The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses

If you are reading Ulysses for the first time, I highly recommend you read Jeri Johnson's excellent and (almost) comprehensive introduction Ulysses (Oxford World's Classics) and consult her excellent notes, with introductory headnotes at the beginning of each chapter, as you wish. She has in mind as her audience the person who is about to read Ulysses for the first time. You may want to read the Gabler "restored" edition, but it is worth having Johnson's 1922 edition as well to see what Gabler introduces in his edition--chapter numbers, and chapter numbers at the bottom of each page, typographic changes, and so on. Now to Balmires. By all means, get it. Balmires published his guide in 1966. At that time, Ulysses still needed defenders given the number of attacks on its incomprehensibility. So Balmires is trying to defend the book by making it readable (turning it into something like a Victorian novel), consistent, and coherent. Balmires also alerts the reader to what he takes to be symbols in the novel as well. The guide is mostly a CliffsNotes chapter by chapter plot summary keyed to the Oxford, Random House and Penguin editions. The summaries can be useful since you may have missed something or some things in your first reading. Balmires's most valuable contributions are in sentences he puts in parentheses. And Balmires also gives translations of all German, French, Italian, Greek , and Latin words in Ulysses as well as many of Joyce's sources. For all of these reasons, I recommend the guide. However, I consider the guide to be most valuable if considered as an example of how NOT to read Ulysses because it comes so close to destroying the novel in order to save it. Balmires rides roughshod over everything that makes the novel difficult to read--like the lack of punctuation--in order to paraphrase it. Similarly, Balmires falsifies the novel by trying to make it more coherent than it is. For example, he repeatedly draws analogies between Daedalus and Hamlet when Hamlet is not mentioned in the novel instead of commenting on the moments where Hamlet actually does come up. Similarly, Balmires will assert that such and such is a symbol of y, as if the novel were an allegory. It is not. You may also want to get Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses and use it as a reference work to consult as needed. Gifford gives you WAY too much information, way too much to make it virtually impossible to read the novel and his annotations on it at the same time. Johnson strikes the perfect balance in her notes, giving you the sources of allusions and quotations, translations, and additional information as needed and only as needed.

I too, like countless others, could not get passed Proteus, chapter 3, line 1: "Ineluctable modality of the visible...". Complete frustration set in and I felt I had no choice but to set aside Joyce's masterpiece - that is until amazon.com sent me my copy of The New Bloomsday Book - A Guide Through Ulysses. With Harry Blamires' help I was able to make substantial progress in a very difficult but rewarding book. Blamires helped me overcome my initial frustration and understand the masterpiece that Ulysses is. By no means am I now an expert on Ulysses; however, I was able to enjoy Dublin through the eyes of Joyces's famous characters. Oh, how I am looking forward to visiting Dublin again, but on some future June 16th. Take the leap - join those of us who are already fans of Ulysses but let this book be your guide. You will not regret it. By the way - there is a $25 paperback version.

I got the New Bloomsday book at my professor's recommendation for her class on James Joyce. While it was not required for the course and some may not need the extra help in divining the meaning of the Ulysses, it has helped me tremendously. It helps the reader understand the various references in the text and their significance, while still allowing the reader to think critically for themselves about each episode in the Ulysses.

This isn't exactly a work of criticism, and certainly not a "Cliff notes" guide to Ulysses: it's somewhere in the middle.It's basically a paraphrase of Joyce's novel, roughly 260 pages, which tells the story of Bloomsday in plain language. So it's basically an understandable version of the novel in straightforward, unclouded prose.It is not strictly a paraphrase, however, as now and then Blamires will tell you what is supposed to symbolize what. But it certainly doesn't list the characters or themes of "Ulysses" in any organized way, and there is no extended commentary.Provided you understand this, the book can be immensely useful -- especially on your first reading of "Ulysses."I should note that those who already have their sea legs with Joyce's book will, for this very reason, find Blamires's effort to be of limited use, for it largely tells a story you already know.

At times reading Ulysses can be a huge challenge and this was an excellent companion book which helped to make sense of the obscure parts of the text. I thought it unusual that it did not give translations of some of the foreign language and other references that are made in the book.

I would never have been able to get so much from reading Ulysses unaided. But having so much pointed out and more alluded to, really gives you more to look out for on subsequent readings ofUlysses. Such as, without any spoiler alerts, a character such as Mulligan. The New Bloomsday Book was really worth the asking price. You get even more revelations when this book is used in conjuction with 'Ulysses Annotated' by Don Gifford.I am glad I bought both these books, you will be glad too.

The Bloomsday book is invaluable if you'd like to understand Ulysses on the first read rather than the third or fourth. Intricately detailed but amazingly concise. Blamires does not use an unnecessary word throughout -- it is clear he could write a book on each chapter alone, but he just scratches the surface of everything, giving a very well-rounded view and leaving the reader to choose what they'd like to study deeper. There is endless material written on this book, a Google Scholar search of anything he mentions will grant endless reading should you wish. I paired Bloomsday with the Jim Norton audiobook for my first time and I have to say it was the best reading experience of my life.

Really helps you to understand ulysses

Would have missed so much if i had not used a guide when reading

Brilliant

I enjoyed this reference book. Ulysses is one of my favorite books, yet I can still use help and guidance through it. This book is enjoyable. It made me question some points in the story and that's part of the fun in Ulysses: finding one's way to the core. I'm glad to have found this book and will keep it for reference.

This is one of the few books I actually bought for university even though we already have it in the library. It's really helpful on the whole, and easy to read (compared with Ulysses.) I think especially through Circe I'd have been lost without it.

Loved it. Helped me make sense of Ulysses, not an easy task

a classic since its first publication,still one of the best ways of entering the complex world of Joyce‘s fiction

Exactement le livre que j'attendais : une explication détaillé du contexte qui permet de mieux comprendre, d'abord, puis d'augmenter le plaisir de lire le texte de Joyce lui-même (je lis d'abord le texte de Joyce puis le passage correspondant dans le livre de Blamires et enfin je relis le texte initial.)...mais chacun sa méthode!

If you are endeavouring to read 'Ulysses' you will likely face a number of challenges. Joyce had a very specific education and was writing in a very specific context and 'Ulysses' draws heavily on these influences. What most people are looking for, I think, when they search for a guide to 'Ulysses' is something like an encyclopaedia that explains the odd bit of Aristotelian terminology, the sprinkled Latin and Gaelic phrases, the deep political and historical references. With these at hand a reader can ably construct their own reading of 'Ulysses'. This book, however, provides none of that, opting instead to simply tell the narrative in plain language and overtly unfold the meanings for you before you've even reached the point in the book when those meanings are supposed to come unfurled.In short, if you've read 'Ulysses' start to finish and understood all the language and allusions but need help finding meaning then this is the book for you. If you're a first time reader looking for a reference guide then this is pretty useless.

My rating is given in respect of the Kindle edition. I did expect that for such an expensive Ebook that it would have been checked for errors. In the end I became annoyed by the number of missing fullstops, plus other errors. Needs to be revised before the publishers seek to charge so much. Have now requested a refund.