Classics · ThoughtfulThree Dubliners live one ordinary day, 16 June 1904, in eighteen episodes that loosely echo the Odyssey
Ulysses
by James Joyce
One day in Dublin, told in eighteen episodes that loosely parallel Homer's Odyssey
The novel follows three Dubliners through one ordinary day, 16 June 1904, which fans celebrate as Bloomsday. Leopold Bloom is an advertising canvasser, Stephen Dedalus an aspiring writer, and Molly Bloom is Bloom's wife. It opens at 8 a.m., when Buck Mulligan calls Stephen up to the roof of the Sandycove Martello tower. Shakespeare and Company in Paris published it on 2 February 1922, Joyce's 40th birthday, after seven years of writing.
More about this book
Who
Leopold Bloom, an advertising canvasser, Stephen Dedalus, an aspiring writer, and Molly Bloom.
World
Dublin on 16 June 1904.
What makes it different
It has 18 episodes in three books that loosely parallel Homer's Odyssey. It was serialized in The Little Review, and the US prosecuted that magazine for obscenity in 1920-21.
Feel
Dense and experimental, at 732 pages. A 1932 US court ruling found it was not obscene.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- UlyssesWikipedia