care about the characters enough to continue. One of the few books I have ever put down without finishing.
When I was 16 I started to read Ulysses and after about 20 pages I was under the impression that Joyce hated me personally.
I tore it apart and threw it in the trash
Joyce: 1 You: 0
😂 what
To be fair I nearly did the same with Gravity’s Rainbow, the book was not finished unscathed.
I think her take is absolutely spot on
Thank you...and Virginia.... I've not much time left and always wondered if I was about to miss out. Maybe I'll just start watching Marvel movies for the last few whatever.
having read the book, I totally agree with Ms Wolf
LOL She was wrong.
That's rich coming from the author of Mrs. Dalloway, possibly the most boring and pointless book I've ever read.
I didn't like reading the book myself, but the audiobook is fantastic. A great narrator who takes a breath in all the right places made a huge difference to me.
Pointless? How?
And as someone who was forced to read Ulysses in university, I love her for that
Sadly, she never wrote anything half as good as Ulysses
The most scathing review of a novel is to say it could be oh so much more
She nailed it. 👍🏻👏🏻
I made it a hundred pages before I tossed it aside, furious with Joyce for having made it so deliberately unreadable.
She summarized very well my own feelings on Ulysses. It’s a work I want to like. But I can’t.
I have to agree with Virginia!
Coming from the stream of consciousness poet like cmon bru
I've held the manuscript of Ulysses... well part of it ... Where I worked.
Amazing! Hi Tom , any old editions of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre ? Thank You. 😊
I posted a couple of videos about a first edition of Wuthering Heights back in the spring!
@@tomwayling O I m sorry, thank you. I m new here! Really love your channel! I m an artist and illustrator and i m so glad I found your channel! Best Wishes.
no problem at all!! Thanks for finding me :)
@@artangel4172
I actually haven't read Ulysses but I did use the very end of it has the opening of a Chamber Opera that I wrote a couple years ago. Lends itself very well to music surprisingly
I never could stand VW writing, but here I cannot disagree with her.
I disagree. Ulysses is brilliant!
Oh, I didn't know this. There videos are always interesting.
I agree with some of her assessments but Ulysses is fun to read and once you read one of Woolf's books, there is no need to read it again.
I feel the same about Finnegan’s Wake.
I couldn't get through "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man"
Could be talking about Nabokov. Tricksy.
Oh an English person was offended by the sensibilities of James Joyce? Color me surprised.
Plenty of Irish people don’t like him either 🙄
@namedrop721 sure, and I wouldn't reject their opinions outright lol since they might actually understand the language they're reading.
@@MarkRasslindumb take
Well, she was absolutely right about her prediction, for whatever Ulysses is, Finnegan's Wake is more.
I felt the same way reading it!
God DAMN hahaha
I had a friend in college who loved Ulysses. Turned out he was stoned all the time. He read one sentence at a time, enjoyed it, then read the next one. I tried it his way and it didn't work for me. I always though Ulysses was incomprehensible.
Poor Henry Lamb caught a stray one there.
Exactly my reaction to reding Virginia Woolf. The most appalling rubbish.
Ok, but who are you?
That is V.Woolf talking about James Joyce's masterpiece!!
Who are you?
@bluesque9687 Someone who loathes Virgina Woolf. Joyce, I rather enjoyed, though I don't consider it an earth-shattering masterpiece.
@@bluesque9687a reader? Actually I'd believe in a fairness of his opinion rather than Virginia's one. She was egocentric and jealous.
@@SM-ef7yp O'cmon, egocentric?
There is no artist without some higher than usual amounts of egocentricity! ..and, that includes James Joyce and Virginia Woolf!
I have read many of her essays over the years to discover other literary figures, and as one would expect, she doesn't write to pander to the whims or tastes of her readers!... she is true to herself and her incredible intelligence!
There is a certain kind of "correctness" that people look for these days to "normalize" everyone.... it has killed or alienated many potentially good artists!!
@@bluesque9687 If you read Woolf's essays and that's how you interpret her stances, fair enough. Knowing few of her novels and Joyce's prose, I just think that she's very petty and tries to undermine his creations. But maybe it's because of my love towards Ulysses and awareness of its influence on contemporary literature, philosophy and even ancient studies!
I'm with Virginia. I'll never read it again.