If you want a book that is really going to make you think about what constitutes a story then you should probably consider reading Ulysses by James Joyce. It tells the story of one day in the lives of a few different people in Dublin in 1904. Stephen Dedalus is a young writer who is rooming with a friend named Buck Mulligan but when Buck decides to invite another friend to also room with them, without consulting Stephen, and then makes some rather unkind remarks about Stephen’s deceased mother Stephen decides he needs to find an alternate place to stay. It follows Stephen as he travels along the beach and heads into work where he teaches at a school. The story then follows Bloom who is an advertising canvasser for the local paper and has somehow become coworkers with Stephen’s father Simon who travel together to a funeral that morning. As the day progresses he ends up in some struggles of his own due to a variety of reasons one of which is his belief his wife has been unfaithful.
This book is unusual in that it is frequently considered to be a difficult piece of literature and having read it I can see why people think that. The book does not necessarily follow the typical structure or format of a book. There are certain similarities in that it follows the path or storyline of certain key characters but there are also some rather drastic differences as well. Different chapters have different formats with some reading like you are probably used to and others are nothing more than stream of consciousness and don’t always make sense and there is even one chapter that seems to be in the form of a play. It even has stage directions included. The story is actually linear and it does have some kind of plot but you really have to dig for it and the text does not make that easy to do. I will admit that even I struggle with it some, more than I typically struggle anyway. That is not even taking into account the weird grammar and spelling, much of which was done on purpose to make the reader sit up and pay attention to what they are reading. You can definitely tell that James Joyce was part of the Modernist movement and liked to experiment with his writing. The book was good even if it was difficult and I will probably read it again but it will probably be quite some time before I circle back around to it. I can’t say that I enjoyed it but I do feel like I might have gained something from having read it. This book is getting 3.5 out of 5 stars from me.
I would classify this as a modern classic and probably contemporary fiction as well. The book is aimed at adult readers and I will agree with that mainly because of the difficulty of the text though some people would consider parts of it to be vulgar and obscene. Mainly the sections that are stream of consciousness and probably because the narrators are male. It really does a good job of capturing the idea of everything and anything running through your brain. I would suggest younger readers be careful when considering this because it is difficult to get through but otherwise it should be fine. While I would hope you will consider this I also know this would not be for everybody and would probably only appeal to more serious readers. If you do decide to try it anyway, consider sharing your thoughts in the comments.