James Joyce's Odyessy

The first experience I had of James Joyce's groundbreaking novel Ulysses was during my ill-fated stay at Bath Spa University. I had signed up for a degree in 'Creative Writing' and it was on my way to one of those lectures that I overheard first year English students complaining about the fact Joyce's book was one of the texts they had to study. Comments like, "it doesn't make sense" reverberated around the walls of the holding pen outside the lecture room. Thus, my first impression of Joyce's work of imperative importance in modernist literature was a negative one.

However, after doing a little bit of research into the book I became fascinated of its contents. I discovered that the title and contents of the book paralleled Homer's Odyssey, an epic poem that I had great pleasure in reading during my college days.

After dipping into Ulysses I did have sympathy for those poor Bath Spa students (mainly because they are still at Bath Spa). It is a difficult text to get to grips with. It's premise is of Leopold Bloom passing through an ordinary day in Dublin. Joyce uses a stream of consciousness narrative technique which makes for highly descriptive reading, sometimes overwhelming the reader.

I haven't been able to read all of Ulysses so I can't comment on themes within the text or what the text promotes, but I can see from what I have read that Ulysses is a very progressive novel, a complete standout novel of its generation and highly deserving of its place in the modernist literary canon.