“Ulysses” is a legendary masterpiece of the Irish father of contemporary drama James Joyce. Published as a complete piece in 1922, today the book is considered to be the greatest work of modern literary genres. The author wrote a text that has not two layers, but dozens and hundreds of them. 

“Ulysses”, which was given the name that derives from the ancient Odysseus of Homer, is not an easy metro read. It’s writing style requires attention to every word, sentence structure and parallel meanings. It’s impossible to summarize the book in just a couple of paragraphs. Joyce writing is a science and Ulysses phenomenon constitutes a whole course in many humanitarian universities. 

The plot of the book is centered around one day of the life of ordinary people named Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom. They have breakfasts, teach classes, are lectured on how to live their life, write poems, attend funerals, drink alcohol, arrange their finances and do other very mundane things. But the jewel of this creation is not in the events but in how they are written.

Sometimes it seems that the novel was written not for reading but for studying. The text is immensely rich in meaning and tools. From ancient language to long sentences that occupy the whole page, scientific creations described to a tiny little detail and carefully chosen lengthy philosophical discussions about the sense of life. It’s science for the sake of science, love for the sake of love and literary text for the sake of literary text. 

Take any episode of the 18 parts of the story and you can find endless interpretations for it. Be it a global warming or animal abuse, history of Martin Luther King or manual on making a nuclear weapon – it’s all there, in this particular episode you are about to open. 

Author: Marshall Vasquez