I agree completely with the other review of the audio version in that the reading seemed a bit rushed, especially the later potions. That said, it was a still a treat to get caught up in the language.
Very enjoyable.

You can actually learn a tremendous amount about Irish History, Church history, western culture and classical education by reading Ulysses. A monumental work that has been brought back to the epic oral tradition by Jim Norton.

Now in my opinion, this book would be completely inaccessible without Jim Norton. With Jim Norton, the book is accessible, but only with a lot of interest and curiosity. I enjoy it for the "inversion" Joyce pulls on the Odyssey. Ithaca is Ireland and Odysseus is a Jewish man that nobody seems to consider their equal.

Ulysses is best appreciated after having read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (to understand Joyce's Stephen Character, and his issues with Ireland) and Homer's Odyssey (the mythic underpinning of the book). Also needed is Gifford's "Annotated Ulysses" which explains the Irish/Church history references as well as the puns and all of the references to 19th century poetry that Joyce laces throughout.

It was so easy to become engrossed in the characters and the mood of the moment, that I often forgot I was in the middle of this monumental work! Jim Norton's range is remarkable - he made every character's voice as distinct as a fingerprint. He had obviously given careful thought to the sounds of the words, and these sounds rolled off his tongue as though he were making them up. The same goes for Marcella Riordan's characterization of Molly. I'm sure the direction accounted for this as well. I have heard no better audio rendition, and I have heard around a hundred. Reading along simultaneously with the 1984 Gabler edition, some charts, and help from student annotations, I was finally able to complete and enjoy this most essential book. One less accomplishment left before I die!

I'd always wanted to read Ulysses but had been scared away by Joyce's writing technique. As an audio book, on the other hand, it was an absolute delight. This is writing that is meant to be read aloud. The stream of consciousness prose was like music. Pick it up, listen for a while, put it down, listen again - it was always a joy. The narration was tremendous and the incidental music set the time and place perfectly. The is one of the most aesthetically satisfying books I've ever listened to. An amazingly easy book to listen to, well worth the invested time. Truly a thing of beauty and a joy forever. (I liked it too.)

I???ll rap rapturously about Ulysses, one day in the Dublin life of Joyce???s Odysseus, Leopold Bloom, as divinely read by the inspired Jim Norton. Norton smoothly moves among myriad accents, from the mild educated Irish of Bloom to the thick Irish of drunken local cronies, while ably babbling in British (cockney and upper crust), French, German, Italian, and Spanish accents. He even barks as a dog, meows as a cat, clucks as a hen, burbles as a baby, laughs as a horse, and sings, too, in the voice of whatever character happens to be singing. And Marcella Riordan reads Molly Bloom???s mesmerizing closing monologue with perfect thought and feeling.

Many things in Ulysses flew by me: the phrases in Latin and modern Romance languages; the references to Irish culture and politics; the identity of the Man in the Macintosh; the stream of consciousness memories and allusions; and the gargantuan vocabulary, by turns lushly sensual, eruditely scientific, beautifully ringing, coarsely slangy, and amusingly anachronistic. It helped to listen first to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the prequel to Ulysses, to ease in to Joyce???s exuberant approach to life and language. And the Naxos notes to Ulysses (downloaded pdf from Audible) helped, giving the chapter-by-chapter Homeric Odyssey titles and brief summaries of the different scenes.

Finally, I had a weltering, ecstatic experience. Joyce laughs at his flawed, eloquent, and human characters with wry glee, but he also loves them. It's exciting to start each new chapter anticipating what narrative and stylistic antics Joyce will put his people up to next. The novel is an encyclopedic cyclopean paean to life and art: ugly, beautiful, earthy, sublime, sexy, spiritual, sad, funny, ironic, heroic, playful, philosophical, particular, universal, scientific, poetic, honest, artificed, vernacular, elevated, irreverent, moving, challenging, searching, rewarding, and humane.

A selected list of contents: mastication, alimentation, defecation, imbibition, micturition, expectoration, menstruation, masturbation, prostitution, fornication, copulation, reproduction, delectation, aromatization, introspection, retrospection, altercation, conversation, calculation, impersonation, imagination, hallucination, narration, enumeration, divagation, versification, harmonization, sanctification, transformation, affirmation--yes.

I took a look through all the existing reviews and find it interesting that most of the reviewers are male, and those men have given the story 5 stars. The few women who reviewed it gave it considerably less than 5 stars.

I am one of those women. I love classics and really wanted to get through this book. I tried twice to listen to the story, and both times I got through about an hour and a half and gave up.

The narrator does a decent job. His inflection is good and most of the time I can understand the Irish. However, I have to listen using ear phones because Mr. Norton sometimes yells and sometimes whispers.

I have this book in print and I'm going to try reading it that way, instead of listening to it. When listening, I can't seem to follow the flow of the story -- what are the thoughts and what are the conversations between the characters. Maybe reading the book will help.

I could never have read this classic, but as a spoken book with the amazing narration it was achievable. At times it was excruciating, at times exhilarating, like plunging into cold water, or ripping off a band aid, some sections I could only do a minute at a time, I felt a great sense of achievement when I got to the end. If you ever felt compelled to explore this infamous book, this is a great way to do it.

This book has all the things which annoy me about supposed "great" literature.

It is excessively poetic. (Not a fan of poetry).
It is wordy for the sake of it. (Big fan of directness).
There is relatively little direct narrative. (I like a plain and simple central thread).
Its full of clever devices. (Like my English not mucked about with)

But it is magnificent! I'm pretty sure that I didn't properly follow a lot of it but it doesn't matter. Some of the words made no sense but the sounded beautiful. Some of the scenes were meaningless to me but they were magic to listen to. The whole thing was a joy to listen to.

One of the other reviewers suggest that you should be familiar with this book in print before listening to this but I disagree. I suspect that if I had tried to read this from paper I would have made it t about page 12 before throwing it out of a window. It was made to be read out loud and if there is a better version available than this I'm not sure I would be able to cope with it.

Jim Norton gives each character just enough depth to make him distinguishable wthout creating any cartoon Irishmen in the process. There are a few sections read in a female voice. (Marcella Riordan - who should get a narrators credit). Double handed narration can be clumsy but this is perfectly judged. Overall - an excellent listen.

I was just flabbergasted at the skill of Jim Norton (and the stream of consciousness by the female narrator was so much better than I could have interpreted the book chapter with zero punctuation!)

I thought of this as kind of like the Picasso of novels...totally new way of writing in my experience, unreal, confusing, lots of fun!!!

I would like to try again, but not through Jim Norton. I had a difficult time understanding the book because I couldn't follow Jim Norton's accent. I spend hours trying to get through part 1, but after multiple listens I gave up.

American literature classic. Possibly that new Dracula.

No

Couldn't understand it, so unfortunately no.

Listen to the preview before spending your money.