Oh Darlton... Why Dost Thou Torture Me?

There's this game I used to play with other English lit nerds when I was in university. I think we called it Shame (it's been a long time. Sigh). It works in a pop culture setting very well, too. If you're a huge fan of movies, like I am, you name the one movie you've never seen... the one you should be ASHAMED of yourself for not seeing. (For me, it's Gone With the Wind. Never seen it.) Or maybe there's a TV series you've never watched that you really should have, especially if you're writing books on Lost. *cough* I'm not even going to say what that is, for fear people will run screaming away from my blog like I'm some charlatan know-nothing. Wild horses can't drag that one out of me.

But it's when it came to literature that it got fun. I remember being out for drinks with a guy who was an assistant professor and we were playing the game, and he admitted to never having read Hamlet. I think half of us either choked on our drinks or spit them out completely. "How is that possible?!" we asked in complete bafflement. "Special skills?" he replied.

For me, that book that has been missing from my own personal canon is James Joyce's Ulysses. I know I should read it. Every day on June 16 I swear I'm going to take the day off, disappear into a basement and read the entire thing (that is Bloomsday, after all). I actually went and bought my copy in Paris at Shakespeare & Co., one of the world's most famous bookstores (my friend CK just posted pics of the store here) because that's where the book was written. I got them to stamp the front inside cover with their special stamp to prove that's where I bought it. That was in December 2000. It's been sitting on a bookshelf ever since, and every once in a while I glance over at it, send "good intention vibes" its way, and then it continues to sit for another 6 months before I glance at it again.

But now, Damon and Carlton have announced that in season 5, Ben Linus will be seen reading a copy of Ulysses in the season's seventh episode (this is in the special Dharma Access video that went out to subscribers last night; it will be on the ABC site some time tomorrow). Now I have to take the behemoth off the shelf. I have to open it and turn PAST the page with the fancy stamp. I have to read it.

I'm kind of scared.

I mean, this is something I've been building up to since my undergrad. It's like one of those things I've always looked forward to, but like Desmond and his tattered copy of Our Mutual Friend, figured it might be one of the last things I do. How do I read it? Do I check the footnotes as I go? Do I just read it straight and hope I get the feel of the lilting language, much like you do with a Shakespeare play? I feel like the thing needs to come with instructions. I talked to a friend of mine several years ago who is a well known Canadian poet and he told me the best way to read Ulysses is to avoid the footnotes altogether. So I think that's what I'll do.

I might disappear for a while. I'm not sure whether to curse the houses of Cuse and Lindelof for doing this to me, or to send blessings their way for giving me the heads up before the season actually started. (Here I am in December, and quite literally, when Damon held up the book and announced it, I dropped my head to the desk with a thud and moaned, "Why... why... WHY?!" Could you IMAGINE what my reaction would have been in March if that had been the first time I saw Ben reading it?)

But, I vow to you, gentle readers, there will be a chapter on Ulysses in my season 5 book. But you have to promise me that YOU will be reading this book, too. (And to my friends who are university English majors and professors who are reading this now... prepare for the onslaught of emails from me.)

Wow. How will I play the shame game now? I've been using Ulysses as my answer for so long I wouldn't know what to say next.

Now I don't think I can ever watch Gone with the Wind.