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In his remarkable tour de force, Joyce catalogues one day - June 16 1904 -in immense detail as Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin, talking, observing, musing - and always remembering Molly, his passionate, wayward wife. Set in the shadow of Homer's Odyssey, internal thoughts -Joyce's famous stream of consciousness - give physical reality extra colour and perspective.

Though Ulysses is widely regarded as a 'difficult' novel, this fresh and lively reading shows its comic genius as well as its great moments of poignance, making it more accessible than ever before.

Ulysses is one of the greatest literary worl<s in the English language. It created a stir as soon as it was published in 1922, partly because of the experimental nature of the writing and formal design and partly because in certain passages it contained more than usually explicit language. Indeed, the book was banned in this country until 1936, and a New York court required expert witnesses to testify to its artistic merit. Despite such auspicious notoriety, Ulysses has remained more famous than popular, and for one simple reason: it is a very difficult book to read. Not so difficult as Joyce's final novel, Finnegans Wake, to be sure, but difficult nevertheless. The proof of its greatness, however, is that it rewards effort with an endless feast of delights, the more delightful for being hard won.

Put simply, Ulysses is an account of a single day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, seen from the perspective of three characters: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and Bloom's wife Molly.

Readers of Joyce's earlier novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will recall Stephen Dedalus as its central character - Joyce's own alter ego. Indeed, the confusion of fact with fiction continues in Ulysses. Virtually all the characters, from Bloom himself to the dozens of Dubliners with whom he collides during the course of the day, are based in some way on real people known to Joyce, just as all the references to the streets and buildings of Dublin are factually correct in every detail.