What is Ulysses? Help me understand.

By LilyLovesBooks64

I’ve gotten through about 100 pages of Ulysses and I still have no idea what I’m reading it for. It opens with Stephen Dedalus, then it suddenly shifts to Leopold Bloom. I can tell what the big theme is supposed to be, and that it’s basically Joyce riffing on The Odyssey—but that doesn’t make it any easier. The dialogue stops so abruptly and then it goes into this “thinking” part out of nowhere, like there’s no real connection between the bits. There isn’t much continuity, at least not in a way I can follow. I really want to actually enjoy it, but so far it’s mostly been hard and annoying. How do you all get the right perspective for this book? Also: wow, you people are genuinely really nice.