Ulysses

To read this book, you need a great deal of background knowledge. You have to be well versed in Irish history and culture, as well as English literature. Fortunately, it is annotated, so I managed to read 400 pages while constantly referring to the notes. But I eventually gave up. I wish I had given up sooner. The overwhelming flood of rambling thoughts is exhausting. I never have random thoughts that are as endless and contextless as Dedalus’s. Bloom, too, pours out a flood of thoughts, yet when it comes to something important, such as anti-Semitic discrimination, he simply stops thinking altogether. Perhaps this was what the author intended, but I could not accept it.

• 조이스, 제임스. 『율리시스』. 김종건 역, 생각의나무, 2007.

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