Lauren Smith’s Reviews > Ulysses > Status Update

What d’ye mean you dinnae ken windwhips wot from Donny wayland and er closelings?

(What do you mean you don’t understand slang from Ireland and its neighboring countries?)

(No that’s not authentic slang. It’s gibberish j made up.)

Okay. First nine chapters done. I can do this.

I fuckin hate you, Stephen Dedalus.

I go away, come back, consume a hunk of a chapter, and wander off again. This is ideal. This book, heavily annotated, is incredibly rich. And now that we’re out of Stephen Dedalus’ stupid head, we can actually enjoy the journey.

I used The Joyce Project’s website to read annotations after listening to the radio drama first chapter, and decided it’s just simpler to read text and annotations at the same time.

Dear god I can’t imagine reading this raw, because no I don’t know my 1800s Irish history, my obscure Catholic theology, or my Greek classics.

It’s a hearty chew.

Here we go.

I was honest with myself that I wasn’t going to have the attention span to read such a long work. So, I’m listening to the 1982 Irish radio production. In for a long haul.