At the university, those in the know said to me: You must have read Ulysses. How could I resist?
FILE–Author James Joyce is shown in this undated file photo. Joyce’s “Ulysses,” the epic story about one man’s journey during a single day in Dublin, Ireland, has been unanimously selected by a panel of scholars and writers as the best English-language novel of the century. The selections announced Monday, July 20, 1998, by the Modern Library’s editorial board were generally older, recognized classics. (AP Photo/file)
The swing is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of that large, faded book by Joyce. His Ulysses is the third Odysseus in my life. For the first is undoubtedly that of Penelope, Telemachus and Calypso. The second, however, is the one who would not have deigned to converse with Dante, but who now has to endure forever and ever in his “Inferno” in a licking flame together with Diomedes. And finally the third, that of James Joyce, reveals quite a bit about himself in this capacity as the third, in addition to a great deal of intellect.