The book

    First that comes into my mind is “Ulysses” by James Joyce. Mainly because I have never managed to read it to the end. But the concept of stream of consciousness was very appealing by its originality and style.

    The name Ulysses at the same time associates in my mind with the band Franz Ferdinand which has a song named after this sly mythological hero. Sudden jump from book to the music- Well that is what a mind flow is about. And this picture of Sirens and Ulysses tied up to the mast of his boat is another association since I found it while searching for some images related to the book. Actually I don't really like mythology and ancient history. Especially ancient history as it is a mythology per se which can hardly be verified due to remoteness of events . And as we take its veracity on trust we grant it with ability to perform socio-ideological engineering with following distortion affect on public consciousness. "History is written by the winner" who needs propaganda of his rightness and a good excuse or disguise for his misdeeds. And I wouldn't use this picture as it might hype some interest in bloody ancient history books, but seductive call of the curvy voluptuous sirens and testosterone in my blood together with sense of beauty took me over and pushed me to leave it on my page. That is why charming woman are so frequently used in deception schemes. Be bloody cautious!

    But back to the book. Did Joyce actually succeed in performing stream of consciousness in his famous novel? In my authoritative opinion - just partly. Not because he is mediocre writer which he is definitely not but just because this mission is technically implausible. Text of words is insufficient here. Thinking process( stream of consciousness) is not just a consecuitive flow of words but incessant stream of interweaving thoughts and images interconnected with each other by consistent reasoning and non-reasoning associative process(accompanied by emotional reactions).

    The thoughts and images might go with fluctuating pace, overlap or synchronize(parallel) each other or just flash as the lightening(hence the flash back) which makes it even harder to be depicted in the book.

    And it is evident that in this case cinematography beats the book. Ability to Visualize and make a sound gives a movie more chances to reflect this intellectual phenomena of the universe(assuming we are alone) closer to the reality or better to say surreality-taking in to consideration irreally sophisticated internal world of the human brain.

    But Joyce definitely did succeed in intensifying stream of consciousness in the heads of his readers. Achieving this goal he used a lot of symbolism, ambiguous expressions,metaphors, embedded suggestions, different writing styles and other literary and NLP techniques. To enjoy the reading to its best the reader is better to be well prepared and have a good knowledge of Irish history, Homer's Odyssey and religious symbolism otherwise enjoyment might be unfulfilled.

    Just for those who interested, the book "Ulysses" had some publishing difficulties. The book was even illegal in US due to the censorship. Editors were convicted of publishing obscenity. Copies of the book were several times burned at the customs. The ban was lifted only in 1932. By that time I suppose it had been for several times corrected and circumcised. And unfortunately for contemporary readers there is great possibility that the book they read today is enormously distorted. But hopefully it wont hinder you from indulging in reading it. So good luck with that.