What is it about Ulysses? It’s generally acknowledged to be both almost impossible to read and one of the greatest books of the modern age. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, have tried to do so more than once, and failed each time.
It’s not just that I want to read Ulysses: I also want to LOVE it. I want to marvel at its depth and insight. I want it to amaze me with thoughts and ideas that have previously been unknown to me but which seem, once having read it, to be completely obvious.
And truthfully, I want this, not just because I want to experience Ulysses this way, but also because I want to be the kind of person who experiences Ulysses this way. I have matured and grown wiser about many things in the years since I first tried to read it, but for me, reading and loving Ulysses is still ultimately about establishing that I am smart, and deep, and perceptive. That I have intellectual value. It’s pretentious and pompous and childish, and I dislike that this is how I feel, but it’s how I feel.
My life has been blessed in many ways. I have a family I love. We are fortunate to all be healthy, have food on the table and a roof over our heads. As my children stretch their wings and start to find a place in the world, I find I’d like to stretch my wings a little more too. Make a new space and redefine myself. So I’m going to read Ulysses. A little bit — one part of each episode — a day, and blog about it here. To make sure that I follow through (I sometimes have issues with that!), and to help myself digest and process.
I hope that actually reading Ulysses and writing about it will be even more amazing than what I described three paragraphs ago. I’m also afraid that it won’t be — how could it? Either way, I hope to learn and grow more while I figure this out. Maybe reading Ulysses will help me stop thinking that reading Ulysses matters.
DGA
Blogging Ulysses 