I've had a copy of this in my house for many years. Should I put the effort in and read it? (I didn't follow it on TV many years ago...)

 

I've tried but gave up. Some books are worth the effort but that's down to the individual reader to find out if it was or not.

 

Odd question. All I remember about reading it was that it was hard work. That would be roughly 50 years ago. The only book I remember starting and giving up on was Anna Kerinina.

 

Ulysses is one of the very few books I've abandoned without finishing - but it's your choice.

MickLL

 

Agree with the others. I've tried to read it several times but couldn't get in to it.

It does make a great bookend though!

 

I've tried twice and got about a third of the way in both times. Not sure I understood it. I'd probably need a student edition with notes.

 

Buy a cop of The Dubliners and read that instead.

 

I read "Dubliners" many decades ago - probably when I was doing National Service. I had time then to do a lot of reading, and I remember reading "War & Peace", Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" and many others, as well as finding time to print my own photographs. Sadly, I neglected my academic studies, and I really should have kept my mind sharp for when I took up my delayed place at University reading physics.

 

I heard a good tip on the radio if you read a book and don’t like it give up when you reach your age page, at 64 I recently became thirty again and I don’t regret not finishing an awful book

 

Just taken your advice and spent a whole £2:11p on a copy including postage

 

Enjoy.

 

The Feynman Lectures on Physics are a far better read than any work of fiction. Its even free on line.(https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/ Perfect for Covid lockdown.Can anyone suggest a classic text on the maths needed for volume 3 of the Feynman.

 

Sorry, I have only got volumes I and II.

 

I bought all three as a set many years ago. Although I am a physics graduate, and Feynman is for 1st year undergraduates I do not understand volume three. The lectures are still relevant and I would recommend volumes one and two to any student on the brink of studying Physics at Uni. Get them under your belt and you have a flying start.

 

Gosh! and thanks for the references.
It's a big jump from "Ulysses" by James Joyce, and an area I ought to be more familiar with, but I moved from physics to electrical engineering.

 

This might well be of interest as well, as it's an online version, together with a lot more material as well.
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

Also, CNN interviewing Feynman about the Challenger disaster.

 

It is not a fair comparison. If you take as a basic thesis that Ulysses is incomprehensible and is essentially a textbook (you only read it if you have to) then, off my bookshelf, "functional analysis" by Walter Rudin is utterly incomprehensible and, sadly, proved a total waste of the £4-10 I paid for it in 1977. I suppose I could try reading it again. I bought a statistics text book 3 months ago to understand something better, and I do ( I think).

 

Whoops! Just noticed that Pete has already cited Feynman's Caltech lectures!

 

I didn't mention Caltech - I just said that I owned vols 1 and ii of the lectures on physics. They haven't been read since - guess - 1976 - might be time to brush the dust off.

 

I've never tried 'Ulysses', but admit to trying 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' a few times and always being defeated by it.

When I was 15 my class at school was given 'Catch 22' to read because our O-Level English Literature 'theme' was 'War in the 20th Century', so as well as all the classic novels and poetry about WW1, this was offered too. I recall that out of a class of 30, only about half finished it. I read it over a bank holiday weekend, and still have a copy of my own purchased a few years later. It gets re-read every few years and always impresses. Perhaps now would be the ideal time to try 'Ulysses', if I had a copy.