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clarkissimo's reviews
1220 reviews
Notebook by Tom Cox
5.0
Genial and thoroughly entertaining snapshots from dozens of the writer’s collection of journals.
Fearless by M.W. Craven
4.0
Suitably sarcastic and bloody. Part Jack Reacher. Part John Wick. Ben Koenig is a ghost, but don’t go after the people he loves.
The Collaborators by Michael Idov
4.0
Globe-hopping spy hoodoo. Car-chases, billions at stake, and theirs a same. There’s always a dame. Loopy but fun.
How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford
3.0
The first 50 pages are a hoot, but the rest devolves into a series of farcical misunderstandings and nothing is resolved. Just a lot of weird stuff happens and then it’s over. Plus, not nearly enough Spock. If you want to read brilliant John M. Ford, I’d highly recommend his novel The Dragon Waiting.
James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study by Stuart Gilbert
5.0
I used this book least while reading Ulysses. I feel it is a book to read after reading Ulysses for the first time.
The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Hastings
5.0
An indispensable guide—other books go deeper, but this one kept me on track in Ulysses. Plus, it’s quite funny.
Ulysses by James Joyce
5.0
I will write more about this monumental book after I process it a bit more. It was absolutely one of the most challenging and flat-out life-changing books I’ve ever read.
I finished Ulysses at 11:15 pm on Jan. 17th, in a bathtub in a hotel room in Barbados. It is without a doubt a momentous moment for me. Although they’d never let me teach a course on Ulysses (my degrees are in writing, and I don’t have a PhD, and things can be quite regimented in academia), I’d love to teach a course titled “Come Read Ulysses with Me and Say WOW a Lot.” I’m not trying to convince anyone to read the book, and I’m not interested in debating its place in the pantheon of literature, but I said “WOW” a lot while reading the book.
It certainly isn’t an easy book, but it is quite readable, even if you need some help from other folks. I had lots of help from two books in particular. Don Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated provided incredible insight into all sorts of elements of the novel, but as I got deeper into the book, I felt I needed Gifford less and less. Patrick Hastings’s The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses was a wonderful companion on the journey. It basically kept things simple, and reminded me time and again that as long as I was reading carefully, that Ulysses would teach me how to read Ulysses.
You don’t need a class to understand or enjoy this book, but if there was a class available, I’d take it in a heartbeat, because the thing missing from reading Ulysses solo is that there really isn’t anyone to talk to Ulysses about. I’d love to talk about this book. Here are a few thoughts about Ulysses:
1). Everything is always happening at once in this book. You can’t be sure how on any given page. All the pages relate to any given page.
2). These are not fancy people with fancy words.
3). You don’t have to understand it. It’s okay to be confused.
4). Even the furniture, the rain, the trees, the farts have a voice. There is music everywhere.
5). These are ordinary lives writ large as our greatest myths.
6). Joyce put everything into the story. Near the end, this includes an unbelievable journey to the edges of the cosmos and down into the unknowable infinitesimal worlds of particles.
7). It is also about a body’s functions, odors, abilities, failings, and urges.
8 I’ve rarely, if ever, felt a character as deeply as I do Bloom--his wandering mind, his problematic thoughts, his desire to be a part of, his desire to be left alone, his guilts and shames and joys and generosities and deep loves. I’m overwhelmed just thinking about him.
9). Ulysses is hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone mention how hilarious Ulysses is.
10). The prose. WOW. Over and over.
11). And an added bonus: Samuel Beckett once said that “Joyce put everything into Ulysses,” so the only thing left for him to do with his fiction was “take everything out.” I love Beckett, and suddenly, I understand his work differently.
12). You can read Ulysses, but you have to want to. If you are forced to read it, or if you start and aren’t into it, it’s going to be a dismal endeavor. I really wanted to read the book, and the book welcomed me in a way that no other book ever has. It’s made me feel grateful for literature in a way that I’ve not experienced before.
I finished Ulysses at 11:15 pm on Jan. 17th, in a bathtub in a hotel room in Barbados. It is without a doubt a momentous moment for me. Although they’d never let me teach a course on Ulysses (my degrees are in writing, and I don’t have a PhD, and things can be quite regimented in academia), I’d love to teach a course titled “Come Read Ulysses with Me and Say WOW a Lot.” I’m not trying to convince anyone to read the book, and I’m not interested in debating its place in the pantheon of literature, but I said “WOW” a lot while reading the book.
It certainly isn’t an easy book, but it is quite readable, even if you need some help from other folks. I had lots of help from two books in particular. Don Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated provided incredible insight into all sorts of elements of the novel, but as I got deeper into the book, I felt I needed Gifford less and less. Patrick Hastings’s The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses was a wonderful companion on the journey. It basically kept things simple, and reminded me time and again that as long as I was reading carefully, that Ulysses would teach me how to read Ulysses.
You don’t need a class to understand or enjoy this book, but if there was a class available, I’d take it in a heartbeat, because the thing missing from reading Ulysses solo is that there really isn’t anyone to talk to Ulysses about. I’d love to talk about this book. Here are a few thoughts about Ulysses:
1). Everything is always happening at once in this book. You can’t be sure how on any given page. All the pages relate to any given page.
2). These are not fancy people with fancy words.
3). You don’t have to understand it. It’s okay to be confused.
4). Even the furniture, the rain, the trees, the farts have a voice. There is music everywhere.
5). These are ordinary lives writ large as our greatest myths.
6). Joyce put everything into the story. Near the end, this includes an unbelievable journey to the edges of the cosmos and down into the unknowable infinitesimal worlds of particles.
7). It is also about a body’s functions, odors, abilities, failings, and urges.
8 I’ve rarely, if ever, felt a character as deeply as I do Bloom--his wandering mind, his problematic thoughts, his desire to be a part of, his desire to be left alone, his guilts and shames and joys and generosities and deep loves. I’m overwhelmed just thinking about him.
9). Ulysses is hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone mention how hilarious Ulysses is.
10). The prose. WOW. Over and over.
11). And an added bonus: Samuel Beckett once said that “Joyce put everything into Ulysses,” so the only thing left for him to do with his fiction was “take everything out.” I love Beckett, and suddenly, I understand his work differently.
12). You can read Ulysses, but you have to want to. If you are forced to read it, or if you start and aren’t into it, it’s going to be a dismal endeavor. I really wanted to read the book, and the book welcomed me in a way that no other book ever has. It’s made me feel grateful for literature in a way that I’ve not experienced before.