2013: A Time to Re-Joyce

With the New Year rapidly approaching, I want to announce a couple of fun campaigns that will be happening around the Free Range Reading homestead in the not-so-far future. RR and I are in discussions about doing another Co-habitational Reading Challenge (last year we did A Prayer for Owen Meany and it was a lot of fun) but I’m also hoping to reread another, more major work of literature, one that embraces the word “challenge” in every sense of the term. I’m also wondering if anyone out there in the blogoworld would like to join me in this endeavour.

That work in question is, of course, Ulysses by James Joyce. Considered by many to be the greatest single novel ever written, it is also one of the most difficult. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read it the first time until I was 27, back in early 2003, and haven’t reread it since. But inspired by last June’s engrossing BBC Radio dramatization of the book, as well as by the fact that it’ll be 10 years since I tackled this masterpiece, I thought 2013 would be an ideal time to revisit it. The thing is – I’m not sure I want to do this alone. So please consider this a preliminary invitation to any book bloggers who are interested in rereading (or reading for the first time) Ulysses and blogging about the experience to join me.

Of course, a novel of this magnitude could never be captured in a single post like most of the reviews I do here. I doubt I’ll do an entry for each of Ulysses’ 18 distinct “episodes”; instead, I’ll probably do one post for each of the novel’s three sections, taking a break in between to read and blog about other stuff. I haven’t quite decided yet – I’ll get back to you with more details after the New Year. In the meantime, please think it over and if you want to join me, drop a comment below with a link to your blog. I’m hoping to have the campaign wrapped up by the end of the first quarter of 2013. And really – what better way to spend the dark, cold months of winter than reading a big fat tome of literature?

M.