Ulysses (Wordsworth Classics)

James Joyce

Taschenbuch
Ausgabe vom 4. Januar 2010
Verkaufsrang: 156 (je kleiner desto beliebter)
EAN/ISBN: 9781840226355
ASIN: 1840226358 (Amazon-Bestellnummer)
Ulysses (Wordsworth Classics) - James Joyce
Ulysses auf CD? Geht das?? Natürlich nicht. Wollte man Leopold Blooms Odyssee im Dublin des 16. Juni 1904 als Gesamtheit aufzeichnen, bräuchte man 15 CDs. Zu aufwendig, zweifellos. Vorliegende Audioaufnahme ist denn auch ein Auszug aus Joyces Werk. Eine Art akustischer Appetithappen.
Was für eingefleischte Joyce-Fans viel zu wenig ist, bietet denjenigen, die sich bislang nicht an den genialen Iren wagten, einen schmackhaften Einstieg. Ulysses, oft als zu schwere Lesekost abgetan, zeigt in seiner abgespeckten Audioversion, welch ein Genuss er in Wirklichkeit ist. Dafür sorgt Jim Norton, der den unterschiedlichsten Charakteren, vom jovial-polternden Kneipenkumpanen bis zur feinsinnigen Hauptfigur, hinreißende Lebendigkeit verleiht. Egal, ob es laut und derb hergeht, fröhlich oder nachdenklich, Nortons Stimme bleibt stets klar und verständlich. Der irische Schauspieler verdeutlicht, wie viel Lust, Liebe und Lebensfreude in diesem genialen Werk stecken. Seine Kollegin, Marcella Riordan, überzeugt ebenfalls durch ihre Interpretation der Molly. Sie stellt die Sehnsüchte, den Lebenshunger von Blooms treuloser Ehefrau und ihre nächtlichen Unpässlichkeiten fassettenreich dar.
Die Aufnahme kommt mit wenigen akustischen Mitteln aus. Neben den Stimmen genügen Musikzitate, um die Spannung zu halten. Kürzungen, zwangsläufig an einigen Stellen drastisch, sind dennoch klug und angemessen. Nach den Anfangsszenen wählte man Schlüsselszenen aus Blooms Alltag aus. Das Booklett, mit englischer Einführung und genauer Auflistung der jeweiligen Episoden, unterstützt das Verständnis dieser Originalaufnahme. So entstand ein Ulysses, mundgerecht für diejenigen, die ihn noch nicht gekostet haben; geeignet, viele auf den Geschmack kommen zu lassen. Denn Joyce ist und bleibt - akustisch wie optisch - ein Leckerbissen. (4 CDs von insgesamt 4:49:17 Spieldauer) -Anne Hauschild

Ulysses has been labelled dirty, blasphemous and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book-although he found it not quite obscene enough to disallow its importation into the United States-and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession". None of these descriptions, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in its own way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's astonishing command of the English language.
Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is "What happens?" In the case of Ulysses, the answer could be "Everything". William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of inforgettable Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, loiter, argue and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream- of-consciousness technique-which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river- we're privy to their thoughts, emotions and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordion-folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.
Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent-that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call "Early Yeats Lite"- will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naïve curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" -James Marcus

Ulysses has been labelled dirty, blasphemous and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book-although he found it not quite obscene enough to disallow its importation into the United States-and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession". None of these descriptions, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in its own way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's astonishing command of the English language.
Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is "What happens?" In the case of Ulysses, the answer could be "Everything". William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of inforgettable Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, loiter, argue and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream- of-consciousness technique-which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river- we're privy to their thoughts, emotions and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordion-folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.
Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent-that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call "Early Yeats Lite"- will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naïve curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" -James Marcus

Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book-although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States-and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language.
Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is: What happens?. In the case of Ulysses, the answer might be Everything. William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique-which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river-we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.
Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent-that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call Early Yeats Lite-will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naive curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" -James Marcus