Ulysses

By: James Joyce

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly

The first authorized, unabridged release of this timeless classic and exclusively available from Recorded Books. Ulysses records the events of a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin, Ireland.

Public Domain (P)1995 Recorded Books

A marathon stream of consciousness

The book seemed to me to be an enjoyable stream of consciousness. It was very well read but hard to follow. This would be better read than listened to. Seemed hard to follow and I ended up backing up to figure out the current setting several times. In the end I resigned myself to not closely following the story and just enjoying the dialog.

Joyce changes 20th century Literature

An indescribable experience. Joyce pushes the boundaries of what defines a novel--establishing Modernism and stylistically unmooring 20th century Lit from what came before it.
Introspective, whimsical, vulgar, obsessive, honest.
Now I've said how important Ulysses is (and it is, it feels like there are books before, and books after-- it echoes through so much of what came after) how do I rate it? As a landmark, all the stars. As a novel, 4 out of 5 stars. Not 5 because it is SO relentless about breaking ground, it sometimes distracts from 'feeling'.

A Maze of Complexity

Possibly one of the longest and most arduous journeys in literature, but one must take it. It is a journey of a man, but arguably a journey of EVERY man. Brilliantly narrated by Donnelly. Very interesting to draw the parallels between it and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. At times it grew long in the mouth, but I also understood that's part of the point.

Greatness

This audiobook was a delight to listen to. Donal does a great job narrating it for the most part. His voices for the different characters are excellent and his pronunciation of different languages is very good. His French may not be the best. His pauses and stresses for different thoughts of Bloom is to be commended. Miriam in ‘Penelope’ episode was delighful to finish off.

It was sad to come to the end of this book because I fell in love with it. I don’t think there is a greater book I have read in my life and there may not be going forward. Joyce was a genius and he crafted this gem so patiently and exquisitely. I am happy to have read the Gabler edition as I believe it is the perfect copy of the text and one if Joyce were alive he would have approved.

Brilliantly performed but pompous and turgid prose

If you love 19th and early 20th century purple prose then this is for you. Hailed as one of the greatest classics in the whole cannon of Irish literature, the concept is brilliant and the linguistic fireworks are impressive. Nevertheless Joyce is clearly on a mission to catalog and exhibit every word in his vocabulary whether it adds to the prose or not. I found it to be a monumentally pompous exhibition of his undeniable erudition and with scant thought given to whether the over-use of flowery language would add anything to the enjoyment of the reader, save a smug few who might enjoy the opportunity to congratulate themselves on the richness of their own vocabularies. Sitting through 40 hours of this was an effort of will power and unrewardedhope that it might turn out to be something interesting. Given the status of the work my views may be considered by many to be little but crass philistinism, but I believe this work to be little more than a literary version of “The king’s new clothes”. I suspect more readers or listeners will buy in to it simply because it is such a great classic. Personally I found it dull as dishwater, save for a few very enjoyable dialogues. None of this detracts from the performance of the narrators, however, which was a simply stunning tour de force.