Ulysses

Bleak House. I'm afraid I gave up on it. I don't think we have the staying power of our ancestors. The thought of war and Peace sends me into a decline!

Me too, Hunt, but forty years ago there was a very good TV adaptation of W&P, the first time I had seen Anthony Hopkins on the screen. It was due to end just before my second child was due and I was so afraid I would miss it if he came early (no recording facility then). Tactfully, he arrived on his due date. So the BBC saved me from having to read it.

We did part of it in Alevel general studies! I hated it along with graham green!

I liked w&p

I read a bit recently about a trip to Ringsend in Dublin...but although that bit was interesting, it was alsp enough to put me off reading any more ever....

Catcher in the Rye, and Catch-22. I`ve often thought about giving them a try, but not got around to it yet.

I wonder if it's a 'man's book'. My ex husband read it [prior to being 'ex' ] and a very dear friend who is now sadly departed read it to 'understand life more'. Not having read it, I wouldn't know. I loved War and Peace, but I was young at the time and certainly couldn't read it now. Gave up on Middlemarch.

I read quite a few classics when I was young, including W&P but can I remember what they were about? no way!!

I had to read "Ulysses" for my first degree; enjoyed the short stories too, but "Finnegan's Wake" defeated me. But I did cope with "Ulysses" under the circumstances, though I have no desire to read it again!

I cannot stand Henry James, or "Wuthering Heights." As I have said before. And as for Captain Corelli and his ** mandolin.....

Ariadne, I had a prof who considered anything written in the 20th Century as 'barbaric' apart from some of Henry James's novels. I could cope with The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square, but as for The Ambassadors...

Oh Annobel good to hear I'm not alone!

I have read both Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. I can comment reasonably intelligently about the former but haven't a clue about the latter. I like Portrait of the Artist better than both of them.

I've read War and Peace too, Ella46; it's about Russia.

Good for you, absent. I have downloaded Ulysses to my Kindle - it's free.

Ariadne, I thought it was just me, your thoughts on Captain Corelli and his blasted mandolin are mine as well. I half listened to Ulysses during Saturday, and was blessed by the thought that I had never read the book. I read War and Peace whilst living in Germany many years ago and had difficulty finding books to read. As for enjoying it, not really. I have read all of Dickens work and found them very worthwhile.

Dickens! No way!
Tolstoy, yes!

There's room for the two of them, jeni. I may not have read W&P (yet) but I did read Anna Karenina and enjoyed it. I have also enjoyed Dickens although an unenlightened English teacher did her best to put me off him.

When I did my first degree, in English, we "did" three major authors a term (two when it was Shakespeare's turn). When the reading list said "Austen" or "Dickens" and so on, it meant all the works of those authors.

Some of that reading was heavy going, but I have been so thankful for that immersion over the years, especially when I was teaching.

Still haven't finished W&P, though.