see you in hell, James Joyce.

I'm getting rid of a lot of books right now. This process is always hard for me, although not quite as hard as getting rid of clothes. I have given up so many things that I later regretted (weird patchwork sweater from Courage circa 2002, velour cheerleader skirt--I could go on and on. I could also assure you that these things are not as weird as they sound. Seriously, I was so cutting edge in the early part of this century). I invariably toss the things that come around again, and then I kick myself in the teeth and begrudgingly buy the H&M version. I can't take that kind of chance anymore. One cannot live on chintzy twelve dollar tank tops alone.

Books are different. I always feel relieved when I give up a book, a feeling that either means I am in completely the right profession, or completely the wrong one. It's cathartic, I guess, for an obsessive reader like me to just let a couple go. Which is why, this round, I'm finally giving Ulysses the keys to the street.

I know what you're thinking. I know that not reading Ulysses is like this thing now, the literary dork equivalent of pretending not to know who shot JR (I don't know that either, sorry.). But seriously, I never finished it. I had to read it for a poorly-scheduled modernism course in my undergrad days in Toronto, a course where every Friday morning was dedicated to a chapter of Joyce's masterpiece, all damned year long. Given my proclivity toward drinking keg beer while dressed in a toga or a street walker's getup every Thursday night, I was not always my most fabulous self on Friday mornings. As a result, when I actually made it to the class, I spent most of the time sulking and writing notes to my then-boyfriend about my theories about the misogyny of the instructor (based mostly on the fact that he made us read Joseph Conrad, and also that he gave my boyfriend higher marks on the papers I proof-read than on my own). I eventually got over my sweeping hatred of modernism (my Virginia Woolf obsession is proof of that) but I never did finish Ulysses.

Which didn't stop me from writing an essay on our final based entirely on the last chapter, but whatever. I was on a bit of a kamikaze mission by that point.

Anyway, I'm not going to come down either way on Joyce, or on Ulysses, or on being made to read books for the wrong reasons. This is more about how a book can come to mean something totally personal, something that has less to do with the content of the words on the page, and more to do with the way it came into your life, the way you cart it around, the way you hold onto certain places and moments because of the crappy secondhand paperback you were hauling around in your tote bag at the time. I'll never give up a lot of my books, but this one's time has come.

It's been swell, James Joyce. I'm sure some starry eyed teenager will rescue you from the dumpster, and then proceed to have no earthly idea of what you're talking about.

If you're interested in picking up my copy, check craigslist later tonight.