Third Tuesday of every Month | 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Email jdavidson@comlib.org to join this Zoom meeting.
James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) may be more talked about than read. It occupies an intimidating position within the literary canon as a byword for experimental modernism. Joyce helped to forge its reputation, mischievously claiming, “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” Even Virginia Woolf, reading shortly after publication, found Ulysses a struggle, dismissing it as “diffuse,” “brackish,” and “pretentious.” Prestige is evident in its perennial placing in lists of “Great Books,” and echoed in its value to collectors. In 2009, a first edition sold at auction for £275,000, the highest sum ever achieved for a 20th-century novel. Yet its reputation for difficulty masks the extent to which Ulysses is warm, welcoming and witty, granting a uniquely intimate perspective on what it is to be human.
– Dr. Katherine Mullin
Reading Schedule
January 21 – Introduction and Episode 1, “Telemachus” (roughly pages 1-23)
February 18 – Episodes 2-6,“Nestor” | “Proteus” | “Calypso” | “The Lotus-Eaters” | “Hades” (roughly pages 24-111)
March 17 – Episodes 7-8, “Aeolus” | “Lestrygonians” (roughly pages 112-175) – *CANCELLED*
April 21 – Episode 9, “Scylla & Charybdis” (roughly pages 176-209)
May 19 – Episodes 10-11, “Wandering Rocks” | “Sirens” (roughly pages 210-279)
June 16 – BLOOMSDAY! Episode 12, “Cyclops” (roughly pages 280-330)
July 21 – Episode 13, “Nausicaa” (roughly pages 331-365)
August 18 – Episode 14, “Oxen of the Sun” (roughly pages 366-407)
September 15 – Episode 15, “Circe” (roughly pages 408-565)
October 20 – Episode 16, “Eumaeus” (roughly pages 569-618)
November 17 – Episode 17, “Ithaca” (roughly pages 619-689)
December 15 – Episode 18, “Penelope” (roughly pages 690-732)
Resources
Recorded presentation by literary scholar Dr. Enda Duffy at The Community Library Lecture Hall on 7 December 2019: https://livestream.com/comlib/duffy
Free digital copy of Ulysses through Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm#chap15
British Library online introduction to Ulysses: https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/an-introduction-to-ulysses
Online guide to Ulysses by Dr. Patrick Hastings: http://www.ulyssesguide.com/
The Community Library Contact
Jenny Emery Davidson
(208) 806-2620
Photo courtesy of LitHub.
