Underwhelmed by Ulysses, especially compared to Absalom Absalom! Which I read directly prior

By bronzeFish1980

Hi everyone—I feel like I’m about to get roasted for this. I just read *Ulysses* for the first time, and I used an episode guide site plus ChatGPT for clarifying questions. I did get some laughs and there were definitely parts with nice, fun-to-read writing, but overall I felt like the book was trying really hard to be clever—kind of intellectual, kind of flowery/whimsical in a way that didn’t totally work for me. I’m a psychiatrist, so I’m extra aware of what “consciousness” is supposed to feel like on the page, and I didn’t think it really captured it the way I hoped. To me, it felt more like talking around consciousness than actually getting inside it—more like it was doing a performance of it. And I kept thinking of someone like Charlie Kaufman, who to me feels more true to how thinking actually goes. I also respected the talent, especially in the earlier “big” episodes like *Oxen of the Sun* and *Ithaca*, but the constant stylistic switches and the way it’s structured after *Ulysses* (plus the Hamlet stuff, including Shakespeare showing up in *Circe*) felt a bit gimmicky. For comparison, I read *Absalom, Absalom!* right before *Ulysses*, and I honestly can’t picture choosing *Ulysses* over it. With *Absalom*, the writing kept giving me this creeping, emotional impact—like actual chills—and it even made me tear up at parts. The emotional punch just felt way stronger. With Joyce, again, I felt mostly “cognitive” effort. Has anyone else read both and ended up feeling similarly? Or do you totally disagree? Also I’m a middle-aged American guy, so… I don’t know if that changes my taste at all. Edit: I’m really enjoying the discussion. And yeah, I know people are reacting to the fact that I used ChatGPT. I wasn’t using it to summarize or interpret anything—I mostly used it like a dictionary, to remember minor characters, or check Irish history/politics when I got stuck.