Ulysses and Us
Something stays a reader鈥檚 hand when he reaches for a dusty copy of James Joyce鈥檚 鈥淯lysses.鈥� Maybe it鈥檚 the lack of quotation marks. Or the run-on sentences. Or the Dublin street slang. Or the frequent absence of plot, narrators, logic, or any trappings of what might be called a story. Or a vocabulary that would challenge the most self-assured SAT scholar. (鈥淪cortatory,鈥� anyone? How about 鈥渕onoideal?鈥�)
Or it could be the fussy, rag-and-bone- shop references to the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Irish myth, and Irish colonial history juxtaposed with graphic depictions of sex acts that outdo the most shocking Internet pornography.
But should a brave soul muster the confidence to plow through Joyce鈥檚 tour de force, three things become clear: (1) what some call the greatest novel ever written in English is darned hard to get through; (2) Declan Kiberd鈥檚 Ulysses and Us makes it much easier, and (3) neither is required reading.
Kiberd, whose politicized 鈥淚nventing Ireland鈥� offered a refreshing take on Irish lit as the product of English colonialism, is aware of the alleged masterpiece鈥檚 shortcomings. 鈥淎 book which set out to celebrate the common man and woman endured the sad fate of never being read by most of them,鈥� he writes, bemoaning the ivory-tower cult of Joyce specialists that herd together at symposiums 鈥渓ike reforming alcoholics.鈥�
But 鈥淯lysses鈥� is the story of one average man 鈥� Leopold Bloom, a Jewish newspaper ad salesman 鈥� living one average day in turn-of-the-century Dublin. If Joyce so successfully evoked that day鈥檚 epic ordinariness, why doesn鈥檛 every soccer hooligan recognize the genius of his hefty tome? 鈥淸Joyce] acted on the brazen assumption that his book would not defer to the current taste of the public but serve to invent a new sort of reader,鈥� Kiberd claims, 鈥渟omeone who after that experience might choose to live in a different way.鈥�
One wants to embrace this optimistic thesis 鈥� the idea that art changes lives. Unfortunately, the conventional lit-crit Kiberd trots out in its defense undermines his hope that Joyce鈥檚 very difficult book will appeal to anyone not writing a dissertation about it.
Kiberd鈥檚 failure is, at least, well organized. 鈥淯lysses and Us鈥� is divided into 18 sections that mirror the 18 episodes of Joyce鈥檚 novel that, in turn, reflect the structure of Homer鈥檚 myth. Since Joyce refused to split 鈥淯lysses鈥� into conventional chapters, one is never sure where one is in his complex allegory, so Kiberd鈥檚 road map is essential (even if, maddeningly, the page numbers he cites didn鈥檛 match my edition of 鈥淯lysses鈥�).
So, faced with an incomprehensible swath of exposition known as 鈥淲andering Rocks,鈥� Kiberd explains that Joyce, influenced by the perspective play of Cubist painters, wanted to 鈥渇ocus on peripheral characters, each of whom might have been central in a different kind of book.鈥� Or, explaining the interminable 鈥�Ithaca鈥� Q-and-A between Leopold and Stephen Dedalus, the listless writer Joyce introduced in 鈥淧ortrait of an Artist as a Young Man,鈥� Kiberd points to the Roman Catholic catechism, whose 鈥渇inicky precision of language and the methods used seem almost scientific in the steady elimination of falsehood until you got to the truth.鈥�
But just because a journey comes with a set of directions doesn鈥檛 mean the trip鈥檚 worth taking. Consider Kiberd on 鈥淐irce,鈥澛� the most challenging section in 鈥淯lysses鈥� 鈥� a tedious, incomprehensible 鈥渄ream play鈥澛� featuring dozens of characters engaged in nonsensical action. In 鈥淐irce,鈥� Joyce puts his protagonist in an absurd situation to reveal what a conventional narrative cannot 鈥� not unlike, say, the scene in 鈥淧ee-wee鈥檚 Big Adventure鈥� where Pee-wee dances to 鈥淭equila.鈥� Here鈥檚 Kiberd鈥檚 take: 鈥淭he aim, in Joyce as in Shakespeare, is to extend the feeling of reality into a purely fictional construction; and by so doing to offer a social rather than private analysis of repression.鈥�
Any cabdrivers still with us? It鈥檚 this kind of interpretation 鈥� a humorless, psychological reading poorly explained with a punishing sentence that self-satisfiedly sports a semicolon 鈥� that ruin what little Joyce鈥檚 novel might offer us plebes. If Kiberd鈥檚 building a democratic 鈥淯lysses,鈥� he doesn鈥檛 ask the right questions. If Freudian analysis has been discredited, why is Joyce鈥檚 phallus-forested prose still relevant? If classic myths have been displaced by film archetypes 鈥� if more people are familiar with the
Transformers than the Argonauts 鈥� why should a 21st-century reader bother with a creaky, 100-year-old retelling of a thrice-told tale? If there is an 鈥渦s鈥� in 鈥淯lysses,鈥� where is it? Does this emperor have any clothes?
Before Joyce died of a stomach ulcer in 1941, he uttered seven sad syllables: 鈥淒oes nobody understand?鈥� As 鈥淯lysses鈥� 鈥� an unlikely candidate for Oprah鈥檚 Book Club 鈥� disappears from college syllabuses, academics like Kiberd rush to explain and reexplain its importance.
They should rest easy 鈥� with a little effort, we can understand 鈥淯lysses.鈥� We鈥檙e just not sure if we need to.
Justin Moyer is a freelance book reviewer in Washington, D.C.
