Here are a few things to know about the literary masterpiece that has exhilarated and confounded its readers for 100 years.
In the century since its publication, James Joyce鈥檚 Ulysses has been described as beautiful, overrated, experimental, pornographic, dull, and genius.
鈥淚t鈥檚 also a great leveler,鈥� says James Longenbach, the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of at the 人妻少妇专区. He has taught the book since the late 1980s as part of various undergraduate and graduate courses on literary modernism.
鈥淚 studied with A. Walton Litz, a great Joyce scholar, and I realized that if I didn鈥檛 teach Ulysses, I was squandering that experience,鈥� he says.
Based on insights from Longenbach鈥檚 years of reading, teaching, and writing about Ulysses, we鈥檝e highlighted a few things you might not know about the 700-plus-page novel that regularly ranks among the greatest鈥攁nd most challenging鈥擡nglish-language works of fiction.
What is Ulysses by James Joyce about? 鈥淭wo things at once,鈥� argues Longenbach, one of which is language itself.
Published in 1922, the story traces a single day, June 16, 1904, in the lives of several characters in Dublin, Ireland. The main protagonists include 鈥渆veryman鈥� Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus (a young man鈥擩oyce鈥檚 literary alter ego鈥攕truggling with the death of his mother), and Leopold鈥檚 wife, Molly.
Most of the novel follows Bloom as he traverses the city, endures an antisemitic tirade, crosses paths with Stephen, and ends his day back in bed alongside Molly, whose famous monologue concludes the novel.
But a plot summary doesn鈥檛 do the work justice. Here鈥檚 how Longenbach, in a 2013 article for , summed up Joyce鈥檚 most famous work:
Ulysses is two things at once. On the one hand, it is a realistic novel, an unrelenting exploration of the inner and outer lives of three major characters and a multitude of minor ones. On the other, it is an elaborate verbal confection, an intricately designed work of art that draws attention to its linguistic surface, sometimes at the expense of the very illusion of inner life that it also creates.
There is no definitive edition of Joyce鈥檚 Ulysses. But there鈥檚 a reason the 鈥淕abler edition鈥� may stand above most others.
Ulysses, which was initially serialized in the United States in The Little Review, 鈥渉ad no editor, no publisher that existed prior to the moment of its publication, no typesetter who understood English,鈥� wrote Longenbach in The Yale Review.
The first edition was published in its entirety was in 1922 by Sylvia Beach, an American-born champion of Joyce and his work, as part of her Paris bookselling business Shakespeare and Company. Since then, more than a dozen versions have been published, many purporting to correct non-intentional errors and mistakes.
For his part, Longenbach has students read the version edited by Hans Walter Gabler and released in 1984, which attempts to produce an accurate and complete version of the book. That鈥檚 no easy task, however, given that Joyce wrote nearly a third of the work on the print proofs, notes Longenbach.
Pre-Gabler editions, for example, have Stephen Dedalus receiving a telegram that reads, 鈥淢other dying come home father,鈥� correcting the original manuscript鈥檚 鈥渘other鈥� to 鈥渕other,鈥� assuming a typo. 鈥淭he Gabler edition, though, says nother, as Joyce did originally, leaving readers to ponder this 鈥榚rror,鈥欌�� says Longenbach. 鈥淣ow, are there mistakes in Gabler? Yes, but fewer.鈥�
The book鈥檚 chapters, which Joyce called 鈥渆pisodes,鈥� are based on The Odyssey by Homer鈥攂ut using the epic poem to interpret the work is misguided.
Ulysses is the Latinized version of the Greek name Odysseus, and the book鈥檚 eighteen episodes are loosely based on Homer鈥檚 epic poem Odyssey. So, that means Leopold Bloom is Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is Telemachus, and Molly Bloom is Penelope, right?
Longenbach cautions readers against using the Homeric poem as a Rosetta Stone to decipher meaning. 鈥淚n the critical history of Ulysses, attempts to find a key often only succeeded in turning Ulysses into a lock,鈥� he says.
