James Joyce: Ulysses

Boekinfo

Titel: Ulysses, 1922
Uitgever: Penguin
ISBN-10: 0-14-018105-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-018105-00140181059 / 9780140181050

ISBN is van editie 1986

Flaptekst

Corrected edition volgens de critical Edition van Hans Walter Gabler, Garland New York 1984

'It is the book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape' - T. S. Eliot
'Ulysses revolts against history as hatred and violence, and speaks in its most intense moments of their opposite. It does so with the keenest sense of how love can degenerate into dreamy creaminess or into brutishness, can claim to be all soul or all body, when only in the union of both can it truly exist. Like other comedies, Ulysses ends in a vision of reconciliation' - Richard Ellmann

'One feels admiration that is almost reverence for the incredible labours of this incredible genius' - Ford Madox Ford

The Garland Edition is the fruit of seven years' research, during which the editors returned to the manuscripts, drafts and proofs of the first edition in order to reconstruct as closely as possible Joyce's original intention.

Beschrijving: Initial preparation for Joyce's work began in 1902 while Joyce was still twenty years old. He was self-possessed enough to gather all his epiphanies and begin arranging them to form notes for Ulysses. He began work in earnest in 1914, after the publication of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and it was eventually published in 1922.

Ulysses deals with the opulence of personal thought and while we are ushered into its characters private worlds with ease, we know little about their exteriors. The narrative parallels Homer's Odyssey, but an in-depth knowledge of The Odyssey is not necessary for enjoyment of Ulysses.

The main character in the book is Leopold Bloom, a non-practising Jew. Throughout the novel, the reader is permitted to become wholly familiar with the inner workings of Leopold's mind, but not given enough information about his physical appearance to form a clear mental picture of him. We are told he is quiet and decent, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. He has a pale intellectual face in which are set two dark large lidded, superbly expressive eyes.

The story of a haunting sorrow is written on his face and his friends say that there's a touch of the artist about old Bloom. A safe moustached man who has his good points and slips off when the fun gets too hot.

Another significant figure winding his way through the streets of Dublin in Ulysses is Stephen Dedalus, whom we first meet in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen is an arrogant young intellectual whom Bloom takes under his wing. He acts as a father figure to the young Stephen who fulfils the role to some extent of son for Bloom whose own son died in infancy.

Molly Bloom in Ulysses is equated with Penelope in The Odyssey and the last chapter of the book is dedicated solely to her meanderings and musings. It is one of the most renowned pieces of writing in Ulysses and is famous for its celebration of this voluptuous, sensuous, opulent, abundant, independent, lush, and blooming woman.

Recommended 1922 text:
Ulysses from the World's Classics range published by Oxford University Press

Recommended recent text:
Ulysses. Edited: Hans Walter Gabler. 1986 edition published by Bodley Head.

Recommended Annotations:
Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman published by University of California Press.1989