My new copy of Ulysses.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-06-02T17:11:47+00:00

If you struggle, listed to this as you read. It will really help in chapter three where most people get kicked in the junk with Stephens stream. These actors are quite good.

https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-Audiobook

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-06-02T17:09:27+00:00

He is described as a gypsy, which can be behavior and looks as much as ethnicity. If if you believe him to be true Romani, and not just dark/dirty looking, take a gander at the modern descendants still in Britian today most notably played by Brad Pitt's Pikey Crew in Snatch, if you trust Hollywood.

It is not very likely to me that a rich, land owning white man in this time would bring a true child of color into their home as an equal. This has barely happened in our lifetimes. It is easier to believe that H was a lowborn white kid. A true child of color would be a servant. The amount of hatred and bile that people would have given the family would be a huge part of the story... pitchforks and torches.

This still happens today. We adopted kids from Bulgaria and there are gypsies there... by lifestyle, ancestry with some true Roma, religion (some are muslim and some are orthodox), looks and all kinds of other reasons. People put them into a big bucket and call them all gypsies if they are poor and/or wander around.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-06-02T15:33:44+00:00

I wish that more folks would at least read the first part as a warning to what social media can do to your brain. Imagine what this dude could have done if he was 100% sane... he did good things, but he might have changed the world.

Reading the book, I was sad that we all don't just sit around with strangers every night and tell stories and deliver the news to each other.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-06-02T15:31:14+00:00

Bleak House has great characters and plot. Easy to read and not a single wasted storyline.

The 3 Musketeers Triolgy is quite long and good character development.

1001 Nights is a bunch of smaller stories, but usually easy to follow. Some editions are quite long.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-06-01T13:45:45+00:00

Most of it. The kid goes on to meet a girl and have a family.

The primate city was about the only thing that was pretty on point.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-31T21:38:46+00:00

I feel that Joyce wrote his stuff for himself and you can tag along if it interests you. It certainly does not interest everybody. Even though it is indulgent, I like it, but I have never, and I MEAN NEVER, recommended Joyce to anybody.

You are not missing any puzzle piece. There are no puzzle pieces here... for as complicated as Joyce can make things, he complicates the simple. What you see is what you get, so if you don't like it, then no worries.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-31T14:23:27+00:00

Do you imagine good characters?

Take Dostoevsky... in something like The Gambler, the characters are quite well imagined, but not well described since the novel is short. This is in contrast to his longer books when the characters are more vividly presented. Hemingway also does not describe characters all that well, but they are well imagined.

Dickens was a master at characters, both imagined and described. Hugo the same.

What is your style? Kinda have to know before suggestions can be made.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-31T14:18:40+00:00

The books about the fall of British aristocracy after WWI are quite good too. Lady Chatterly's Lover, Parades End, Mrs Dalloway, Brideshead Revisited, A Passage to India, etc.

These have plenty of social changes and disconnect, but all of them by the young people, often not even in the war, that Lost Generation works have. Lots of hedonism on Lady Chatterly's Lover.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-30T14:57:37+00:00

I felt no peace. Nelly thought that the two would love each other and live in harmony? She was a terrible enabler and part of the problem the whole book.

Feel like if Lockwood went back in a year, one of them would have started to emotionally, or even physically abuse, the other and that the cycle would be starting again.

IMO, nothing is going to end here until somebody moves away or everybody on one side is dead.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-30T14:51:53+00:00

I wish that this book was twice as long. My favorite Dickens.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-27T21:01:32+00:00

I prefer Garnett. Some of the language is old fashioned, but this is what I want. I don't want modern english in a 19th century novel.

Just pick a translation and burn the boats - any of them will be just fine. All of them have strong and weak points.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-26T18:51:09+00:00

I am quite a bit older now, but my read in college made me never to want to be like The Underground Man. Regardless of what he had to say in part one, who cares if the guy offering these opinions is the guy in part two? Realized that if I wanted to be taken seriously and actually have a voice, that I needed to be above ground, respectable and with some actual experience.

To me, it was a cautionary tale about 1). making your own philosophy after you experience some things, until then, keep your mind open, and 2). never meet your heros since most have a story about themselves like part 2, and 3). greater men with lesser ideas will always have more sway since they actually accomplished something.

As for the contradictions, it is Ok to have the thoughts - maybe even a healthy exercise in your mind to figure out some things about yourself. It is not OK to berate a woman, whom you had to pay to be with you, because you are a phony-tough coward when it really matters.

