Ulysses [Hardcover]

Ulysses has been labelled dirty, blasphemous and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it not quite obscene enough to disallow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession". None of these descriptions, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in its own way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's astonishing command of the English language.

Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is "What happens?" In the case of Ulysses, the answer could be "Everything". William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of inforgettable Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, loiter, argue and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream- of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river-- we're privy to their thoughts, emotions and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordion-folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.

Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call "Early Yeats Lite"-- will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naïve curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" --James Marcus --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Ulysses has been labelled dirty, blasphemous and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it not quite obscene enough to disallow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession". None of these descriptions, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in its own way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's astonishing command of the English language.

Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is "What happens?" In the case of Ulysses, the answer could be "Everything". William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of inforgettable Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, loiter, argue and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream- of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river-- we're privy to their thoughts, emotions and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordion-folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.

Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call "Early Yeats Lite"-- will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naïve curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" --James Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'His standing is second to none among writers of our own century. He was witty, difficult, subtle and perhaps the greatest genius among the many who have come from Ireland to bewilder the world with the magic of art.' Irish Independent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The edited version of Ulysses that caused so much controversy on its first publication. This edition is the accepted reference text for James Joyce studies. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Though initial preparation for the work began in 1902, Ulysses, a modernist classic, was eventually published in 1922. A remarkable conflation of mythology, symbolism, philosophy, social realism and humanity, this tale of the events of a single day (June 16, 1904) in Dublin is loosely based on Homer's Odyssey. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Redesigned edition of classic from leading Joyce expert
Ulysses is unquestionably one of the most celebrated novels in the English language, and the text most expressive of the psyche of modern man and woman. It tells the sadly comic story of Leopold Bloom, a good man led by love, who on an otherwise ordinary day is forced to contemplate the void of uncertainty in which we all stand. Danis Rose, one of the world's leading experts on James Joyce, has produced a timely reappraisal of the history of Joyce's writing - a Ulysses for our time. "A fine and loyal act of restoration" Robert McCrum, Observer; "This edition may be the handy, usable Ulysses that we have been waiting for" Fritz Senn, Director, Zurich James Joyce Foundation --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A modernist classic, 'Ulysses' is without doubt one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century. Loosely modelled on the wanderings of Homer's Ulysses as he journeyed toward wife, son and home in Ithaca, the novel follows the interwoven paths of two of Joyce's most realised characters – the young schoolteacher Stephen Dedalus, bitterly estranged from his father, and the middle-aged Dubliner, Leopold Bloom, still grieving for his dead infant son. Over the course of twenty-four hours, their unwitting quest for each other – surrogate son for surrogate father – is enacted against an extraordinary, celebratory portrait of the city of Dublin.

"It is the book to which we are all indebted and from which none of us can escape"
T.S.ELIOT

"His standing is second to none among writers of our own century. He was witty, difficult, subtle and perhaps the greatest genius among the many who have come from Ireland to bewilder the world with the magic of art"
IRISH INDEPENDENT

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist, noted for his experimental use of language in such works as Ulysses (1922) and Finneganns Wake (1939). Joyce's technical innovations in the art of the novel include an extensive use of interior monologue; he used a complex network of symbolic parallels drawn from the mythology, history, and literature, and created a unique language of invented words, puns, and allusions. He also published a collection of poems titled Chamber Music in 1907. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.