What to read before Ulysses? What to read before Finnegans Wake?

France, 1922. Joyce after another eye operation.

(Photo from the Rosenbach Museum and Library)

>>8595346
>What to read before Ulysses
Just read it, it's not hard and the references aren't even that important. (Odyssey)

>What to read before Finnegans Wake?
No point reading anything before it besides for Ulysses.

>>8595495
What about New Science and the Egyptian Book of the Dead?

Ulysses:
English/Irish history, The Odyssey, The Bible, The Hamlet

>>8595495
>Just read it, it's not hard and the references aren't even that important.
>>>/pseud/

The best order:
>Dubliners
>Portrait of the Artist
>Ulysses
>Finnegan's Wake

>>8596288
this. If you didn't find Ulysses to be a dense read, then you barely read it.

>>8595346
Boss?

>>8595346
Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Reading To Prepare For Ulysses Real Hahahaha Nigga Just Buy The Annotations Like Nigga Open The Book And Read It Haha

>>8595495
You missed 90% of the book

>>8595346
>Ulysses
The Odyssey
Hamlet
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

>Finnegans Wake
If you are asking this question you should probably just not read Finnegans Wake tbqh.

>>8595346
>>8598451
You think people would know this already, yet here we are.

Hmmm the book is called Ulysses so maybe that book about the guy Ulysses (the one by Homer)?

>>8595518
>the manlet

Portrait, that's it.

>>8598362
>>8596304
>>8596288
If you think the references are the point, you missed 99% of the book.

>>8595346
Reading more classical and folkloric lit will mean you get more out of the wake, but you can just start reading it. It is meant to be read over and over.

>>8595518
Dubliners, Portrait, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Hamlet.

The bible is really not needed, and hamlet isn't necessary, but it is nice.

>>8599077
Yes, you can read it without understanding the references and it will still be a beautiful piece of art. But they are there for a reason. They do shed a lot of light on the novel, and claiming otherwise is ridiculous. References and allusions to other works are placed in novels so that you know where to look, how to approach it, what to pay attention to, and what to have on mind when thinking about what you're reading.

I've read Ulysses three times so far and I agree the references are not the only thing that makes it the great novel that it is, but I see no reason to claim they are obvious, unimportant and easy to understand when they are clearly not most of the time.

Only when you read supplementary material do you realise how much of it went over your head. I find joy in digging them out and learning about them. Marathoning through something like Ulysses is justifiable only if you reread it later on and pay more attention to what you are reading. It's so rich that having the 'lol references are just dumb read it for the emotions xD in like two days' mindset is damaging to your brain.

Odyssey, dubliners, portrait of an artist, finnegans wake, ulysses

>>8599511
Nobody has ever proposed anything close to the arguments you're exerting yourself against.

And it is yet your approach that is damaging to both intellect and art. The references requiring supplementary material in Ulysses either relate to period politics, which anyone with some perspective knows it is entirely justifiable to get the gist of and not give more of a fuck about, or are inspirations, underlying framework, at best factoids, the stuff of footnotes in those older works that are no longer interesting on their own and serve only as historical documents, not even references. Who this and that character were modelled after, those things are not and were never the point, Ulysses is not the History of James Joyce's Ulysses. Whatever value you assign to the time you have spent analysing it is entirely your own business and should be unaffected by how relevant it is to other readers, but you are no longer equipped to appreciate a work of art if you cannot make the difference between experiencing it intensely and studying its construction.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

>>8600486
Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

>>8600278
>Nobody has ever proposed anything close to the arguments you're exerting yourself against.

Except >>8595495 has by saying: ''it's not hard and the references aren't even that important. (Odyssey) '' He basically pulled a Nabokov and called some of the most obscure literary passages simple and dwindled them to ''LOL IT IS JUST HOMER xD''


>the references requiring supplementary material in Ulysses either relate to period politics, which anyone with some perspective knows it is entirely justifiable to get the gist of and not give more of a fuck about, or are inspirations, underlying framework, at best factoids, the stuff of footnotes in those older works that are no longer interesting on their own and serve only as historical documents, not even references.


Are you implying you understand all of the literary, philosophical and cultural references in the book without any help, and that what remains -- the things you yourself need supplementary materials to pick up -- is some irrelevant crap and local news from the time?

Also, I pity you if you don't find the works of Homer, Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley, Wilde etc. (all of which you picked up in Ulysses, as you claim) interesting.

>Who this and that character were modelled after, those things are not and were never the point, Ulysses is not the History of James Joyce's Ulysses.

Never said it's the point of the book. I said I find joy in digging out these things and that they do help shed light on some of the aspects of the novel. If you think that understanding a literary reference Stephen is thinking about does not help you figure out his character better than you would without knowing the reference, you're just retarded.

Let's say you ask me how I feel and I reply with a line from a book you haven't read and leave. You wouldn't know what the hell I said, would you now? Of course such an example it's far from an entire novel, but the density of the novel just begs you attention.

>Whatever value you assign to the time you have spent analysing it is entirely your own business and should be unaffected by how relevant it is to other readers, but you are no longer equipped to appreciate a work of art if you cannot make the difference between experiencing it intensely and studying its construction.

Again, not what I said. I was merely saying that the claim about references and allusions being obvious and irrelevant is delusional. At least it's 4Chan, so no one is gonna care. Just don't say that Ulysses is easy, transparent and ''just Homer'' in public.

>>8596291
That's the only order

>>8600510
The one you quote said it's not hard to read (and for anyone who's been reading for their own edification and entertainment, it's not) and that the Odyssey references aren't that important, not that they are obvious. And they're right (Joyce said so himself, that at least must appeal to your kind).
Never said anything about all your authors being uninteresting either. With this level of comprehension, it's not surprising that you would need your hand held through Ulysses. Or are you still inventing increasingly ridiculous positions to argue against? Either way, you're proving that even a deficient intellect is enough to enjoy Ulysses. There's that.