Wanderlust

It seems fortuitous that I finished Joyce's Ulysses on the day before Valentine's Day. Any comments are likely to be too little or too much, but I will make a couple of brief observations.

It is remarkable that Joyce wrote the book between 1914 and 1921, encompassing the years of the worst catastrophe in human history until that date, the First World War. Despite its obvious allusion to a great war (or post-war) poem, Ulysses has nothing to say about war. It has a great deal to say about life. Ulysses is a demanding novel, but it rewards patience.

The core of the story is the fractured relationships that knit the central characters together. Leopold Bloom's quasi estrangement from his unfaithful wife, dating tragically from the premature death of their little boy. Stephen Dedalus's estrangement from nearly everyone, owing in part to his hypertrophied intellect, and his rapprochement with Bloom. Gerty McDowell's flirtation with Bloom born in part of her isolation owing to her limp. If there is a single emotion that characterizes Ulysses for me, I would say that it is yearning.

Joyce has a preternatural power of observation and description, and no detail is beneath his notice, whether it is a dirty handkerchief, a visit to the restroom, or a forgotten key. One has the sense that Joyce has missed nothing, and that everything is related.

In fact, one could easily conclude that Joyce viewed himself as the Shakespeare of his day, an obvious inference from Joyce's recurrent references to and analyses of Shakespeare. Joyce undoubtedly had the encyclopedic vision, but he just as obviously lacked the common touch.

On minor note, I was struck by the fact that Morocco and the "Moorish" quality in Molly Bloom seem to represent the exotic sexuality of the East for Joyce (a very "orientalist" perspective). Ironically, Morocco also represents a country that is perilous for Jews (as perhaps Molly is for Poldy).

One thing that detracted from an otherwise magnificent novel for me was Joyce's periodic slurs toward African Americans and his adoption of minstrel show dialect at points in the novel.