Chris Hedges on James Joyce's Ulysses

Guest: Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author. He has a piece a sheerpost.com called Heeding the Lessons of James Joyce's "Ulysses," A Century Later. He is also the author of the book Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison.

[@zehrajafri9252]

Great discussion. Chris Hedges deserve's utmost respect for his knowledge and compassion for all humanity. 💟

[@edwardb7811]

This is a helpful introduction to a great work of literature. Before visiting Dublin, I read the book, one chapter at a time, and viewed one video track at a time. I used The Teaching Company's "Joyce's 'Ulysses'" by Professor James A.W. Heffernan. In this way, over a period of days, I got through the book. In my opinion, the work is incomprehensible to most of us mortals unless we have some help to understand the allusions. If we do have such help, the work very much rewards its reading and is good preparation for a trip to Dublin.

[@pktdbgnzwl]

Thanks for the tip re Hefferman🙂

[@johntravena119]

I got through Proust but I couldn’t get past page 50 of Ulysses. Gotta give it another try.

[@geoffreynhill2833]

Thanks, Mitch. Good bloke! 🌈🦉

[@dreamwaves2rg]

My Mom read to me several of the passages in Finnegans Wake during my formative years and at that point in my existence, the lines seemed quite ridiculous. I imagined that Joyce was pulling an elaborate prank on the Literary Establishment by publishing this “stream of consciousness” so listening to the interview was quite enlightening. I hope Chris analyzes this seminal work in even greater detail during future videos because I am still perplexed by its “meaning” - fascinating conversation…..

[@redwine2664]

There are over 800 pubs in Dublin alone. James visited all as often as he could.

[@37Dionysos]

Lifelong writer with decades of joy and study of Joyce. Best "Ulysses" companion is Joyce-biographer Richard Ellmann's "Ulysses on the Liffey," a relatively small/short but extraordinarily clear presentation of the Joyce-original "Schema" for his book that makes each chapter of "U" very accessible and fun. It illuminates Joyce's incredibly rigorous "propositions" about (qt. Ellmann) "desirable and undesirable life," about kindness vs. cruelty, substance vs. schmaltz, the relations of nature and art etc. Once you know Joyce's core ethical concerns, all the allusions and fireworks are things to enjoy rather than worry in each reading. "Kish is for anticheirst, and the free of my hand to him!" ("his wrong shoulder higher than his right")...

[@glenngouldification]

Great Joycean insights from Chris ! Thanks for this post

[@jerriharvey4641]

Thank you 🙏

[@urielandros2862]

Thanks for a great discussion.

[@peterstanziale3211]

Alexander Scourby's reading from the "Talking Books" for the blind in the Library of Congress I think was done in 1967. You are right it should be read aloud,,, to sense that irish "thing", that verbal charm they posess for storytelling

[@lauriekash3980]

Chris, you are quite a wonder in our pursuit of a trurth narrative. I told my friend, how I I love Chris Hedges, even though when I awaken from a beautiful dream in morning; like Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, others. Chris, sort of challenges my day that I was hoping for a bit to find a sifter shore of respite. . Great beautiful interpretation. Thank you Chris,. Ulysseyes in College, lost me. Perhaps the professor was just not as informed. Thank you.

[@zehrajafri9252]

It's so sad that Ulysses is still relevant a century later, it show's how little humanity has been allowed to evolve by the crooks controlling the world. The masses need to wake up to their potentisl as human beings in caring about their fellow human beings, suffering their suffering, wanting for others what they want for themselves.

[@robertrichard6107]

WWI was just running out of stock with the introduction of the Spanish Flu (Biological Warfare) by the U.S. It was allowed (WWII) to be bought 'on time' as soon as women could pay with more soldier born in various countries and Austro-Hungarian physicists could figure out that atom bomb thing of Einsteins'.

[@peterstafford4426]

The book is nearly impossible to read.

[@richardwyse7817]

also "A Portrait of the Artist as a young man" is avail on DVD, some earlier work.

[@reggiebald2830]

Rev, Prof, Doc Hedges has been a constant hero through many decades (I'm 74)! He has always had my utmost respect! (Mitch, you're swallowing your microphone & your voice is muffled; btw)

[@richardwyse7817]

Joseph Strick's 1966 film version is very accessible, IMHO......on VHS only if i remember, worth searching out.

[@citygasbatteryriot964]

Scatology. In Ireland, one of the joke debates was, does the queen actually shit, on her bog seat, made of stolen gold?

[@jjutt87]

"The whole arms trade itself is one of the major factors for- behind these perpetual conflicts because they empower people with a pension for violence, and an access to weaponry, and it distorts the kind of balance within the country.. Empowering those forces that are designed to be violent at the expense of other aspects of civil society."

[@innaminute523]

A difficult novel but well worth the effort. There is nothing like it in Western literature. A distant relative in terms of complexity and depth might be Gravity's Rainbow.

[@BookClubDisaster]

Very different books though. Pynchon is certainly not a writer of everyday life or the common man. Very different interests.

