Let's hear it for Mann's "Doctor Faustus"! Hip, hip, hooray!
I must have been about fifteen or sixteen when I first read that novel, Edwarda. I did not understand the long sections about atonal music at all, but I was still fascinated! (Mann is such a Russian writer! <g>) I think there is a lot to be said for reaching beyond your grasp. Challenges are good, in literature as in everything else.
And that is why I find Ulysses such fun. It is not a book that one sits down and reads cover to cover. It is for dipping into, for proceeding at a snail's pace, savoring, tracing connections, etc., etc.
I must confess, however, that Finnegan's Wake was too much for me, though. My husband and I used to have arguments (play arguments -- it was our form of flirtation) about Finnegan's Wake -- and about Ezra Pound. He was a total Joyce (and Pound) freak.
Joan |
