The Hypertext Chapbook (x): The Christmas Edition

Ulysses_SnowThe last round-up for this year I think and since Christmas is only a couple of days away and most sensible people are thinking of hibernating (those in northern Europe and along the East Coast of the US anyway) we’ll keep it short and sweet.

First up is a nod to literary blogger Lisa Hill who continues to keep pace with me and my far less illuminating reading of the great book. She makes for a good read when I’m lost!

A blog post from Cathy Furlani makes me glad I’m not a student of any sort right now. Some professors are just cruel. She doesn’t mention which books she’s been given, but any two by Joyce sounds like a bad dream to me!

Because I’m not a Joycean scholar, or indeed any kind of scholar at all, I sometimes come across articles that are completely outside my ability to process them in any meaningful way. So I bookmark them and maybe one day in the near future all will become clear. Here’s a little something from Paranoids Online apparently about Finnegan’s Wake, but which also has something on Ulysses too.

Here’s one of those random message board conversations – wonderfully abstract and entertaining if you are in the mood. I don’t recommend it, but it just kind of exists and is what the internet is full of! You might rather want to see if Jon Hopley‘s notes on Ulysses are going to get him through his test. It may be a little late and he might not need any help. Like I would know? Here are some more notes from Madeleine Klippel – a lot of notes! Must be the time of year!

This is more my kind of thing – a battle royale between Joyce and Eliot – winner takes all! A fun idea from Aditi Machado which I think has at least two legs. It makes for great blogging at any rate.

Another great competition might be “Who’s got the best bridge?” And there’s a new boy in town. Check out Beckett’s whopping great construction over the Liffey via this article in the Guardian online. Better than the 2003 bridge dedicated to Joyce – you decide!

There’s an essay on The Nervous Breakdown that is all about self publishing. You can probably skip it, but I sometimes like to remind myself of a few facts and this stuff does apply to the web, which has taken the notion of self-publishing to new depths. Is publishing on the web self-not-publishing?

I might have mentioned the book Poisoned Pens before but perhaps it was review from someone else. Anyhow I always enjoy reading this kind of thing. Here is a review is from the Irish Times. The part referring to Proust is particularly relevant. Hilarious anyway.

I never thought I’d see the day when James Joyce and Terry Wogan were mentioned in the same breath, but is there something SO Irish about Joyce that no Irishman can be mentioned without having the connection made somehow? I’m sure you’ll answer yes! Radio presenter Terry is perhaps not well known to a US audience, but he’s an institution here and long overdue ready for one in my opinion. No, really he’s harmless. News(?) of his non-retirement is mentioned in the online Telegraph.

Finally this looks good – a rare treat to get something visually about James Joyce or Ulysses or whatever, but visual rather than written. Anyhow this poster posts posters!

Some of the other things I get to read are unmentionable here. These Google searches can be bad for your health. My health. Oh, I see it now. I’m always the last one to realise!

2 thoughts on “The Hypertext Chapbook (x): The Christmas Edition

  1. Hello and thank you for ‘the nod’!
    Down south in the antipodes, I too will mostly be hibernating because I don’t like the heat. I’m on holidays till late January so I should have a bit of time to idle away with Ulysses…
    Don’t be too hard on Cathy’s professor: the titles are almost certainly Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, and Portrait is an easy read and a good intro to Ulysses. They were on my undergraduate reading list many moons ago, and I’m so glad they were or I would never have tackled Ulysses, much less be reading him for the third time now.
    I love all these links you’ve shared…they’re going to keep me away from the books for quite a while *grin*
    Enjoy the festive season!
    Lisa (ANZ LitLovers)

  2. I agree with Lisa that it’s great to read Portrait of the Artist prior to reading Ulysses. It’s a bit less daunting, and Ulysses contains references to it. I had read the former twice before opening the latter.

    I’d like to add that I think my experience with Ulysses was made much more enjoyable by the fact that I had also read works like Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 and V., Don Delillo’s Underworld, and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. I think Joyce opened the door for all of them, and my experience with them made it easier for me to get into the rhythm of Ulysses and to see the humor that a lot of first time readers seem to miss. I will also mention that I read all of the above works by choice and not by assignment (except for my first read of Portrait), so that may also have allowed for a more positive experience, as well.

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