I've never read Ulysses and I'm about to pull the trigger. Which of these two would you choose?

Thanks!

Been reading A Portrait of the Artist as a young men and found this. (Chapter II part III)

Very beautiful poem and I wonder if it's Joyce's creation or preexisting material.

Any clue?

Found the hardcover version on the left in the bargain bin at Strand bookstore in NYC (5$ USD) and I bought the paperback on the right from World of books. I wanted to know if there was a significant difference between versions before i donate the paperback version.

Thank you!

Penelope : Who is returning to whom?

The standard narrative of Ulysses has Bloom finally return home to Molly. He returns to Ithaca having reunited with Stephen, slayed the suitors and reclaimed his domain. The hero’s journey as it is often called mirrors the Odyssey’s Telemachia(d), Odyssey and Nostos. The titles Joyce uses in the various schemas for each episode suggest an equivalence to this approach.

As with most things Joyce, all is not what it appears at first glance. Upon closer inspection there are two Odyssean figures each on their own journey of return, Bloom a physical return and Molly a devotional one. So who is the real Odysseus?

I would suggest both.

Let’s investigate the evidence. Bloom is on a peripatetic journey around Dublin on June 16th 1904. Throughout his voyage he has to overcome the various opponents determined to halt his progress. Despite their best efforts Bloom vanquishes each in turn from Calypso through to Circe.

However, despite his variety of locations and confrontations his mind is focussed on only one thing, Molly. Indeed, he unsuccessfully spends all of episode 5 “Lotus Eaters” trying not to think of her. Yet throughout the day the reader is reminded of Bloom’s devotion to his wife from thoughts of happier times, cosmetic lotions to book and lingerie purchases. The bar of Lemon’s soap is an analogy of her ever presence.

Bloom is the one who bends but does break to temptation. In fact he fights off his own suitors from the maid next door, Martha, Gerty McDowell, Zoey and ultimately Bella Cowen. His methods of remaining loyal to Molly may be unorthodox and skate the margins of propriety but nevertheless he does remain devoted in mind at least to his wife.

Molly on the other hand remains at 7 Eccles Steet. Whilst physically in one place her mind is wandering all day. She is physically and emotionally unfaithful to her husband and we are only introduced to her thoughts of the day in the final episode, “Penelope”. 

Molly’s devotion to Bloom is facing its own challenges. The death of Rudy and the subsequent schism in the marriage and lack of intimacy has Molly at odds with her own desires. For a large portion of the book Molly is with Boylan. She is enjoying the physical intimacy and validation that Boylan provides but yearns ultimately to be somewhere else emotionally.

The parallels with Odysseus stranded on Ogygia with the nymph Calypso are evident to the eagle-eyed reader. Odysseus spent 7 out of the 10 years trapped in what, one could argue, was not an entirely adversarial situation. Homer’s protagonist yearns for home and Penelope despite the sexual attentions of the beautiful Calypso. Odysseus is yearning to be somewhere else physically.

Molly’s named suitors are, I would contend, those characters to whom Molly was the object of their desire, not potential other infidelities of hers. We are constantly reminded of Molly’s sexual allure either by reference to her physical attributes or to the intangible essence she appears to exude. She could clearly have her pick if she so desired with John Henry Menton being the most obvious example of a spurned paramour.

In the end, after many mental deliberations on Bloom, his physical attributes, his idiosyncrasies and how he treats his fellow humans and animals. Molly emotionally returns to Bloom with the famous “yes I said yes I will Yes” conclusion to the book. This is Molly’s Odyssean return having faced her own unique hero’s journey.

Ulysses the novel is subjective and open to many interpretations. These are just my personal observations as I have read and reread Ulysses over the years. This resource is designed purely to help the reader understand some of the subplots that may go unnoticed.

© Aidan O’Leary - Ulysses Companion 2026

I enjoyed it! I used Hastings’ Guide to Ulysses and Gifford to get through it. I will definitely do another reading at some point in my life! (Unless I accidentally die before that point, of course)

Can we feed “Finnegan’s Wake” into their models? Scrape that!!

the most debated dot of all time!

