Ulysses [Paperback]

Hugh Kenner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1987

With characteristic flair, Kenner explores the ways Joyce teaches us to read his novel as Joyce taught himself to write it: moving from the simple to the complex, from the familiar to the strange and new, from the norms of the nineteenth-century novel to the open forms of modernism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Page for page, the most illuminating book yet written about Joyce's novel... No one in nearly sixty years of intense critical activity has seen more than Kenner, or has described what he has seen with greater love and enthusiasm.

(A. Walton Litz Times Literary Supplement )

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Revised edition (March 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801833841
• ISBN-13: 978-0801833847
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #640,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take off the Training Wheels, August 4, 2000

By 

BARRY DEVINE (dublin, ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ulysses (Paperback)

Kenner does a fabulous job dissecting Ulysses into various themes. He brings out ideas and elements that are not evident to a casual reader. As good as this book is, however, IT IS NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME READER. This book is for readers of Joyce who are ready to take off their training wheels and go for a real ride. First time readers of Ulysses would be much better served by the New Bloomsday Book (excellent beginner's guide) or even the Cliff's Notes (pretty good, but misses the mark occasionally).

If you have read Ulysses once and are ready to enjoy it again. This book will open a lot of Joyce's mysteries for you.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable insights into this remarkable fiction, September 4, 2005

By 

J. Clemons "clotblaster" (Surfdom California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ulysses (Paperback)

I have been reading Kenner for over 37 years (I'm 55). I have learned so much from him about how to read literature (not just his favorite modernist writers). His analysis/presentation in Ulysses, is easy to follow and understand (although it rewards, nay demands, close, readings. It is a guide book of the highest order and, like all things Kenner wrote, is entertaining in its own right.

It will help all readers, especially those new to Joyce and his daunting novel. The reviewer who said it wasn't for the beginners fails to undersand that to read a difficult fiction, sometimes you have to wrestle with seemingly difficult interpretations and approaches to the difficult literature--not that kenner's prose is opaque or difficult (nor is it burdened with obstructionist theories--his difficulty is not in the same pale with the deconstructing satan or post-modernism, but his keys to the kingdom of Ulysses does require more than one reading to fully absorb and use (it is full of exciting insights but it's main purpose is pragmatic: to help the reader read and understand this wonderful, yet complex, never-to-be exhausted book).Joyce's novel enriches the reader the more times he reads it. Though Joyce's Ulysses offers varied and many gems, Kenner does not believe in the reader pouring his own interpretation and biases etc. into the novel. We need some knowledge and background to read Ulysses, but Joyce creates the meaning. Our task is to understand. Kenner is our teacher.

When reading his Kenner's Ulysses. Kenner makes you aware of the many wonders of Joyce's novel, while making sure you understand that there are countless other details and wonders to explore and to enjoy on your own

He equips the reader of Ulysses to adventure with confidence into this wild, comic love-fest of Dublin, the imagination, and the dark and light beauties of life. Kenner prepares/conditions the reader not to read to see Kenner's insights, but to take the pathway of discovery and imaginative (and spiritual) enlargement on the reader's own. I highly recommend his other two books on Joyce, his book on Eliot, and, of course, The Pound Era, perhaps the finest sustained work of literary criticism every written. Please also recognize the connection between Ulysses and Mahler's symphonies.