Like a lot of wannabe intellectuals, I’ve tried reading Ulysses by James Joyce. And like a lot of those wannabe intellectuals - particularly where the accent is on the 'wannabe' - I didn’t get very far. It’s not hard to read, it’s just that there is a lot of it, and it feels like being in a room where someone is telling jokes, and you’re the only one who isn’t getting them.
I know some people today still find it enjoyable and funny, so it can be understood. It was just going over my head. So I searched the web to try get what I was missing. I wanted to at least know if it was worth continuing, or hopefully find a Rosetta Stone for deciphering the humour in it. I found notes on the first chapter, and it went on endlessly about Catholic references. That surprised me — not that it was Catholic; I know many can laugh at themselves — but rather that it was so specific. Ulysses has more than a cult following; I’ve seen it top lists of the greatest books ever written. Surely its entire audience is more than just the Venn Diagram overlap of “Highly-Observant Catholics,” and, “Looking for Catholicism Humour.” That doesn't seem like enough people to propel a book to classic status.
So I’ve continued searching for ideas on how to enjoy the book. Most say it’s not about those religious references or about the parallels to the Odyssey, but about the manipulation of language and the celebration of common people surviving their daily struggles. There are many readers who will attest to how personally enjoyable they found the book, but there’s no real consensus on how to get something out of it: Some say it’s best as part of a class, some say you should just sit back and enjoy it without worrying about symbolism, some say you need a companion book to appreciate it. But the things people do agree about it are that it’s not really necessary to read the whole thing in order, and the first three chapters are kind of a drag. So I may yet try again.
In other old book news, I recently came across an odd title of a book: The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton. Given that it was written in 1908 — and thus even older than Ulysses — the title stood out as kind of avant garde. Also, I’m a fan of the “Thursday Next” books by Jasper Fforde, so perhaps I have a weird fascination with Thursday-related literature. I also noticed that, by coincidence, it had just passed into the public domain last year, so I downloaded it and gave early twentieth-century literature another chance.
To my surprise, I really enjoyed it. It’s the comic story of police efforts to infiltrate an anarchist organization. It has various flavours of satire, farce and surrealism, and delivers humour that feels relevant. It goes a bit off the rails at the end, as it tries to be more profound than it really should be. But I liked the rest enough to forgive it.
What made me think back to my aborted attempt at Ulysses is that it seems the difference is all in the subject matter of political and sociological philosophy. That’s more in my area of interest and background knowledge. So in contrast to Ulysses, I felt like I was in on the joke. It also has a lasting relevance: While the book’s big organization of nefarious rebels are termed, “anarchists,” really, you can insert your favourite ideology of revolutionaries who are too intellectual for their own good. And arguably, the book's age makes it more palatable: we’re insulated from the hot-button issues of the day, so it’s easier to view the concepts in the abstract. And, weird fact I discovered: Apparently there are references to The Man Who Was Thursday in the video game, Deus Ex. I must have missed those. But that weird juxtaposition helps prove the continued relevance.
(Yes, I just argued for the relevance of a 116-year-old book by mentioning its place in a 24-year-old video game. Yeah, that's the world we live in.)
Conversely, I can definitely imagine someone reading The Man Who Was Thursday and reacting the way I did to Ulysses. In the opening chapters, as the characters whip proclamations on the nature of art and human society back and forth, I can see many readers zoning out. But the point is, you may have to search to find something relevant to you, but you may yet find it in an unexpected place. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to hunt down a copy of Frederick Pohl’s Turn Left at Thursday.