Taking “best” to mean, “About to be banished to a small, rocky island in the North Atlantic, can pack one book”: Ulysses, and it’s not particularly close.
The book is fractally intricate and intellectually puzzling in the best sense—something new and special to notice every time you pick it up.
But it also wears like old
leather, and I find myself returning to favorite chapters simply to sink indulgently into the characters, dialog, and setting.
Anybody who says no one has actually read Ulysses is unknowingly half-right: You can certainly get to a point where you’ll never finish reading it.
Good answer. Most people who answer the one X to take when banished pick don't take into account that in their banishment they might not be provided with anything intellectually challenging, and just pick their current favorite X which is often something that 6 months from now will rarely be revisited because they have a new favorite.
They are really usually answering "what one X would you take with you on a vacation?".
A good X for banishment might even be an X that has never been a favorite of yours. For example if I had one musical work and one book I'd seriously consider Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and a German to English dictionary. Neither of those is anywhere near a favorite of mine--I do own a copy of Der Ring des Nibelungen but only occasionally listen and then only to the famous parts, and I don't think I've ever even looked in a German to English dictionary.
That's 15 hours of opera in a language I have close to zero understanding of. But much of the music is quite good, and trying to figure out enough German from the lyrics and the dictionary to follow the story could keep me occupied a long time.
I was scrolling down the comments thinking, huh, what if I just kind of threw it out there that Ulysses is my favorite book, by far. What would happen? Bunch of young'uns dumping on me?
Well bring it on. It is in fact, not particularly close that Ulysses is my favorite book.
It hadn't occurred to me though to just reread chapters as they appeal, I'm heading out to reread the calvacade one. Then there is that pub with the dog... And the newsrooom... what a great day, thanks!
I started Ulysses when I was in my early twenties, stalled, and then picked it up again and finished it straight off 35 years later. Same copy! Pissed off I didn't push it through way back when.
This seems to be a very polarizing book. I for one thought it was among the worst I've read, but know plenty who have said it's one of their favorites. It's certainly not a traditional novel.
Ulysses feels more like Joyce showing off his command of the written word and extensive vocabulary - of which both are greater than any other writer I've read - than it feels like a novel meant to tell the reader a good story.
In that sense, the novel wasn't particularly entertaining. If he could choose between a well known word for something and a very obscure word for something, it was always the latter. The same goes for sentence structure.
As a way to show off literary skill though, there's nothing else that comes close.
Here's a choice bit of stream-of-consciousness from the "Lotus Eaters" episode, as Mr. Bloom is contemplating the wares at a tea shop on a balmy June morning:
... So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over again: choice blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight ...
The vocabulary is colorful but hardly obscure, the sentence structure is broken but readily comprehensible.
That's interesting. I never had a problem ploughing through Pynchon, and as I mentioned I bounced off Ulysses in my early 20s. I am right now in the last pages of my 1st reread of Gravity's Rainbow. I have to say I prefer Joyce now. And I think I liked my recent read of Against the Day over GR, an unexpected development.
I rank GR and V highest, with AtD and Mason & Dixon close seconds. I like the layering of themes in GR and the whole fever-dream deliver of it. I will probably revisit Joyce.
Yeah, as I endure into old age I think I prefer a stronger narrative arc which AtD has vs. the layered cacaphony of GR. I was doing a lot of er "mind altering additives" at the time when I was reading GR with a fresh young brain. Might be a young person's book. Highly recommended for young people! It's anchored in WWII which might seem like eroded history but hmm it seems our history decides to recycle itself.
Did you make it past the opening Stephen-centered chapters? I bounced off “Proteus” for years, but as soon as I managed to struggle on to “Calypso” and the mind & habits of Mr. Leopold Bloom I was off to the races.
The book is fractally intricate and intellectually puzzling in the best sense—something new and special to notice every time you pick it up.
But it also wears like old leather, and I find myself returning to favorite chapters simply to sink indulgently into the characters, dialog, and setting.
Anybody who says no one has actually read Ulysses is unknowingly half-right: You can certainly get to a point where you’ll never finish reading it.