uhgreen

I just finished Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" today. I have to say, I liked it. I could definitely use a re-read though, since I'm positive I missed a whole shitload of stuff. My lit analysis skills are lacking, as usual. But, even accounting for my own pitfalls as a reader, I found it to be interesting. Joyce's use of -- marks to denote speech instead of quotation marks was kind of weird at first, but towards the end I actually enjoyed them.

I'm reading "Dubliners" now, with the hopes of actually reading Ulysses sometime soon. I'm going to read Hamlet next, since they say that Ulysses uses a lot of references to Hamlet. Then, of course, I'm going to read the Odyssey, because, well, Ulysses relies heavily on that.

I'm wondering if I should read Ulysses with a supplementary book. A lot of people recommend it, but I always feel that when I read someone elses interpretation of it right afterwards, I tend to lose track of what I originally thought of it. I guess I should just try reading it on my own, and if I can't understand whats going on (which I'm sure is what'll happen) I'll read it with a supplemental book.

Reading Joyce is good after having read a lot of Dostoevsky over Christmas break. Not that D is bad, it's just a good change of scenery. No more St. Petersburg, onto Dublin!