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Have you ever seen a book inspire such devotion that once a year on a day called Blooms day, thousands of people all over the world dressed up as the characters, took to the streets, and read the book aloud.
And some even make a pilgrimage to Dublin, just to visit places so vividly depicted in Joyce’s opus. So what is it about this famously difficult novel that inspires so many people? Well, there is no simple answer but to just simply accept this 730-page book as a literary masterpiece.
Introduction
Book’s Name - Ulysses
Author’s Name - James Joyce
Genre - Novel, Fiction
Language - English
Synopsis - Spoiler Alert!
Ulysses is one of the few books which, even though it has a difficult language, still attracts an audience like honey bees to flowers. Its story and plot transpire over a single day.
It involves three main characters Stephen Dedalus, reprised from Joyce's earlier novel “A portrait of an artist as a young man”, Leopold Bloom, a Jewish man who works in a newspaper, and Molly Bloom, Leopold's wife. The book shows an accurate and rich tour in Dublin of 1904.
Stephen is depressed because of his mother's recent death, while Bloom wanders through various parts of the city as he knows Molly is about to begin her affair.
The book is a mix of emotions, literature, traditional language, some at-the-time usage of words giving it a dense look, but is literally a trove when you get to it. The story of Stephen, Leopold, and Molly feels relatable even to the current time and intrigues us on various levels
About the Author
Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family, a brilliant student, he attended various schools and went to University College Dublin despite the chaotic family life imposed by his Father's unpredictable finances. In January 1941, he underwent surgery for a perforated duodenal ulcer and died in a coma.
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. One of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century, Joyce is best known for Ulysses and his work in short stories and poetries, published occasional letters and journalism.
About the Book
Ulysses becoming a masterpiece and what makes it interesting is how the story is told. Published as a serial novel, each chapter is written in a different style, such as chapter 15 is like a play, chapter 13 looks like a cheesy romance novel, chapter 12 is a story with bizarre exaggerated interruptions, chapter 11 uses techniques like onomatopoeia, repetitions, and alliteration to imitate music and chapter 14 reproduces the evolution of English literary prose style.
From its beginning in Anglo-Saxon right up to the 20th century and then, all these styles culminate up in the final chapter which follows Molly's stream of consciousness as it spools out in just eight long paragraphs with almost no punctuation.
All these ranges of the style used in Ulysses by Joyce are why it is perceived as difficult to read, but it also helps make it enjoyable and this is why Ulysses is held as one of the key texts in literary modernism
Themes involved
James Joyce fills his narrative gymnastic routines with some of the most imaginative use of language you'll find anywhere, in his book Ulysses. For example, Joyce exaggerates the description of a mangy old man in a pub to make him seem like an improbable gigantesque hero, and there are many more depictions like that.
The book appears to be an encyclopedic treasure trove, filled with all manners of reference and allusions, from medieval philosophy to the symbolism of tattoos, and from Dante to Dublin slang.
As suggested by the title, some of these allusions revolve around Homer’s ‘Odyssey, with each chapter named after a character or episode of ‘Odyssey’, but the literary references are often coy, debatable, sarcastic, or disguised.
It has highbrow intellectual humor if you patiently track down Joyce's references and more lowbrow dirty jokes and sexual references. Joyce also took great care in recreating that time Dublin in the story. Some annotation is good to understand this difficult funny frustrating good sensation of a book.
Famous Quotes
‘To learn one must be humble, But life is a great teacher.’
“Love loves to love love.”
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
The Bottom Line
Ulysses is one of the hard-written English literature, with which if you take a shovel and start digging, you get literature at its best. The bottom line is, as said by James Joyce, that if Ulysses isn't worth reading, then life isn't worth reading. With this, I leave it to your curious mind to know this wonderful book.
My rating for this book - 4 on 5
You can buy a copy of this book - Ulysses
Written By - Ashish Joshi
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