Ulysses is one of those books that people want to say they’ve read – but haven’t. In today’s Why Should I Read This, Fran Connor tells us why you shouldn’t be intimidated by it and why it’s actually worth your time.
You've probably heard that James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses may be the greatest novel of the 20th century, and that it's incredibly difficult to read. Ignore that. Its story is simple. Unhappily married ad writer Leopold Bloom and angry young intellectual Stephen Dedalus wander Dublin on June 16, 1904. They eventually meet and get drunk. Leopold's wife Molly goes to bed. The end. What's important is that we swim in these characters' minds all day. As they weave present and past, love and tragedy, profound and banal, we recognize that their ordinary lives and ours are epic journeys. It's a novel to be experienced, not interpreted. And don't worry about making parallels to Homer's Odyssey. I think Joyce was trolling us with that.
