Episode 57
June 16, 2022
Ulysses
Hosted by Chris Piuma and Suzanne Conklin Akbari
—Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing period.
—Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his name is, say of it?
—Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s child. My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother?
—The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L’art d’être grand...
—Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, another image?
Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men._
James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is sometimes considered the greatest novel of all time, and sometimes considered an impenetrable brick of a book. In celebration of its centenary and on the anniversary of the day the book is set (Bloomsday!) Chris and Suzanne trace the paths of its characters through the streets of Dublin, revel in its sensuous writing, and consider what approaches to reading the book encourages.
Show Notes.
James Joyce: Ulysses. [Bookshop. Project Gutenberg.]
Also by Joyce: Chamber Music. Dubliners. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Finnegans Wake.
We refer to several books we’ve discussed in previous episodes: The Odyssey; Mrs. Dalloway; The Divine Comedy; Middlemarch; A Moveable Feast; W; I Am Woman.
Don Gifford: Ulysses Annotated.
Harry Blamires: The New Bloomsday Book.
Patrick Hastings: Ulyssesguide.com and The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The Joyce Project offers a heavily annotated copy of the text.
An overview of the censoring of Ulysses in the US.
An image of the edition with giant letters.
A lecture by Johnna Purchase on graphic design and Ulysses.
James Heffernen on Woolf’s reading of Joyce.
The pharmacy mentioned in Ulysses.
Tracing Stephen Dedalus's gay desires.
Kate Bush is having a moment right now, so let’s add her adaptation of Molly’s speech, The Sensual World.
Next: Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man. [Bookshop.]