Last week in a local coffee/book shop, I discovered this utterly charming edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses. For some reason, I felt the tome calling to me from the shelf as I sat there with my morning coffee and crossword puzzle. I then felt like it was time again to re-attempt (you’ll find that re-attempting things is a re-occurring theme on this page) at conquering the behemoth. This time, though, I am going in armed with notebooks and resources of analysis and annotations.
“What?!” you ask. “An English teacher needing external resources to understand a text?” I declare, “But of course!” Anyone can read Ulysses and get the basic gist of what’s happening. But there’s a reason why people have dedicated their scholarship career uncovering the myriads literary allusions and extremely niche references to early 20th-century Dublin. The entire novel is, as Joyce put it, “an encyclopedia.” Only none of the entries are indexed, and very little elucidation is given for any subject. But I shan’t let the sheer length and density deter me. Not this time. See this excellent video essay on reading difficult books.
What I really admire is how Joyce is able to completely shift prose style and density depending on whose head we’re in, all while maintaining free indirect speech and stream-of-consciousness writing. For example, compare a chapter featuring Stephen Daedalus, a failed but talented writer who thinks in metaphors and high-literary allusions:
The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man’s ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.
To a chapter featuring Mr. Bloom, a working class everyman:
The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.
Mr. Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.
I love Mr. Bloom, btw. Mostly because he’s a cat person. But also because he’s a bit of a lech, a charming lech. *teehee* Thankfully, we spend most of the novel with Mr. Bloom. Else this would take even longer to read!!
As of right now, I am only on the “Aeolus” chapter for the book. Technically, it is chapter 7 of 18, but I am really nowhere near through a third of the tome…maybe a fifth? But, I am determined to finish this time. Even after the school year begins??? Yes…I hope.
Speaking things to get through. Here’s my to-do list so far:
Get my brake lights changed- Get a haircut
- Get back into a morning routine
Work on my NCBT certification
Two down, two to go!
A Drop in the Ocean 
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