Ulysses (James Joyce)

I am utterly ashamed. I hang my rose-blushed cheeks, my chin on chest. Beaten. Battered. Bashed in what I thought were my brains.

In other words, I cannot get through this. I have had it in my purse for five days an have finished 46 pages. Joyce has some brilliant language but, well, the stream of consciousness (SOC) is too much for me. I like SOC, I do. Have read it before and, yes, it is a struggle to get used to but, once you are inside of the author's world, it usually becomes easier. Not here. At least, not for me. Part of it is the use of outdated allusions, I think. To the Bible or Irish folk songs. In Latin, in Italian, French and other languages. Also, he skips between and within time without transition so the past and the present are both overlapping ghosts. And lastly, and most tangibly, the quotation punctuation is all screwy. For instance, Joyce writes a quote like this:

--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current will you?

This is a basic example from the first page but it gets worse when the speaker's action, the actual words and the main character's thoughts get all together with no "quotes." I guess that little dash is not enough for my pea-sized brain to decode. I surrender, Joyce. I hope, I hope to pick this up again one day and find that it makes sense. That I can swim through it. Maybe I'm just too lazy right now or maybe I just need some sort of Rosetta Stone. Anyone got one for sale? Seen one up on E-bay? "The James Joyce Secret Society Decoder Ring."

No, no, excuse me.

--The James Joyce Secret Society Decoder Ring, she said. I wonder where I could find one?