Ulysses
James Joyce
(IDB Productions, July 5, 2015)
Ulysses by James JoyceJames Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses, is often listed as one of the greatest novels ever written. It was first published in serialized form between 1918 and 1920. It was written, however, over a period of 7 years. An experiment in modernism, the novel has a deliberate structure though much of it is written as stream-of-consciousness. Joyce takes fantastic liberties with word choice and prose, imbuing the work with allegory, parodies, and sardonic humor.The novel follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. Ulysses is divided into 18 episodes that chronicle various events that take place during the day. The novel is a derivation of Homer’s The Odyssey, and the episodes have titles like “Calypso,” “The Lotus Eaters,” “The Cyclops,” and “Ithaca.” However, compared to the adventures and conquests of Odysseus, Bloom’s day is fairly ordinary: he visits friends, attends a funeral, and thinks about his wife, who is unfaithful to him. Joyce often shifts point-of-view from Bloom to other characters.After its publication, Ulysses would greatly influence other modern writers. Though some thought the book too long, complicated, and arduous, others deemed it a work of genius, and lauded him as a pioneer of modernist literature. The novel faced a lot of critics, especially those who believed the book was obscene and blasphemous. It was banned in England until the 1930s. In fact, the vulgarity of the novel was Joyce’s honest depiction of life; Bloom’s day in London is Joyce’s examination of the intricate nature of the world.