[@gfarrell80]

I'd take Dostoyevsky's Brother's Karamazov, or Melville's Moby Dick, or Balzac or Dickens before Joyce. Joyce is garbage. All art forms at the turn of the 20th Century were undergoing radical explorations. You had the beginning of abstract non-representational painting and sculpture, experimentation in modern music, and modern architecture. It was all a grand exploration of putting changes in the form over the content, for the sake of trying to find something new. Joyce is the guy who made exploration of form more important than clearly communicable content in literature.

[@josephsmith765]

I'd love to see something about the sacred fount by Henry James

[@kulturfreund6631]

I mostly just read short novels, news magazines and satirical magazines or even Mad and U- comix Definitely missed a lot of these epic works. A friend of mine had the persistence and used to read Dostoievsky etc. Him saying that the most exciting climax after 600 pages into the book was when a vase fell on the floor and broke into shambles. - Stuff like this where you don’t know whether or not you get rewarded after days of reading is what makes me hesitate to delve in to them.

[@kulturfreund6631]

P.S.: I think I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life watching YT and broadcasted videos.with titles like „Why you should read >Ullysses

[@rgzhaffie]

And yet, you probably hope to live a good seventy, eighty years or more, but you don't even know whether you'll ever get rewarded for holding out all of that immensely longer interval, either!

[@mistermousterian]

Stop reading. It's toxic to you.

[@kulturfreund6631]

@Jeffrey To prevent from being misunderstood: I appreciate authenticity and thought very much, both of which you can have, without having read huge epic works of literature. I witnessed enough people who read books like these and who didn’t seem to have had any benefit from the wisdom or charme or brain from these books. I can rely and have more of a pleasure with people who honestly admit they’re no scholars (but who nonetheless may have intelligent things to say) than with those who are just pretending to be smart and knowledgeable, but who turn false and coward and stupid followers within their circle of „intellectuals“ without having ever struggled and fought for a position, moreover one where sacrifice is the only reward.

[@mistermousterian]

@@kulturfreund6631 There are people who think they know the Trojan cycle because they saw a Brad Pitt movie. I have endured a lifetime surrounded by bullying, and insecure knuckle draggers, who will never experience the rewards of taking on a challenging work out of the canon. Don't enable them, charming louts that they may be. Fuck 'em, actually.

[@ramonorestesmendozaahumada9440]

Brasil, Paraíba, João Pessoa

[@rosaliagrun9039]

Agradezco traducciones

[@pj7309]

Excellen+t!

[@alexsmith2526]

when at UNI there was a must read -as in the hobbit -lord of the rings - and ULYSSES -a hard read that one -years later i still have not finished it -as it was doing my head in HA HA

[@gfarrell80]

John Ralston Saul did a great takedown of James Joyce in his 'Voltaire's Bastards'.

[@jjutt87]

"The whole country is awash with weapons.."

[@operaguy1]

1) "Read Joyce because of the style and tricks and clever literary references." Fine. Any other reason?

[@tomjohn8733]

The entertainment industry love to glorify hero’s, everyone loves hero’s, every countries highest medals are always awarded to those who exhibited heroism in the face of death, in the U.S. the Medal of Honor has been awarded to more corpsmen who have risked their lives to save men who have been wounded on the battlefield, yet the most decorated men are alway combatants, in WWI, Calvin York, in WWII, Audie Murphy, who many thought was to small for military service, and York was a conscientious objector based on his religious beliefs, bravery isn’t about machoism, it about the willingness to sacrifice oneself for others, war is an the failure of leadership to resolve issues peacefully, and only necessary when all else fails, and by those who capitalize on war profiteering, weapon manufacturing should never be in the hands of private industry, even though it was war that ended the depressions, which was caused by the failure of capitalist etc…

[@pktdbgnzwl]

Mohammed Ali was one of the USA's greatest "war heroes" , oops i mean Peace Hero. He very publically said 'no' to being drafted in to the French Colonizers' Viet Nam war,& he clearly articulated his reasons for refusing to go. He was threatened w jail time until the "supreme" court ruled in his favor, thereby protecting his civil & human rights in that instance.

[@tomjohn8733]

@@pktdbgnzwl indeed he did, but most everyone I knew who dodge the draft, did so as much for economic reasons, than for ideological conscientious ones, but I applauded his decision, even though i enlisted voluntarily, doing several tours in Nam, onboard ship, stupid senseless wars, there hasn’t been a honorable war since WW2, The Japanese, I believe went to war because we were unfairly monopolizing the trade in Asia, their ambassadors were suppose to declare war before Pearl Harbor but their t8ming was late…

[@tommonk7651]

Since when is the book pronounced Uleeeseez?

[@joyharmon1110]

I was surprised that he didn't pick up his error after hearing his guest pronounce it properly several times. He could have taken the hint and corrected his pronunciation during the rest of the interview.

[@leostokes]

on his wise shoulders through the checker work of leaves the sun flung spangles dancing coins

[@mistermousterian]

That's like a painting or a clip of some film.

[@paulkinsella6536]

@@mistermousterian I tried to read this book, got about one third of the way through it and gave up. Very complicated work. Might try it again sometime.