I recently published a near-future literary novel called Sing in Me, Muse, and I’m trying to get it into the hands of people who genuinely know and love Homer, especially teachers, professors, or serious readers of the epic tradition.
It is not a modern retelling of The Odyssey where the characters and episodes are simply transplanted into another setting. The protagonist is recognizably Odyssean and the novel is recognizably an Odyssey, but the book tries to engage with the epic tradition more structurally.
Its central motif is recycling. Objects, machines, bodies, names, identities, careers, and even the dead are broken apart, inherited, and made to function again in altered forms. The novel does the same thing with Homeric material, taking things like nostos, kleos, disguise, recognition, temptation, and unstable identity and recombining them into a near-future story.
It also plays with polarity reversal. A Trojan Horse analogue conceals medicine rather than death. An Achilles figure becomes a nearly superhuman protector. Nostos does not restore a man to the identity he had before the war, but carries him forward into an identity he never previously possessed.
So the idea is that the novel does to Homer what the novel’s characters do to everything else: reuse inherited material and turn it into something new.
I’m not looking for people to leave Amazon reviews or promote the book. I’d genuinely like to find a few readers who know Homer well and would be interested in seeing whether the experiment works.
If you teach Homer, study the classics, or are simply one of those people who has read the Iliad and Odyssey enough times to have opinions about this sort of thing, let me know. I’d be happy to lower the ebook price to $0.99 for a few days if I had some real interest.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9CZX4QM

Note: Cover is AI. I did contract a human artist off fiverr to draw this image just to humanize it but I wound up liking the AI one more. I get that there’s a lot of AI hate out there but please, dont make this post about that.

On episode 5 and it seems like Bloom thinks about sausages a lot

I was just curious if anyone knew of any podcasts that broke down and analyzed his works. I’m starting from the beginning at Dubliners and was just curious if anyone had of any favorite podcasts that broke down and analyzed Dubliners and his other works.

If not, all good! Thanks!

Hi All, I have a bit of an unusual request: my dad sadly died, unexpectedly and relatively young, just over a month ago. My dad was the most well read and clever man I have ever met. There is nobody like him.

To say he was a Joyce fan is an understatement - in his bedroom alone I counted four copies of Ulysses! In his funeral wishes he requested a reading of an excerpt from The Dead, which I read.

We had planned on interring his ashes at our local cemetery, but they don’t currently have any room. I have been thinking about where he might like to be scattered, and wondered if there was a meaningful place for Joyce fans that might be possible to scatter ashes. If it matters, I am from and live in England so can travel to Ireland.

Thank you in advance for any ideas.

in the anime movie Paprika, the centerpiece is the parade of dreams, a massive unstoppable procession where household objects, mythic figures, advertisements, frogs playing trumpets, and historical icons march together in utter nonsesnse.

During the dream sequences, Characters speak in continous strings of sound alike puns, advertising slogans, and nursery rhymes that sound like japanese until you try to translate the literal meaning. The dialogue doesnt make sense on a linear narrative level, instead it operates via phrenetic wordplay and free assocaition, exactly like joyces portmanteau words.

Finnegans wake takes place in the mind of a sleeper whose subconcious bleeds into the collective history of mankind. in Paprika, a device allows the dreams to spill out of individual minds. merging the subconcouis states of dozens of people until the dream world physically consumes the real world.

While animes like Angels Egg capture the christian themes and viconian cycle, paprika captures the wakes actual execution.

Paprika is also where the movie inception came from

expanding on my take since people were having a hard time with my comparisons. the theme of eternal recurrence aside, here are some direct comparisons that may help.

Elden Ring Character = finnegans wake character = irish mythological character.

The Broken Rulers:

*Queen Marika the Eternal = Anna Livia Plurabelle (ALP) = Danu (The Divine Mother tied to the land/order)
* Radagon of the Golden Order = Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (HCE) = The Dagda (The flawed, structural Patriarch)
* Godfrey, First Elden Lord = Tim Finnegan = Finn MacCool (The legendary giant/warrior who falls and returns)

The Twin Brothers (Order vs. Chaos):

 *Morgott, the Omen King = Shaun the Postman = Lugh Law-Giver (The dutiful son protecting the status quo)
* Mohg, Lord of Blood = Shem the Penman = Midir (The outcast twin operating in the deep underground)
* Sir Gideon Ofnir = Professor Jones (Jaun) = Ogma (The know-it-all scholar hoarding information/language)
* The Dung Eater = Glugg / Mercius = Crom Cruach (The bottom-tier defiler who spreads a generational curse)

The Divine Daughters & Maidens:

 *Ranni the Witch = Issy (as Isolde) = Étaín (The rebellious daughter shedding her physical form for autonomy)
* Melina = The Rainbow Girls = Áine (The ethereal, fire-linked guide who sacrifices herself)
* Malenia, Blade of Miquella = Nuvoletta = Macha (The undefeated female warrior who brings a destructive storm/rot)

The Catalysts of Destiny:

*Miquella the Kind = Tristram (Tristan) = Aengus Óg (The perpetually young youth with irresistible, tragic charisma)
* Godwyn the Golden = The Beloved Dead Son = Cian (The golden child whose murder triggers the collapse of the era)
* Rennala, Queen of the Moon = Kate the Clean (The Widow) = The Cailleach (The faded matriarch clinging to a relic in her isolation)
* Maliketh, the Black Blade = Buckley the Soldier = Cú Chulainn (The loyal beast-warrior holding the weapon of total destruction)

