Ulysses in audio

Many months ago I listened to Homer's Iliad in audio. That was a wonderful experience making the drive to and from work quite a high point in the day. I took a long rest and eventually dived back into listening with James Joyce's Ulysses. I'm about half way through now. I've read the book a couple of times. It's really hard reading but immensely rewarding. Listening to it is quite superior.

The book defies easy summary. Imagine a conflation of Homer (the Odyssey) and Shakespeare (mainly Hamlet) tranposed to Dublin, 1904, as told by an Irishman totally in mastery of the English language. Stephen Daedalus is a Irish-Greek - a mixture of Telemachus (Odysseus's son) and Hamlet. Leopold Bloom is Odysseus as a Irish-Jew wandering the street of Dublin for many a hour before going home to his wife Molly who is beseiged by a suitor (only one) as Penelope was. The scenes from the Odyssey are transferred to Dublin so that for example the Cyclops becomes the Citizen - an Irish patriot who only has one view on everything. But the book is not simply diagrammatic. Joyce pioneered stream of consciousness and so you live inside the head of Stephen, Leopold, and Molly. Bloom is very sympathetic - he is Homer's "master of stratagems" brought into Dublin. He does come home eventually to Molly. The book ends with a long soliquy by Molly. The pleasures of the book (and audio as read by Jim Norton) are quite varied. It's very entertaining and funny, for one. Joyce demonstrates his ability to write in a wide range of styles and voices. And his ability to describe conversations between groups of people (sharing a few drinks perhaps) is superb. The net result is a book that simply towers over other great novels. It should be read (or listened to) by anyone who loves literature.

Tim