writer's note: Commissioned and published by my editor/writer buddy Ed Winstead in PUBLIC BOOKS. Thanks, Ed.
Ulysses. Photograph by poppet with a camera / Flickr
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I’m pretty sure I was a jerk in college. I leaned a lot on the modernists, though I only read them for class. This year I decided to try their books again to see if my critical apparatus has shifted. Not that I’m not a jerk now. I just try to be more subtle about it and not say things like critical apparatus.
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I started with Ulysses, which had been my “favorite book” for almost a decade. It might actually be best served by a classroom’s steady rhythm. The individuality of each chapter inhibits flow and memory either way. But without the contextual academic drive, I had the space to learn that Ulysses is really funny.
This is the biggest rabbit hole, you just keep falling. Not the book, the web design.
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