James Joyce's Ulysses: A Study

by Stuart Gilbert

With the passing of each year, Ulysses receives wider recognition and greater acclaim as a modern literary classic. To comprehend Joyce's masterpiece fully, to gain insight into its significance and structure, the serious reader will find this analytical and systematic guide invaluable. In this exegesis, written under Joyce's supervision, Stuart Gilbert presents a work that is at once scholarly, authoritative and stimulating.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Classics, Literature, Criticism, Ireland, Irish Literature

405 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

THIRD AND FINAL PART OF THE BIG FAT ULYSSES REVIEW

(moved here because Goodreads is removing "creative writing" from September).

(First part is here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and second part is here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)

**
Note : Each chapter is rated out of ten for Difficulty, Obscenity, General Mindblowing Brilliance and Beauty of Language.

13. Nausicaa

Difficulty : 2
Obscenity: 8 (see below for details)
General mindblowing brilliance : 9
Beauty of language : 7

Via another discombobulating jump-cut, we are now apparently reading some horribly sentimental magazine story:

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine … None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme

Yes, we're still in parodyland and will be remaining here, deliriously, on and off, for more or less the rest of the book. This particular parody is utterly delicious but the way JJ uses it makes it a model of how to skewer a few chastening points brilliantly into the reader's brain. JJ intertwines three things together – the most serious and self-regarding of these three girls (who are looking after a baby and two toddlers on Sandymount strand) is Gerty McDowell, she believes everything she's read, and as we read the ridiculous uberromantic description of this banal evening her thoughts begin to emerge and blend in and out of the lush descriptions, and then, both her thoughts and the lush descriptions keep being capsized by the demands of looking after the kids

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy played with baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, didn't the little chap enjoy that!

Then gradually through Gerty's thoughts we perceive that a man is leaning against some nearby rocks watching them, but particularly looking at Gerty herself. Joyce now begins an exquisite entwining of various strands – Gerty thinks immediately he's a tall dark stranger and that he's enraptured by her beauty; the other girls collect the kids and go off to see a firework show they've just noticed is happening at a nearby bazaar; Gerty stays behind, as does the mysterious stranger. There then follows an extrordinary episode of exhibitionism in which JJ fuses the fireworks Gerty is seeing with what can only be the pocket rocket that the mysterious gentleman is playing with... how very distasteful indeed! And – oh no! the gentleman turns out to be none other than Mr Leopold Bloom! I have hardly ever come across a book which fuses such sadness and such humour together as in this chapter of Ulysses, which is nearly my favourite chapter, in which the hero of the book masturbates whilst looking at the undergarments of a disabled woman.

**

14. Oxen of the Sun

Difficulty : 10
Obscenity: 0
General mindblowing brilliance : 10
Beauty of language : 1

In the Cyclops chapter Joyce is writing a chatty, funny account of encounters and arguments in a Dublin pub when suddenly the smooth flowing surface of the prose is exploded by eruptions of weird deadpan parodies of various types of writing. And they're hilarious. Much fun is had. Thighs are slapped. In Oxen of the Sun the entire thing is a series of pastiches of prose styles, and indeed, the subject matter is not that far from Cyclops – booze-fuelled jollity and debate – but this chapter is excruciatingly painful to read. Indeed, I will give a crisp ten pound note to anyone who can prove they have read all of this chapter without skipping, sighing deeply, moaning aloud and fixing to hurl Ulysses at the wall (before horrifiedly realising what you were about to do!). As you all know Oxen of the Sun is Joyce at his most rarified, pastiching the following in some mad analogy between the development of the English language and the development of the unborn child. He's playing to the gallery here – but there are only four people in the gallery, all applauding and nodding, and all professors. Everyone else has left.

Then spake young Stephen orgulous of mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness
or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu secuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides.

Well, I have got an English degree and I have read Mort D'Arthur and Bunyan and so on, but I wasn't in the gallery Joyce is playing to in this chapter. It's kind of fun but also it kind of isn't.

**

15. Circe

Difficulty : 9
Obscenity: 7
General mindblowing brilliance : 8
Beauty of language : 5

According to Ulysses Annotated, there are direct sources for the amazing phantasmagoria we now confront in this chapter :

The Temptations of Saint Anthony by Flaubert
Faust by Goethe (especially the Walpurgisnacht section)
The Assumption of Hannele by Hauptmann
The plays of Ibsen and Strindberg
Venus in Furs by von Sacher-Masoch
Psychopathia Sexualis by Krafft-Ebing

So Bloom, Stephen and the medical students betake themselves to the red light area of Dublin, Nighttown. But forget any notion of "story". This is a 150-page (by far the longest chapter) psycho-skelter through everybody's subconscious mind, Bloom's, Stephen's, yours, mine (well, yours anyway, I never think like this!). The whole thing is in the form of a surreal play, and everything speaks, and everything turns into everything else. Like an acid trip. Yeah, like that.

