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| Original Edition (2 February 1922) Published by Sylvia Beach (page 730) |
Description
Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It was first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920 and then published in its entirety in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce's 40th birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called 'demonstration and summation of the entire movement. According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Ulysses takes place on a single day, 16 Jue 1904, also known as Bloomsday. It places the characters and incidents of Homer's Odyssey 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. As his characters stroll, eat, contemplate, and argue through the streets of Dublin, Joyce's stream of consciousness narrative artfully weaves events, emotions, and memories in the free flow of imagination. Full of literary allusions, parody, puns, and uncensored vulgarity, Ulysses has been considered controversial and challenging, but always brilliant and rewarding.
Adaptation
Theatre
Ulysses in Nighttown, based on Episode 15 'Circe', premiered off-Broadway in 1958, with Zero Mostel as Bloom; it debuted on Broadway in 1974.
In 2006, playwright Sheila Callaghan's Dead City, a contemporary stage adaptation of the book set in New York City, and featuring the male figures Bloom and Dedalus reimagined as female characters Samantha Blossom and Jewel Jupiter was produced in Manhattan by New Georges.
In 2012, an adaption was staged in Glasgow, written by Dermot Bolger and directed by Andy Arnold first premiered at the Tron Theatre, later toured in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, made an appearance at Edinburgh Festival, and was performed in China. In 2017 a revised version of Bolger's adaption directed and designed by Graham McLaren premiered at Ireland's National Theatre, The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, as part of the 2017 Dublin Theatre Festival. It was revived in June 2018, and the script was published by Oberon Books.
In 2013, a new stage adaption of the novel, Gibraltar, was produced in New York by the Irish Repertory Theatre. It was written by and starred Patrick Fitzgerald and directed by Terry Kinney. This two-person play focused on the love story of Bloom and Molly, played by Car Seymour.
Film
In 1967, a film version of the book was directed by Joseph Strick. Starring Milo O'Shea as Bloom, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 2003, a movie version, Bloom, was released starring Stephen Rea and Angeline Ball.
Television
In 1988, the episode 'James Joyce's Ulysses' of the documentary series The Modern World: Ten Great Writers was shown on Chanel 4. Some of the novel's most famous scenes were dramatized. David Suchet played Leopold Bloom.
Audio
On Bloomsday 1982, RTÉ Ireland's national broadcaster aired a full-cast, unabridged, dramatized radio production of Ulysses, that ran uninterrupted for 29 hours and 45 minutes.
The unabridged text of Ulysses has been performed by Jim Norton with Marcella Riordan. Naxos Records released the recording on 22 audio CDs in 2004. It follows an earlier abridged recording with the same actors.
On Bloomsday 2010, author Frak Delaney launched a series of weekly podcasts called Re: Joyce that took listeners page by page through Ulysses, discussing its allusion, historical context, and references. The podcast ran until Delaney's death in 2017.
BBC Radio 4 aired a new nine-part adaptation dramatized by Robin Brooks, produced/directed by Jeremy Mortimer and starring Stephen Rea as the Narrator, Henry Goodman as Bloom, Niamh Cusack as Molly, and Andrew Scott as Dedalus, for Bloomsday 2012, beginning on 16 June 2012.
Comedy/satire recording troupe The Firesign Theatre ends its 1969 album 'How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All? with a male voice reciting the final lines of Molly Bloom's soliloquy.
Music
The music CD Classical Ulysses was launched by the James Joyce Society in Dublin for the Bloomsday 100 celebrations in 2004. It contained recorded versions of the classical music mentioned in the book. The music was used as a soundtrack for the Bloomsday 100 Parade in Dublin o 16 June 2004. The CD was created and produced by the London-based author and poet Frank Molloy.
Kate Bush's song 'Flower of the Mountain' (originally the title track on The Sensual World) sets to music the end of Molly Bloom's soliloquy.
Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) is an electroacoustic composition for voice and tape by Luciano Berio. Composed between 1958-1959, it is based on the interpretative reading of the poem 'Sirens' from chapter 11 of the novel. It is sung/voiced by Cath Berberian, with technical elaboration on her recorded voice.
Rock band Jefferson Airplan's 1967 album 'After Bathing at Baxter's' includes a song,' Rejoyce', by singer-songwriter Grace Slick that contains allusions to characters and themes in Ulysses.
The title of the instrumental track 'June 16th' on Minutemen's 1984 album Double Nickels on the Dime is a reference to the date of the novel.
Prose
Jacob Appel's novel The Biology of Luck (2013) is a retelling of Ulysses set in New York City. It features an inept tour guide, Larry Bloom, whose adventures parallel those of Leopold Bloom through Dublin.
Maya Lang's The Sixteenth of June (2014) reimagines the events of Ulysses and sets them in contemporary Philadelphia.
About the Author
James Joyce (1882-1941) was born in Dublin, Ireland, to a well-meaning but financially inept father and a solemn, pious mother. One of the most revered and influential writers of the 20th century, he was noted for his experimental use of language in his works. His first publication, an essay on Ibsen's play, appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1900.
At the outset of the First World War, Joyce moved to Zurich, where he wrote Exiles, reworked on the Early Chapter of Ulysses. In 1904, he made his first attempt at a novel Stephen Hero and also attempted to publish A Portrait of the Artist, an essay-story dealing with aesthetics, only to have it rejected. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its highly controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the Short-story collection Dubliners (1914). Joyce died in 1941 at the age of 59.
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| James Joyce (1882-1941) |
Rating: 4.5/5
Author: James Joyce
Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing
Publishing Date: 15 June 2017
Edition Language: English
Genre: Modernist, Classic Fiction
ISBN-10: 8175994541
ISBN-13: 978-8175994546
Pages: 800
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