AND SO THIS IS HOW I'VE READ ULYSSES

Pretty me, reading Ulysses
hahaha! It's not Marilyn, it's...
MADONNA!

THIS the FOLLOW-UP to my previous post:
"Reading Ulysses: Guided Or Unguided?", so it might help if you want to read that first.

Every REFERENCE in this post is listed at bottom of that first post "Guided or Unguided."

INTRODUCTION

James Joyce's Ulysses intimidated me. I wanted to prepare myself before I began it. I wanted to research and find out ahead of time, for example: Which edition? Read it cold, or buy guidebooks to explain it? -especially on the first-time read. Which guidebooks? etc.

In the first post "Guided or Unguided" I researched and learned the many options readers have, for "how" to read Ulysses.
By now I'm halfway through the last chapter! Yes! Here I tell you which of those options I chose, "how" I read Ulysses after all.

So you can go read "Guided" where I research my options; or break the suspense now and keep reading to see what I chose!

Reading Ulysses: Guided or Unguided?

cover of Poets and Writers. Photo by Eve Arnold 1954
           publisher: Abrams Books, Eve Arnold's photos of Marilyn:  website link

Marilyn kept Ulysses in her car
to dip into for ex. while
waiting for Eve Arnold,
her photographer

BACKSTORY:

How will I go about reading Ulysses?

The way that Marilyn Monroe did, perhaps? I think yes, I will. More about her, further on.

Follow-up: I did decide how I will go about it, and wrote a follow-up post to tell you my decisions:
"And So This is How I Read Ulysses"- this time with Madonna!

So, I am about to tackle Ulysses after all these years; I have a friend who thinks it's one of the most enjoyable books ever, but even as a great reader I felt no shame at knowing I never planned to even attempt it. It wasn't until I became a fan of 1000-page books, and filled a bookshelf with them- stacked, not standing- that it ever entered my head to try.

Here I am hard at googling..
or somebody is..

Will I use my usual method of reading things? Above all I am analytical, and like to understand what I read. I research everything. Nothing escapes my academic approach- the arts included- even the scorned teen series Twilight (which I venture to admit reveals an interesting side).

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY

                  cover of Poets and Writers. Photo by Eve Arnold 1954
           publisher: Abrams Books, Eve Arnold's photos of Marilyn: website link

Look closely at Marilyn's book, yes it is Ulysses **

. . . Looks like she's at the end, probably the monologue . .

I don't have the right to put Molly's entire monologue, as I didn't read the book (only parts here and there, actually), so I'll just put the very end. Molly's monologue has absolutely no punctuation, just one long sentence lasting several pages, and ends the book.

This year on Broadway, Molly is read by Fionnula Flanagan, famous since 1968 for her interpretations of Joyce roles:

. . . Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

                            Fionnula now, still beautiful     photo: abc                                      

** A letter from Eve Arnold about the day she took the photo:

“We worked on a beach on Long Island…I asked her what she was reading when I went to pick her up (I was trying to get an idea of how she spent her time). She said she kept Ulysses in her car and had been reading it for a long time.

"She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it–but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively.

"When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her.”

I hear it from Joyce fanatics that surely this must be the way Joyce intended his work to be read- as Marilyn, and in fact as I, dip into it here and there, moment to moment, epiphany to epiphany; and to read aloud.

There is not even a need to understand what you are reading: how many people understand their favorite poems?

Eve Arnold's letter from: R.B. Kershner, Joyce and Popular Culture.

-----------------------------
Please comment, below