Cosmic Forces & Foes

* The Fire Giant = The Russian General = Balor of the Evil Eye (The ancient, massive giant with a destructive central eye)
* Praetor Rykard = The Serpent / Tempter = The Olliphéist (The noble who turns into a giant snake to consume the gods)
* Astel, Naturalborn of the Void = The Thunderword = Crom Dubh (The alien, star-born blast that levels civilization from above)

The Observers & Travelers

* The Two Fingers = The Two Washerwomen = The Badb / Nemain (The twin entities signaling/interpreting cosmic omens)
* Enia the Finger Reader = Maggy (The Letter-Finder) = Bébinn (The ancient crone decoding the garbled texts of fate)
* The Tarnished = The Cad / The Inquirer = Oisín (The exiled traveler returning to question a ruined landscape)
* Miriel, Pastor of Vows (Turtle) = The Four Old Men = The Four Masters (The slow, neutral chronicler keeping track of history)
* Blaidd the Half-Wolf = The Hound of HCE = Failinis (The fiercely loyal beast-companion bound to a royal master)
* Patches the Untethered = Hosty the Busker = The Púca (The ultimate trickster kicking you into a ditch for survival)
* Goldmask = The Twelve Citizens (Jury) = The Druids of Tara (The silent purists calculating the absolute law of the cosmos)
* Fia, Deathbed Companion = ALP's Last Monologue = The Morrígan (The comforting entity of the end who embraces the fallen)

Finally got to the UK to see one of these. Really awesome. Check the box.

angels egg is something i found researching the surrounding myths and motifs of dark souls and later elden ring, it is the dark souls of anime movies lol. now the more i find out about eternal recurrence and finnegans wake im like, that reminds me of angels egg. It has little to no dialogue.

Both talk about cosmic eggs (ab avo)

Both deal in viconian cycles.

Both deal in the eternal flood and primordial fall

Both feel like a collective conscience or a dying dream.

Characters behave like archetypes not people

Both open and end in loops, use dream logic, and are about broken covenants in a post deluge age .

both have objects at the center, elusive artifacts that promise to contain answers, that dont. The letter in the wake vs the egg in angels egg

when i first saw angels egg i was like wtf is this about, same with elden ring, same with finnegans wake. now i get it lol

So I mentioned this article in another thread a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/jamesjoyce/comments/1whyq0y/ulysses_ithaca_same_dream_creamfruit_melon/

I haven't found a link to the text online but found my paper copy. I'm not sure how best to upload it, or whether an album of photos of the text would even be allowed as a post. It's a really good piece exploring the idea of where Stephen goes after Bloom's at the end of the book.

I am finding Finnegans Wake and Elden ring Share quite a bit of motif and myth sharing. they seem to be base on the same irish/celtic myths, have a similiar story structure. On paper, a weird 1939 modernist novel and a 2022 dark fantasy RPG shouldn't have much overlap. But Finnegans Wake and Elden Ring are actually built on the exact same foundation. They're both notoriously dense and refuse to hand-hold, forcing you to act like an archaeologist just to piece together their shattered lore. Finnegans Wake is known as one of the most difficult books ever and I haven't read it fully. From what i understand its heavily influenced joseph cambell who studied it immensley and i have read his works and many irish myths. Does anyone else notice this relationship or does this make any sense?

H-14 cm

Episodes one and two of Ulysses, whilst not exactly straightforward, lull the reader into a false sense of security. In episode three ‘Proteus” the reader is thrown (much like the corpse in episode one) in at the deep end. It is the first sink or swim moment for every novice reader and let’s be honest, more sink than swim.

However, on the second page of the third episode, Joyce provides the reader with the key to reading and understanding the novel. Much like the rest of the book the key is not readily obvious at first glance.

“The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your _omphalos_. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.”

Here Stephen imagines a physical link through time connecting all humans (female at least) back to Eve in the Garden of Eden. He humorously contemplates the idea of being able to talk to Eve via a telephone line created by the links of intertwined umbilical cords. These act as a physical connection from the present to the past.

However, there is a second less obvious reading of this passage which the reader can use as a guide to help them deal with this Protean episode. There is a conceptual connection between the present and the past, a ‘naval cord of thought’ formed by linked ideas and perceptions.

The very first interior monologue in the book is “Chrysostomos”. A thought which pops into Stephen’s mind (and is shared with the reader) upon the sight of Buck Mulligan’s gold crowned teeth. This is the first link between perception and thought and is going to be the domino effect that permeates the rest of the book.

None of Stephen’s or Bloom's thoughts comes without an augury of sorts. A cause to each effect. Sensory perceptions lead to thoughts which lead to thoughts which lead to thoughts. Ulysses is a navel cord of thoughts from beginning to end.

