Why people recommend it
James Joyce's modernist masterpiece, first published in 1922, stands as a monumental literary adaptation of Homer's epic narrative, charting a single day in the life of its protagonist through groundbreaking stylistic techniques. On Stuff You Should Know, Josh Clark highlighted the novel as a celebrated literary milestone that mirrors the ancient journey of Odysseus in a twentieth-century Dublin setting. Discussing the challenges of reading dense literature on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Lex Fridman admitted that he only managed to finish the demanding text with the assistance of supplementary study notes, a sentiment echoed by Sheldon Solomon, who confessed on a different episode that he struggled for decades and could never make it past the opening pages. On The Rubin Report, the novel was also mentioned in a historical context regarding government censorship, noting that it was among several iconic literary works that could not be legally published in the United States without threat of prosecution prior to the relaxation of obscenity laws around 1960. Despite its notoriously difficult structure and the intimidation it inspires in casual readers, the book remains a towering achievement in Western literature, frequently analyzed, debated, and referenced across intellectual podcasts.
Who recommended it
- Josh Clark Discussed
Josh Clark — 1 mention
“1922, the novel Ulysses by James Joyce was a big one because Ulysses is the Latin version of Odysseus.”
Mentioned on the show without a named speaker — 3
“but then ulysses was I I I got through ulysses with the help of some cliff notes and so on”
“you couldn't legally publish "Lady Chatterley's Lover" James Joyce's, "Ulysses", Henry Miller's, "Tropic of Cancer", Alan Ginsberg's, "Howl" before about 1960 without worrying about being dragged into court”
“look it took me 40 years to read ulysses i could not get past the first five pages”
Also mentioned in the same episodes
- Finnegans Wake
- Moby Dick
- The Dead
- A Book Review of Carl Becker's Book on the Declaration of Independence
- Absalom, Absalom!
- An Arabic Zoological Dictionary
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“There’s Leopold Bloom also in Ulysses, of course.”
“the non-linearity of it akin to "Ulysses" or "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce.”