Ulysses — James Joyce

The boss fight.

One unremarkable day contains the whole epic, if you look closely enough.

The boss fight. You want the hardest version and the achievement that comes with finishing it.

What it keeps and what it changes

Keeps: the Odyssey as a hidden scaffold: 18 episodes shadowing Homer.
Changes: the scale to a single Dublin day (June 16, 1904) and the hero to Leopold Bloom, ad-man Odysseus.

Keeps the Odyssey as a hidden scaffold, with 18 episodes shadowing Homer (Telemachus, Calypso, Cyclops, Sirens, Penelope and the rest). Changes the scale to one ordinary Dublin day (June 16, 1904) and the hero to Leopold Bloom, ad-man Odysseus.

Whose story is it?

Bloom’s, Stephen’s, and Molly’s, with the epic dissolved into their inner lives.

The feminism angle: Molly Bloom's closing soliloquy is one of literature's great female interior voices.

How much time does it ask?

your whole summer (30+ hr, famously demanding).

Molly Bloom’s close: “yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Where to find it

Read free — Project Gutenberg →

Other ways to get it: Buy the book — Bookshop.org ↗ · Ebook — Kobo ↗ · Kindle — Amazon ↗

Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby ↗ · Find at your library — WorldCat ↗

Pairs well with: The Emily Wilson Translation (2017), if you want a chaser in another medium.

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More ways home: The Emily Wilson Translation (2017) · The Robert Fagles Translation (1996) · The Robert Fitzgerald Translation (1961)