Have you ever wanted to read Ulysses but were too afraid? Maybe you were curious, but cautious that it might too highbrow? Come join us in the new year as we explore “the hardest book no one has ever read.” Every week, listen to a reading of each chapter during each episode and then we’ll discuss and ruminate over what we’ve read. This Monday, we’re kicking off with the first chapter (also called “Telemachus”), which takes place on the ocean at the Martello tower in Sandycove Point, Dublin, where James Joyce lived for a bit in his twenties.
For my podcast, I opened with Peakfiddler’s performance of “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” to give it an Irish flair. Given that the opening chapter of Ulysses takes place on the beach, I chose the sounds of crashing waves for to emulate where it takes place. I personally read the opening lines to the novel, mixed it with other sounds. I was still not happy with the recording, so I added Daniel Birch’s atmosphere, which brought some comfortable noise, which to my ear made the waves and voice sound more realistic.
Audio Sources:
The Wind that Shakes the Barley performed by peakfiddler licensed in Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Beach sounds South Carolina by nthropic42 licensed in the public domain on wikipedia
Atmosphere by Daniel Birch licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Image Source:
“Martello Tower, Shenick Island” by Nikon Coolpix L840 and is licensed under CC BY CC0 1.0 .
Literary Source:
Ulysses by James Joyce, in the Public Domain.
Hi Christopher great job! I think the music at the beginning is captivating and fits perfectly with the content of your podcast. I think your voice is very energetic at the beginning which, again, is captivating. I think the background noise while you’re reading the chapter was a little distracting. I think it would be better to eliminate the background noise altogether or just make it quieter. Also, there are some typos in the text of your blog post. Other than that, I think the whole thing was awesome! I love your podcast idea as a whole.
Thanks, Emily! I will definitely take your comments into consideration.
Hey Chris, this seems more like an audiobook than a podcast. You went straight into reading the book, not discussing what the podcast was going to be about. Honestly, I don’t know much about Ulysses, but it sounded like a Scottish Fair at the beginning. The waves made the narration a bit hard to hear, but otherwise the narration was very clear to understand.