Thoughts on Joyce!

Now unfortunately I’m one of those readers who when reading a book can drift off a little. I can read up to 10 pages and then completely forgot what I’ve just read due to lack of concentration. So i endlessly find myself reading the same pages over and over again and as you can imagine, not a great reading style for James Joyce’s book Ulysses. I had estimated to myself that I could finish reading it within three days or so. Two weeks it took. Two weeks! Now that I’ve finished the book I can safely say that I didn’t understand any of it! But that is the point is it not? Well perhaps not, but it’s not the plot which I feel that was important but more Joyce’s writing style. Writing in the stream of consciousness is what made this book very confusing but also very interesting. Despite not really understanding everything I read, I did manage to pick up the fact that the book shows the same event from different people’s minds to show how we all react different in different situations.
Joyce was a massive icon for modernism. His work also reflects the ideas of Sigmund Freud. For example when Molly Bloom talks about love and men she says “he was as good as any other”. This humanises the characters, and as Freud says we are all motivated by sex. So really Joyce is relating to his readers bringing it to a human level.
I’ve got to admit, its an extremely clever way of writing. If I was to shut my eyes and write in the style of stream of consciousness it wouldn’t work look.....
Wait why is that there? Ha nice. The red plastic, oh look, that good isn’t it. What? Ok stop now.
Now that was purely what was going on in my head for those few seconds. Imagine 300 pages of that?
However despite the book taking me a while to read I did enjoy it. A very interesting writing style, something I have never experienced before.