The first thing to remember with episode three is that it is almost entirely in Stephen’s mind. There is no dialogue, no third party narration, just a stream of consciousness. We are inside the unfiltered mind of the character. Replete with interruptions, distractions and truncated thoughts. This is a fundamental concept when trying to come to terms with Proteus.

Most readers assume (if they manage to decipher it!) that the text is just a random list of vignettes in Stephen’s mind from Plato to Aristotle, to midwives, to Paris, to imaginary trips to his uncle’s house and so on. But they are not random at all. Upon closer inspection they are sequential at least in the mind of Stephen and denote the struggle between Aristotle’s empiricism and Plato’s rationalism.

Each of the sections in Ulysses Companion’s Proteus “Reading Room Archive” deals with the moments that are catalysts of thought for Stephen. The causal links that form the thoughts that form the episode. Each vignette is an initial thought derived from the “ineluctability modality of the visual” and each subsequent vignette is caused by one of his senses.

Ulysses the novel is subjective and open to many interpretations. These are just my personal observations as I have read and reread Ulysses over the years. This resource is designed purely to help the reader come to terms with one of the most notorious chapters in all literature.

These “links” can be grouped as follows : 

• Stephen contemplates empiricism, that all knowledge and reality is derived from the senses.
• Stephen decides to test this hypothesis by walking with his eyes closed.
• Upon opening his eyes he sees two women descend the steps to Sandymount strand.
• Imagining them as midwives he contemplates his own conception and existence
• The weather changes arresting his daydream and his thoughts return to the present
• He thinks about going to his uncle’s house in Sandymount and meeting Mulligan in The Ship
• The derelict houses of Ringsend remind him of the end of times and Jesuit teaching.
• This brings him back to memories of Clongowes Wood College
• He has gone past his uncle’s house and realises by the sight of The Pigeon House
• This reminds him of Leo Taxil’s blasphemous satire in which Mary was made pregnant by a pigeon that he was introduced to in Paris.
• His thoughts turn to Paris and less fortunate times with Kevin Egan
• The telegram of his mothers death shifts his thoughts to back to her
• This reminds him of Buck Mulligan’s assertion “the aunt thinks you killed your mother”
• The sun’s reflection on the houses brings him back to daybreak on Parisien streets
• Kevin Egan’s cigarette reminds him of the Clerkenwell explosion and Irish revolutionaries over time
• Egan’s exile in Paris reminds him of all people exiled and Psalm 137 (by the rivers of Babylon)
• The sea lapping his feet causes him to look backwards. There is a Martello tower on Sandymount strand which switches his memory back to earlier in the Sandycove tower. He remembers he has no key and he is now in exile.
• His reverie causes him to walk far out and he sits to contemplate how to get back into town.
• He sees a dead dog's carcass followed by the sight of another dog running towards him.
• This strikes fear into him as he is afraid of dogs but notices the dog is with two people whom he imagines are Egyptians but turn out to be cocklepickers
• He imagines Vikings landing on the beach and remembers the year whales were washed up there
• His fear of the dog reminds him of his own cowardice and his physical fragility compared to Mulligan
• He imagines the Protean nature of the dog as to him it turns into a hare, a buck, a wolf,a bear and a leopard. The dog starts to dig and he thinks of digging up the dead much like he metaphorically keeps digging up the memory of his mother.
• Stephen partially remembers a middle eastern dream introducing one of the novels many famous neologisms “almosting”
• Stephen thinks of a love poem but has nothing to write it on then thinks of Deasy’s letter and tears a bit off
• The love poem gets him thinking of women which ultimately brings him back to his mother
• Stephen considers his body, the beach and the sea.
• Which brings him back to the drowned man in Episode one.
• He then decides to make his way into town but leaves one of his own ‘creations” behind
• The chapter ends with the sight of a ship and the augury of a new character’s arrival.

© Aidan O’Leary - Ulysses Companion 2026

>advocates for capital punishment in a room full of irish nationalists

>talks about the merits of lawn tennis and the drawbacks of vigorous exercise in front of one of the main proponents of gaelic sports and exercise

>talks about the merits of the british empire and internationalism

He walks into hostile territory, ragebaits the citizen, and then walks out unscathed. He even manages the devastating parting shot *Christ was a jew like me*. Maybe it was the cigar that gave him enough aura to enter a ragebait flowstate?

What do you guys think? Why was Bloom moving like LeBron in this episode?

i’m looking at different editions and feeling somewhat dizzied by all the discussion. i personally would like my first read through to be the most “readable” version as i tend to prefer not using excessive annotations as i find it distracting… id like to have space for marginalia but otherwise i dont have strong preferences.