Moving on …

I finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie while stranded on a powerless streetcar yesterday. This is significant only because I was so intent on the story that I didn’t even realize we’d stopped moving until a woman sitting near me unwrapped the biggest piece of barbequed pork rind imaginable (if one imagines such things) and started to chow down.  

Loved the story. Definitely a book I’ll pick up again and suspect I’ll have different questions after each read … Why such disdain for the girl guides? Is it significant that Teddy Lloyd has only one arm? I have to admit that knowing Sparks worked as a propagandist during WW2 may change how I approach the book next time. 

The National Library of Scotland has a quick overview of Muriel Spark’s life and work available here. 

Picked up Saturday by Iam McEwan yesterday during lunch and am 50 or so pages into the story. Have officially abandoned Ulysses. Will taunt myself with its greatness some other time. Am looking forward to reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, which a colleague is currently enjoying, and joining Kate’s Book Blog short story group.

Amy

Taking a knee ten pages in …

Oh my. Such incredible excitement when I first cracked Ulysses. Such horrible panic when after only ten pages I was back on-line looking for reading notes and a bit of context. I did find this, which was helpful:

“Although Joyce only began writing Ulysses in 1914, he had been laying the plans for it since 1906. His intention was to create a fictional Everyman– Leopold Bloom– to rival the classical figure of Homer’s Odysseus (aka Ulysses), which Joyce admired as the most well-rounded portrait of a human in literature. But he took the tribute a step further by making Bloom’s adventures parallel Ulysses’s, on a much smaller scale.

The action takes place in 18 chapters spaced approximately one hour apart, starting at 8:00am on Thursday 16 June 1904, and ending in the early hours of June 17.

The central parallel to Homer is that Bloom’s wife Molly– like Penelope in Homer– is being courted by a suitor, the dashing Blazes Boylan. In order to win her back, Bloom must negotiate twelve trials– his Odyssey.”

Alright, that’s helpful. I read The Odyssey in college and thoroughly enjoyed it. More importantly, I understood the Odyssey … Right now, I don’t have the same confidence in Ulysses.  

I felt slightly better after listening to Sounds like Canada this morning as Jian’s only 100 pages into the book and he started the Ulysses challenge ages (days?) ago. Unfortunately, I tuned out much of the discussion and returned to it just as the listener-reviewer was suggesting that any movie version of Ulysses should be structured like TV’s 24. Given that I now know the story takes place over the course of one day, I’d buy that if I wasn’t so completely off the show … 

As a side, there’s been a bit of a debate in The Globe and Mail about Joyce’s work since Saturday’s article about how his “grandson has intimidated legions of scholars in copyright skirmishes.” Letters to the editor over the last couple of days have been less about the article and more a continuation of the debate over whether anyone has actually read Joyce.

Finding Ulysses

Seems like I may have to borrow Ulysses from someone (…Joscelyn?). I popped into Coles bookstore this afternoon with the misguided hope of buying a copy so I can start reading this weekend. According to the sales clerk, there’s one copy left at the World’s Biggest Book Store and that’s about it as “everyone who listens to CBC has already bought us out.” My local library isn’t really an option as it’s closed for renovations, though I might try Nicholas Hoare or the independent bookstore on the Danforth on my way home.

If anyone has a favourite bookstore, especially in downtown Toronto, I’d love to include a running list on the site. I tend to frequent the big chain as there are three stores within five minutes of where I work, but I would happily walk a little further to support an independent.

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Tried to find Ulysses on the Danforth and was told that three copies were back-ordered. Seeing as how I have yet to find a “damn, I loved Ulysses” comment anywhere, I grabbed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Will work my way through that until I can grab Joscelyn’s Joyce. 

Amy

Ulysses Challenge

Jian Ghomeshi, summer host of CBC’s Sounds like Canada, has thrown down the summer reading gauntlet … with nothing less than James Joyce’s Ulysses.  After reading about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on Bookworm and Kate’s Book Blog, I was going to tackle it next but think I might give Joyce a go.

There’s a reader review of Ulysses on Chapters.ca that mirrors what CBC listeners said during yesterday’s interview: “…Ulysses is required reading. Of course, you’re not required to enjoy it.”

Now, that doesn’t exactly scream “summer read,” but there’s no shame in having several books on the go at once and I figure I can always put Joyce down and enjoy a less dense read if needed.

If anyone has already accepted Jian’s challenge, I’d love to know how it’s going …

Amy