March 2012 Guest Editor Alan Bradley on Louise Penny...
As a young child and early reader, I used to pilfer my older sister’s copy of Ulysses. I didn’t understand the book but I loved the words. More than sixty years later, there are parts of Joyce (notably Finnegans Wake) that I still don’t understand, but I still love the words. I keep both books on my night table.
Ulysses takes place in a single day 16 June 1904 also known as Bloomsday it sets the characters and incidents of the Odyssey of Homer in modern Dublin and represents Odysseus (Ulysses) Penelope and Telemachus in the characters of Leopold Bloom his wife Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus and contrasts them with their lofty models. The book explores various areas of Dublin life dwelling on its squalor and monotony. Nevertheless the book is also an affectionately detailed study of the city. In Ulysses Joyce employs stream of consciousness parody jokes and virtually every other literary technique to present his characters. Many consider it the best novel of the twentieth century. It is powerfully written a book for the ages.
.jpg)
