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.
@@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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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
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.
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
Thank you to Ms. Woolf for writing such an accurate description of one of the most grossly overrated books in literature. What she wrote 101 years ago still holds true. And thank you, Mr. Wayling, for posting this!
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 haven't read Ulysses but more people should talk about how his previous work (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) is much simpler and easily one of the best (and one of my favorite) books ever written
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.
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
Nahhhh infinite jest goes hard. You can dislike the convoluted schizophrenic style but that book is less pretentious than both the writers in this short and most of this comment section
@@HeatMiserr I read part of it and stopped because I became convinced that David Foster Wallace actually didn't know what he was doing or why he was doing it. I mean can you at least explain what the goal was in using that 'schizophrenic style'? Because I dug and dug and found nothing. Very little of that book felt deliberate, so yeah, that reads as pretentious.
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 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 discovered early on that all critics were good for was encouraging me to.read books I otherwise wouldn’t have attempted. Si I thank them and their role but not always their writing
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.
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.
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'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.
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
@@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.