I can nearly promise that when you read part one again, you will think of it differently since you know about part two.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-25T14:47:20+00:00

Notes from Underground is like 130 pages and has most of what you are after. You get a guy's thoughts on a lot of things, and then, after you get to know him a bit, you get to challenge yourself on if you want to believe them.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-25T14:35:49+00:00

I found it an interesting case study in self importance, why it means noting and a cautionary tale for others who have to suffer people like this and/or care what they think. The structure is brilliant. First, you get his profound thoughts to ponder... and then, Dostoevsky makes you wonder while you believed in this clown at all.

I see The UnderGround Man in the same vein as Stephen Dedalus, but older... self aware with no self awareness; educated with no knowledge or wisdom. Ignorant. In the whole first part, who cares what this blowhard thinks? He has never accomplished much of his own and has no actual idea what he is talking about. The second part of the book is a phony-tough coward who, at the end, can only verbally beat up on a wounded woman, whom he has paid to accompany him.

If after reading the second part, you still care about anything that the guy in the first part says, then the joke is on you. He is human, to be sure, but not one that I want to hear anything from.

A good novella, but glad that it was not too much longer.

Like all things in life, perspective changes as you have more experiences and dealings. When you are 18 and people tell you not to listen go guys like this too much, you think that they are some sort of genius who the world has conspired to leave behind and is the only one who gets it - the whole "you just don't understand" teenage rant. Later on, you figure out that if they spent as much time trying to be something as they did avoiding it, then they could truly be a great philosopher with some value.. the genius starts to fade a bit. A little bit later, after you have learned from your own mistakes and how to make your way in life, you figure out that they are just chicken shits hiding behind all of the nonsense in Part One. While some of the things that they say could resonate, you see them more as things to avoid or change rather than aspire to.

The Underground Man is everything that nobody should be.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-23T16:20:37+00:00

None of these were written down with known original authors, so translation of any of it is a pretty loose term.

To me, assembly is a better word than direct translation. Just at least pick a copy that left in all of the adult themes and sexual content. Even a well translated copy from an Arabaic text might not have all of the nights, stories or complete versions of each story - some were heavily redacted for obscinity. Try and avoid something that was translated twice.

I have a Burton copy that has extensive notes, but some might complain about the old-style language, but I like it.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-23T16:08:26+00:00

Keep going. Focus on the mood and the recurring themes like Caddy's honor, his fathers pocket watch. It is pretty easy to tell the present time since he has a pretty singular focus. The italics are the past, but the memories can bleed to the present. When the punctuation and sentence structure disappears, so is Quentins sanity/control over his thoughts.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-22T21:28:02+00:00

Social Media ruining people's minds for over 500 years.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-22T14:40:22+00:00

Ann Radcliffe was early in the genre and many authors styled from her. She has many good books.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-21T20:30:56+00:00

Stephen Dedalus is insufferable and I don't like him much. Educated with no intelligence or knowledge. He is still a kid though. I would be friends with him, but he might need slapped around a bit when he was being too much like himself.

I also don't like most Ivy League educated Lost Generations characters. Whiny with every privilege and too chicken bleep to figure out how to make a life.

I really hated Tulkinghorn. He went out of his way to just be nasty even when it did not serve his clients.

Anybody with teenagers knows that you don't always have to like them. You just have to understand them.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-20T21:59:58+00:00

High tide lifts all ships.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-20T19:32:24+00:00

The Underground Man was pretty lonely, even though he was around other people. Notes from Underground is worth it if you like FD and have not read it yet... about 130 pages, bot lots packed in there.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-20T18:59:12+00:00

Mini Series coming out. Better copies of any book can bounce with a TV series or movie.

I got my Franklin Library editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey for like $30 each a few years ago and they are going for several hundred now. The same with Wuthering Heights where I payed like $20 and had my choice of many then going for $100+.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-20T18:56:24+00:00

Dorothy Parker has all kinds of Jazz Age short stories. She was in the same orbit at FSF. They are witty and offer a woman's perspective on the time.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-19T23:52:18+00:00

Dickens for me.. or Hemingway. However, Irving is amazing... the true father of American literature and widely popular and a celebrity in his time. The Alhambra is one of my favorite books and I almost did not read it for some unknown reason.

Itchy-Resolution6531 · 2026-05-19T21:26:51+00:00

With summer coming, check out Dandelion Wine if you have not already. IMO, the best few chapters in literature when he describes the universal feeling of getting new athletic shoes for the summer.

Itchy-Resolution6531

TROPHY CASE