Joyce is meant to be read like poetry. It plays off the sound of the language. His stuff is genuinely awful to sit down and read, just like it would be awful to sit down and read through a collection of poetry (to me anyway). Some Authors play with language in a good way, like the way Hemingway rarely attributes dialogue and forces you to pay attention and understand why the character would say something like that. It also reads very minimalist and leaves a lot to your own imagination and voice.
And this is where I feel like the mental state of the reader affects the way they are likely to respond to a given text.
Whenever I’m reading a good book (or poetry), I am able to mentally narrate the text and enter a flow state. Dialog is narrated with purpose, and with a story it basically turns into a film in my mind. My appreciation of the text is affected by how well I can conceptualize it.
But my friend has aphantasia. He can read and understand the words on a page just fine, but that’s all they are to him. It’s hard to puzzle together certain elements of deeper meaning when all you’re really looking at is the relation of words to one another.
Point of clarification. I think there’s a big difference between reading something where your internal narrator is a beat poet as opposed to a broadcast news presenter. If you slowly absorb Joyce and narrate it yourself properly it can be enjoyed. But if you sit down and read it like you would a news article, just trying to scan for info as fast as you can, you miss the entire point of the endeavor.
I only read the beginning of the Ulysses (had to return the book sooner than expected) and the flowing of the words and concepts one into the other is absolutely unique. I felt like I was carried among by the gently flow of a river.
Joyce is meant to be read like poetry. It plays off the sound of the language. His stuff is genuinely awful to sit down and read, just like it would be awful to sit down and read through a collection of poetry (to me anyway). Some Authors play with language in a good way, like the way Hemingway rarely attributes dialogue and forces you to pay attention and understand why the character would say something like that. It also reads very minimalist and leaves a lot to your own imagination and voice.
And this is where I feel like the mental state of the reader affects the way they are likely to respond to a given text.
Whenever I’m reading a good book (or poetry), I am able to mentally narrate the text and enter a flow state. Dialog is narrated with purpose, and with a story it basically turns into a film in my mind. My appreciation of the text is affected by how well I can conceptualize it.
But my friend has aphantasia. He can read and understand the words on a page just fine, but that’s all they are to him. It’s hard to puzzle together certain elements of deeper meaning when all you’re really looking at is the relation of words to one another.
Point of clarification. I think there’s a big difference between reading something where your internal narrator is a beat poet as opposed to a broadcast news presenter. If you slowly absorb Joyce and narrate it yourself properly it can be enjoyed. But if you sit down and read it like you would a news article, just trying to scan for info as fast as you can, you miss the entire point of the endeavor.
I only read the beginning of the Ulysses (had to return the book sooner than expected) and the flowing of the words and concepts one into the other is absolutely unique. I felt like I was carried among by the gently flow of a river.