Well I made it 300 pages in...

[WCGreen]

I just can't finish Ulysses. It's is falling in on itself for me. Too much word play getting in the way of what ever story there is hidden underneath.

[BlooInBloo]

Heh. If it hasn't grabbed you in the first 300 pages, it's not likely ever to.

EDIT: I ran into a similar wall with Middlemarch.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I'm not surprised...

I think it's one of those books that people claim to have read, really...

[villager]

2. going to kick back with Finnegan's Wake, instead?

;-)

[WCGreen]

3. I loved the Dubliners

I read it long ago and then listened to Gabriel Byrne read the stories while driving to and from DC...

[Arctic Dave]

4. I'm reading "Foucault's Pendulum" and I feel the same way.

Three months of grinding through it and I still have a couple hundered more pages. I will be really pissed if it doesn't form a plot real soon.I want to start reading "Essays" next but I have problem with finishing books no matter how horrible they are.

[WCGreen]

6. I feel that way as well..

But this one, the word play is supposed to be the whole point of the book but there are so many allusions and references to things I had to look up just to understand what the hell he was tlaking about. I tried to let the language wash over me but I felt as if I needed a life raft.

I like magical realism such as the great book a Hundred Years of Solitude, but this one, not so much...

[Arctic Dave]

10. The "word play" is the very reason I never even lie to

myself about being interested in reading it.

[Orrex]

8. Foucault's Pendulum is far from horrible

And if you haven't stumbled onto the plot after 200 pages, I think that your copy might be missing some of the text!

:evilgrin:

[Arctic Dave]

9. I'm pretty sure I have the plot, that is the horrible part. Ugh.

I guess back in the eighties it might have been something, but my god, please let it end.

[Orrex]

11. Well, it's widely regarded as the finest fictional treatment of conspiracy theory

Surpassing even Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, but of course YMMV.

I didn't read it in the 80s, so I have no idea what you're talking about. I read it in 97, 99, 02 and 05, if memory serves.

[Arctic Dave]

12. I guess I'm not that interested in because of the "conspiricy"

aspect of it. The copyright for the book is 1988, so reading it in the nineties would be correct.

[BeatleBoot]

5. I just finished, "War, What is it Good For" by Tolstoy

Well that was the original name of the book anyways...


:rofl:

[WCGreen]

7. Give me Tolstoy any day...

[Onceuponalife]

13. Nice Seinfeld reference!

[bottomtheweaver]

14. Wait til you try Finnegans Wake.

If I read the Bell Jar correctly, it's what sent Esther Greenwood aka Sylvia over the edge.