by Andrew J. Morris

I wouldn't be so bold as to try to review James Joyce's books. In the top ten English language novels of the century only one name appears twice, and it is Joyce. Number one -- the greatest novel of the 20th century -- is Ulysses, with A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ranked third.

I usually buy paperback copies of novels, but I bought a hardback copy of Ulysses. I knew it would require more than one perusal. Twice I started on it, but got sidetracked and didn't finish. On the third try I made it all the way through, a bit dazed and confused. That was before my first trip to Ireland. After living six months in Dublin I read Ulysses again, and now the more obscure passages began to gel. Still, I'll read it again, and I'm sure I'll get more out of it next time, as it seems to swell up with hidden meanings, the more I learn about Ireland and the Irish.

For someone just starting out on the road of Irish literature I'd recommend you start with Joyce's Dubliners -- a series of short stories that are no more difficult to follow than those of O'Henry (who was not a bit Irish by the way, that was just his pen name). Then step into the more difficult work with A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man -- the other Joyce novel that made the century's top ten list. If you enjoy that, go on to Ulysses, but don't expect to completely understand it. Many books and doctoral dissertations have been written about this book, and even those learned tomes disagree on just what Joyce meant by this or that detail. An excellent guide, if you need help with it, is Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford (University of CA Press, 1989). This book is an essential aid for making sense of Joyce's many obscure references, with its helpful translations of foreign terms, and explanations of turn of the century Dublin slang, cultural and mythological references, and more.