English Language FAQ

On June 16, 1904, James Joyce met his future wife, Nora. He later memorialised the date as Bloomsday - the day of  Leopold Bloom 's twenty-four-hour mock-odyssey around Dublin in Ulysses (1922).  Ulysses  is renowned for the daunting challenge it poses readers ( see here for a brief beginner's guide). It also weighs in at close to a thousand pages in the paperback edition.  What happens on Bloomsday? Joyce - whose self-importance matched his monumental talent - believed Ulysses would provide scholars with 'a lifetime' of material.  Doubtless, he would think it fitting that thousands now attend public readings of his work, most famously in Dublin, where Bloomsday is a major tourist event.   What happens in Ulysses?

Mr Bloom prepares breakfast for himself, his wife & his cat. Photo by  Vital Sinkevich  on  Unsplash Ulysses (1922) is a long novel in which, on the surface, very little happens.