(oops.)
Make that less than a fourth into Ulysses. Gah, it feels like more. LOTS more.
I read Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in absolutely no time at all. Two days each, maybe 3 or 4 including the weekend. They were fast reads. The Twilight saga? Finished the whole series within a week. Now, granted, I was reading them at work to pass the downtime instead of futzing online....and Ulysses is my "read a few pages every night" book. But even so, I'm not compelled to read it into the wee hours of the night or take it with me everywhere I go.
It's interesting, but would be more enjoyable in a smaller dose, I think, and I can't help but wonder: is it popular because it's been banned? Because of its (alleged) obscenity? [I hear tell it's at the end, so is that my reward for sticking with this?] Because it's supposed to be analogous to the Odyssey and use a bunch of literary devices? Screw all that -- the bottom line is, is it enjoyable? Sometimes I think that people say they enjoy things because it makes them sound cool to say, "Oh, I love [band/artist/book]!" or because they've been told that it's good (*cough*Shakespeare*cough*).
C'mon, let's face it. Adam Bede is an example of Victorian literature, but it's not very good. In fact, it's as dull as whale shit. Actually, I think whale shit would be more interesting than that. Edna O'Brien's Down by the River? Horrible and triggery. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to publish that?
I understand tastes are different and all that jazz, but doing something just for the shock value is -- in my humble opinion -- juvenile and only goes to show that the shock 'artist' is nothing but a hack who can only garner attention because his/her stuff is "shocking" rather than because it's actually good. Marilyn Manson, for example, looks and acts like a freak - but have you ever really listened to his (their) music? Some of it is downright emo, banal, lifeless, and really quite pedestrian. Now, I'll grant you, I do enjoy some of their songs, but not enough to call myself a fan in any sense of the word. The songs I like aren't terrible, but the bulk of what I've heard is utter crap and I don't know if I could pull enough of the songs I enjoy from his oeuvre to fill a single CD. It's one thing to say "they can't all be gems," but it's another to release entire albums that have no redeeming tracks (or a single track worth having). Maybe it's just me.
Heh, "They Can't All Be Gems" sounds like the title to a collection of B-sides. Or an ironic title for a Greatest Hits compilation. At any rate, I'm not solely picking on MM, because there are a shit-ton of musicians as well as visual artists out there who are in the same boat (Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ," anyone?)
I digress. My point is that I'm not sure if Ulysses is going to end up in the "I enjoyed it" pile by the time I'm done....or if I'm going to have the gumption to actually slog through the whole thing. Something had better HAPPEN soon for me to be encouraged to read the book itself rather than the Wikipedia entries.
I read Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in absolutely no time at all. Two days each, maybe 3 or 4 including the weekend. They were fast reads. The Twilight saga? Finished the whole series within a week. Now, granted, I was reading them at work to pass the downtime instead of futzing online....and Ulysses is my "read a few pages every night" book. But even so, I'm not compelled to read it into the wee hours of the night or take it with me everywhere I go.
It's interesting, but would be more enjoyable in a smaller dose, I think, and I can't help but wonder: is it popular because it's been banned? Because of its (alleged) obscenity? [I hear tell it's at the end, so is that my reward for sticking with this?] Because it's supposed to be analogous to the Odyssey and use a bunch of literary devices? Screw all that -- the bottom line is, is it enjoyable? Sometimes I think that people say they enjoy things because it makes them sound cool to say, "Oh, I love [band/artist/book]!" or because they've been told that it's good (*cough*Shakespeare*cough*).
C'mon, let's face it. Adam Bede is an example of Victorian literature, but it's not very good. In fact, it's as dull as whale shit. Actually, I think whale shit would be more interesting than that. Edna O'Brien's Down by the River? Horrible and triggery. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to publish that?
I understand tastes are different and all that jazz, but doing something just for the shock value is -- in my humble opinion -- juvenile and only goes to show that the shock 'artist' is nothing but a hack who can only garner attention because his/her stuff is "shocking" rather than because it's actually good. Marilyn Manson, for example, looks and acts like a freak - but have you ever really listened to his (their) music? Some of it is downright emo, banal, lifeless, and really quite pedestrian. Now, I'll grant you, I do enjoy some of their songs, but not enough to call myself a fan in any sense of the word. The songs I like aren't terrible, but the bulk of what I've heard is utter crap and I don't know if I could pull enough of the songs I enjoy from his oeuvre to fill a single CD. It's one thing to say "they can't all be gems," but it's another to release entire albums that have no redeeming tracks (or a single track worth having). Maybe it's just me.
Heh, "They Can't All Be Gems" sounds like the title to a collection of B-sides. Or an ironic title for a Greatest Hits compilation. At any rate, I'm not solely picking on MM, because there are a shit-ton of musicians as well as visual artists out there who are in the same boat (Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ," anyone?)
I digress. My point is that I'm not sure if Ulysses is going to end up in the "I enjoyed it" pile by the time I'm done....or if I'm going to have the gumption to actually slog through the whole thing. Something had better HAPPEN soon for me to be encouraged to read the book itself rather than the Wikipedia entries.