[@johnjepsen4243]

Woodrow Wilson didn't want WW1?

[@fanyaelyashkevch1946]

It is good when he talks of Ulysses - but he should not go into politics- not his area …😘

[@peterstanziale3211]

Joyce glorified a bowel movement.

[@mistermousterian]

You read it, right?

[@paulkinsella6536]

@@mistermousterian He drank a lot of Prune juice.

[@mistermousterian]

After making his wife's morning tea he goes and takes a shit for himself, described in a way that anyone who has had the function would be sure to relate to. Nothing glorified. Utterly natural.

[@jameslabs1]

The bad guy from the movie “lethal weapon” reviews books hahahaha “diplomatic immunity.”

[@bobobahia]

"Jame" Joyce

[@tfitness4u]

Extremely hard to read 😃

[@rd264]

Ulysses features Dublin June 16 1916. Thick americans cant bother this book - its not enough to ride a cheap tour bus - they dont know the little greens in leaf falling darkening autumn and emergent greeny spring, the dour pubs and humb backed streets splashy with diesel. A hero, Mr Leopold Bloom, an ad man who carried a potato and liked to hum a bit of opera, navigated the sidewalk scylla and charbydis the scruffs and saints of dublin and suffered. Joyce was poor and poorer as the famiiy moved down and down, but his porter fond father gave him good early schooling by the jesuits at Conglowes and that together with Nora who he met on June 16 1904 presarved him. Tweet away, dont forget to say "OMG'.

[@operaguy1]

3) plays the "Donald Trump card."

[@donaldreed2351]

"Pure rot," according to Evelyn Waugh.

[@Fritz999]

I have read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and other books as big and hard to read, and read Ulysses as well. No, it wasn't all that hard to read. But was it worth its praise? Definitely not!!! As far as I'm concerned, it is not worth the time I spent reading it.

[@mistermousterian]

Don't be influenced by this comment. It's worth every minute.

[@jlb9210]

You should probably stick to the Harry Potter books or maybe Dr. Seuss. You clearly can't understand or appreciate a book of this caliber. If it's not hard to read, it's all going over your head.

[@gfarrell80]

@@mistermousterian have you read John Ralston Saul's 'Voltaire's Bastards'? There is a nice passage on Joyce in there. I'm with Adalbert Ptak. Joyce is garbage and absolutely not worth the time. You can read massively better books, Joyce should be near the bottom of the list.

[@mistermousterian]

@@gfarrell80 what kind of comment is that? you must be a very young person, it's the time of life to be overly Superior and narcissistic. you got issues preg,

[@gfarrell80]

@Jeffrey Richards narcissistic? My comment is flippant and judgmental, but not narcissistic. I just personally believe that somebody would be better served by reading about a hundred or more other classic works before they crack open Joyce. I've read Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist, and part of Ulysses, and part of Finnegan's Wake. My personal feeling is that somebody who hasn't read, say, Moby Dick, or The Brothers Karamazov, would be better served reading those two (and several dozen other good books) before bothering with Joyce. Joyce IMHO marks a turn of the 20th century break into modern art movements, where artists started experimenting with style over content. Painting, sculpture, architecture, music - all mediums of art were undergoing a crisis of modernity, feeling they needed to start experimenting with different forms in order to place themselves in the clearly changing modern times. Joyce is the guy who got there first in literature, playing with language and deconstructing the novel. Atta' boy, somebody had to do it. But the exploration in form and style makes the real meat of a novel (the meanings and connections and human observations rendered about our world) less accessible. In my opinion of course. John Ralston Saul's 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' is a heck of an interesting read (one I would recommend reading before reading Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake), and he has an interesting take on Joyce in it. I don't agree with Saul on everything, but I agreed with him on Joyce.

[@davidjacobson9907]

hedges should stick to literary criticism. He is excellent.

[@JSwift-jq3wn]

The monumental garbage, it only demonstrates the loss of historical perspective, the bankrupt West. The same reader goes to museums, waste his money and time watching opera and considers Picasso a genius.

[@glenngouldification]

Well, at least doesn’t spend countless hours scrolling through social media while making inane comments that are of NO import. To set things right. Museums are amazing, opera is wonderful, Picasso was a genius and Ulysses is arguably the greatest Novel of the 20th century.

[@JSwift-jq3wn]

@@glenngouldification you have no historical perspective, no clue about art or culture. I like my social media gadget. Ask yourself, seriously, what do I know, which has originated in my mind? Do I have a mind? Ask yourself.

[@glenngouldification]

@@JSwift-jq3wn If you decide to try school ask your middle grade teacher if you have any chance of attaining any knowledge in anything. If they are honest they will tell you NO.

[@JSwift-jq3wn]

@@glenngouldification Your reply shows that 1) you're immature 2) lack formal education 3) fancy yourself intelligent and knowledgeable 5) cannot think out of the box 6) must be right, regardless of the idiotic misconception.

[@glenngouldification]

@@JSwift-jq3wnYou are right, I was wrong. Forget about registering for middle school. Total waste of time !