Ulysses by James Joyce

*contains spoilers*


Where to start with this rich tome…


Let me begin by saying that ‘Ulysses’ is a text that simply oozes allusions; whilst it is clearly a postmodern work that bends and breaks the rules of common literature, it is a structuralist’s wet dream – Joyce expects us to have read and understood all the works to which he refers, and in doing so the reader can then fully grasp what Joyce is trying to achieve in this here masterpiece. It is a book about books, a story about stories, but unlike his countryman Yeats, who is adamant that the heroic must remain as a core quality of literature, Joyce both understands that the heroic stories exist as didactic texts for the common person and believes that the common person must now take their place at the centre of the heroic text – so that they can explore the big questions for themselves.


As a result, Joyce places the story of Odysseus’s journey (Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus) in 1920s Dublin, and places the heavy crown of the protagonist of one of the greatest stories ever told on the head of a half-Jew named Leopold Bloom. The whole book takes place on one day, Thursday 16th July, and again we see the grandiose of Homer’s original text squashed into the microcosm of everyday occurrences. What comes of this, however, is a magnified exposure of the everyday, the minutiae of the common happenings, and therefore the heroic in the context of the commonplace. Discussions around a table in a café turn to the legacies of Shakespeare, both literary and familial, and luckily I knew enough about Shakespeare and his influences so that I could follow well enough the dips and peaks in the conversation (why does Shakespeare only use a couple of pages from ‘Arcadia’ as inspiration for a whole sub-plot in ‘King Lear’, one character asks), but others will simply enjoy the introductions to new texts through these ponderings. Indeed, I myself may notice a reference on a future re-reading where before I would have merely skipped over the words, thinking them mere original suppositions by the author. That is how rich this book is: the reader is afforded a huge portion of autonomy in the reading.


The main point to make about ‘Ulysses’ is the presentation of the text itself, which varies throughout. Often there are examples of what seem like stream of consciousness ramblings, which aim at giving a feeling rather than a cognisance of what is going on; “A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander.” Joyce also exudes a dry wit throughout, undermining the previously revered, bringing the sacred back down to earth – for example, the references to the great Lord Tennyson as “lawn Tennyson”, making the double entendre work beautifully in some instances pertaining to poetry and sports. Indeed, Coleridge would have approved of Joyce’s treating the Bible as he would any other text as he mocks the myths taken as fact by placing the miracles in the now; “That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost his job.” The alienation brought about by the closeness in pronunciation of the words “forth” and “fifth”, along with their sitting next to each other in the numerical order, cuts to the core of already deeply-established beliefs, and forces the reader to re-examine the previously unquestioned.


One thing that most struck me about ‘Ulysses’, however, is the fact that for its time it is frighteningly modern, and Joyce is unwaveringly forward-thinking as he twists the perceptions of the reader by placing Leopold Bloom in the role of a woman; “‘You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets…’” Joyce, above anything else, is brave, but under anyone else’s pen such bravery at the time of writing may not have been so elegantly proposed. ‘Ulysses’ is literary jazz – you either go with it or you don’t. I urge you to be a Joyce – be brave and go with this text. You will come out of it a very different reader.

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