Instead, Longenbach invites readers to revel in the book鈥檚 panoply of literary and linguistic styles. These include the journalistic headlines interrupting the 鈥淎eolus鈥� episode; the florid, romantic language in 鈥淣ausicaa鈥�; the stage directions in 鈥淐irce鈥�; and Molly Bloom鈥檚 famous, mostly unpunctuated final soliloquy. Even the realism that characterizes the early episodes is a consciously crafted artifice, as in any novel, but that reality is thrown into high relief by the explosion of styles that follow.
Though he鈥檚 the target of antisemitism, protagonist Leopold Bloom is not really Jewish.
In the 鈥淐yclops鈥� episode, Bloom is the target of an antisemitic tirade by a cartoonish Irishman referred to as 鈥渢he citizen.鈥� To this assault, Bloom responds, 鈥淵our God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me.鈥� He later admits he was only pretending to be Jewish: 鈥淪o I without deviating from plain facts in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his family like me though in reality I鈥檓 not.鈥�
In other words, Bloom is not really Jewish鈥攏or does he consider himself to be Jewish, despite his father being a Hungarian Jew (one who converted to Protestantism before his son was born).
鈥淵ou could fill a page with the evidence,鈥� Longenbach says, who cites Bloom鈥檚 being baptized twice (once as a Catholic, once as a Protestant) as well as his not being circumcised. 鈥淭he first time we see him he鈥檚 cooking a pork kidney!鈥� he adds. 鈥淏ut all of this information is scattered and buried and easy to overlook, so we as readers are allowed to make the same mistake as the citizen.鈥�
Although Ulysses is now often identified with Dublin, Joyce was no Irish nationalist.
The book has come to be identified closely with not only Dublin, but also Ireland. For example, June 16 is known as Bloomsday, an annual commemoration and celebration of the life and works of Joyce. Named after protagonist Leopold Bloom, the day is marked in Dublin (and elsewhere) with various celebrations, such as participants retracing Bloom鈥檚 route around the city and marathon readings of the novel.
Yet Joyce鈥檚 feelings about Ireland were complicated. An unabashed anarchist, 鈥渉e thought it was an extremely backward and closed culture because it was pinched between the British Empire and the Catholic Church,鈥� explains Longenbach. 鈥淎nd he abhorred the teaching of Irish as well as Irish nationalism, which he considered racist and sexist, like all nationalisms he knew.鈥�
The novel influenced other modernist writers, including T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to remember that Ulysses begins to be really influential long before it was published in 1922,鈥� Longenbach says.
Take, for example, T.S. Eliot, a contemporary and an admirer of Joyce鈥檚, and one of modernism鈥檚 major writers. Heavily influenced by Ulysses and published later that same year, Eliot鈥檚 poem The Waste Land is more than 400 lines long and similarly abounds with references and allusions.
Yet Longenbach doesn鈥檛 want students bogged down in the poem鈥檚 annotations and explanations: 鈥淚鈥檝e taught The Waste Land probably a thousand times, and I鈥檝e never mentioned anything but form. You need to feel the multiplicity of sources, the weirdness coming in. But ultimately every part of that poem is lyrically pure鈥攚hat matters is how it sounds.鈥�
Another leading modernist writer, Virginia Woolf, publicly praised Ulysses while criticizing the book as in her diaries and letters.
Among her best-known works is Mrs. Dalloway, which details a day in the life of the protagonist and several others in post鈥揥orld War I England. Published in 1925, the novel is 鈥渦nbelievably beautiful,鈥� says Longenbach, but also 鈥渦nthinkable without the precedent of Joyce.鈥� Both novels explore their characters鈥� interiority while highlighting the importance of the seemingly inconsequential. 鈥淓xcept that Mrs. Dalloway聽associates that with femininity, culturally speaking, to a degree that Ulysses does not,鈥� Longenbach says.
Is Joyce鈥檚 Ulysses hard to read? Yes, but don鈥檛 let that stop you.
The book is definitely worth reading in Longenbach鈥檚 estimation.
鈥淎fter all these years of teaching it, I still notice things I hadn鈥檛 before,鈥� Longenbach says. And although the text rewards readers, students, and scholars alike, it will almost inevitably frustrate them, too.
He adds, 鈥淎t a certain point, you鈥檙e going to want to take the book and throw it across the room. That鈥檚 OK. It鈥檚 part of the reading process. It鈥檚 just that Ulysses might force you to confront that feeling more than other texts.鈥�
