Do you know anyone who has read Ulysses from cover to cover?

Let's see if this cartoon tickles you ... at least half as much as how funny it was to me:

Source

Maybe the book was James Joyce's Ulysses! ;)

Every time I read an essay in which the author makes references to Joyce and Ulysses it is only to make a point that it is insanely difficult to go past even a few pages of that book.

Like this writer from a few years ago, who spoke the truth, during his graduate schooling, to his Joyce scholar professor: "If I had to choose between rereading Ulysses or Tarzan of the Apes, I'd go for Tarzan."

Yet, when we list our summer reading lists, even the wish lists, it is not the likes of Tarzan that we think of but the heavy ones like Ulysses.  What's up?  I like this take:

Of course, we tackle more elaborate books in summer because we have more time on our hands, with the season’s longer days, the time off from work, and the promise of leisure in the air. But there’s also a psychological effect at work. From our childhood days, the coming of summer and the end of the school year meant the end of our “required” reading: no more homework, no more chapter assignments, no more mandatory synopses of The Scarlet Letter or historical summaries of “Everyday Life in Dickens’ London.” Come the solstice, many of us experienced something that will never disappear: the exhilaration of setting our own literary agenda—a private summer syllabus devoid of grades and fueled by love alone.

For once, it is not about the grades.  Not because it is a required reading. It is love.

But the reality is that I rarely ever run into people anymore who want to talk about the books that they are reading or plan to read.  It is almost as if a vast majority does not read books anymore.  Neither here nor in the old country.  Maybe there really never was a book-reading culture and it was only a few who read?

This coronavirus summer that preempts travel should, logically speaking, give me plenty of time to read serious books and blog about them.  Even Ulysses!

But, life is illogical, for the most part ;)  I don't have a list of books for this summer.

This Tarzan will, however, continue to read, think, and blog.