:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 9.26.2004 ::

Page 783 or bust

Tonight it begins. All life except work, sleep, and food will be put on hold until I have reached my goal. I will retire into myself, barring all life’s pleasures and pursuits, as I valiantly strive to reach the end. Tonight I begin Ulysses.

Eighteen months ago I was told that James Joyce’s Ulysses is the greatest book ever written in the English language. Some friends and I were doing book-store boasting: Where you walk up and down the aisles and tell each other person exactly what they should read based on what you have read or heard. Being relatively well-read (and having been to said bookstore before), I was doing well with my boasts. Then, someone went straight for the motherlode, the trump card of all trump cards: ‘Hey, Fred, this is the best book in the English language. You should read it.’

Bam. What could I do? I have to keep my literary street-cred. I couldn’t back away from that challenge. So I bought it. On the spot, bought the book, and with the money changing hands, I felt the yellow pages beginning to stretch their poisons into my very soul. For months the book sat on the shelf, tormenting me with sideways glances and snide comments. Comments you could only here when you wake with a start in the middle of the night, frigid in your own sweat, the bedcovers tangled and thrown to the floor, gasping and still feeling the grasp of those hands around your neck. No, this book would not let itself go unread.

So I opened it and began reading. I made it fifty pages before I was pulled away. They were fifty difficult pages and there was little motivation to return. When I did finally return to the book, I was lost, hope was lost, focus was lost. Ulysses was discarded for better tomes. And again it sat on the shelf unread. Tormenting my soul with its ever inanimate breath.

Later, I tried again. Opened the book and plied my way forth through its dry, weathered pages. This time I made it further, though not much. Again I was forced to lay it away, one part mental anguish, one part physical demands in other areas of life. I began to seek help on my conquest. One person told me to start with other works and build my way up to Ulysses. Now I have done this. Another told me to read and reread parts to gain a deeper understanding. Now I will do this. And another told me that they hadn’t actually read Ulysses, they just thought that I ought to. I should have killed this person and left their body in that Seattle bookstore. But I must charge forward - this destiny is now my own.

I hope to return from this quest within a week. I have no other demands to occupy my time and all my focus in on Ulysses. You will hear from me when I emerge. If you never hear from me again, my friends, assume that I have been destroyed by this book. If this happens, please come find my withered, drooling, twitching body and take the necessary measures. Thank you.

“Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again...”
:: Freddy F. at 9:15 PM [+] ::

Comments:

You'll never make it. But, good luck, none the less.

# posted by  DrNewsie : 2:58 PM

 

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