This can be bewildering and, frankly, tiresome, but there are many Joycean bursts of ridiculous humour – crazy elephantine lists sprout up at the drop of a hat. It's fun, bring your own bottle of psychology.

**

16 Eumaeus.

Difficulty : 9
Obscenity: 0
General mindblowing brilliance : 3
Beauty of language : 0

Strange scores for this chapter but it is one of the strangest.

In the beginning novels were written in the first person (Robinson Crusoe, 1719) or a number of first persons, as in the epistolatory novels like Clarissa, 1748, or in the omniscient third person narrator manner which became the default in fiction. In Tom Jones (1749) Fielding, (we should probably say "Fielding") the author, breaks into his own narrative and talks directly to the reader, musing on what has happened to his characters and tweaking the reader's expectations about what should happen next, and what would be the most entertaining sort of thing to read about. When novelists did the same thing two hundred years later, such as in the French Lieutenant's Woman or The Crimson Petal and the White, or in B S Johnson's novels, modern readers got a post-modern jolt this fourth wall breakage because novelists had been striving to make their narrative seamless and believable, all that baked in goodness. Just like in the movies, where you just don't want to see the actors suddenly start bitching about the poor script, you don't want to see the mike boom, they cut all that stuff out.

The audience's willingness – need – to suspend disbelief is however nearly limitless –

QUINCE

Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT

You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOTTOM

Some man or other must present Wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

Novels are just pretend for grownups. But in Ulysses you get massive disruption, Joyce throws hand grenades all over the place, there is nothing seamless about it, it's the opposite, it's a hectic babble of voices of all kinds, there is no overall narrative authority. In Cyclops the chapter is narrated by an unnamed character in the pub, you never find out who he is. Circe as we know is laid out like a play with insane stage directions. And so on. The story, such as it is, has to be glimpsed between these clashing registers. But at the same time, Joyce crams in a dozen bits of Dublin verisimilitude in every line, and he's writing with maps and stopwatches, so at the same time as making this novel the least realistic, he's also making it the most realistic.

In Eumaeus we have a new narrator, and it's the worst of the lot. This new voice comes across like a character itself, but it isn't, it's a version of the omniscient narrator, or should I say it's a sub-version, because the voice is wind-baggy, bumbling, rambling, incoherent, irrelevant, trails away into vagueness, is awkwardness personified. E,g.

Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as follows: Tarjeta Postal. Señor A. Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile. There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in Maritana on which occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat), having detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our friend's bona fides, nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest.

Forty pages of this stuff and you are like to hang yourself. This is the omniscient narrator as the garrulous bore you got stuck next to on a long flight once going on about stuff you have zero interest in - for hours. The memory of it still can make you shudder. Suddenly, Ulysses, a book many people don't read because they think it will be longwinded and tiresome, is longwinded and tiresome. Of course it's appropriate, it's one in the morning and Poldy and Stephen are fagged out after their Nighttown exertions, no one is on tip-top form. Including the novel. In the words of Blur, this is a low.

**


17 Ithaca.


Difficulty : 8
Obscenity: 3 (some quasi-scientific talk of ejaculating semen in the natural female organ, and also note Bloom kisses Molly's bottom, see below)
General mindblowing brilliance : 9
Beauty of language : 6


The previous chapter's voice was exhausted; this chapter's voice is exhaustive. By the time you've finished you'll be wrung out and gasping and Bloom will be filleted, cross-indexed, financially, erotically and intestinally investigated, we will have crawled all over Bloom, peered in every orifice, itemised every cupboard and drawer in 7 Eccles Street, we will have autopsied his dreams and schemes and calculated to the nth degree every tear he has shed and for what reason and on what day, Bloom will be smashed, pulverised, atomised, his dust weighed, sent off for analysis, and results shown in the table below; and all of this will be done by some giant Joycean impersonal completely insane multivac computer voice.

All the commentaries will tell you that the technique in this chapter is "impersonal catechism" which mirrors the "personal catechism" in the 2nd chapter, Nestor. But there are many passages which resist this simple explanation and which I find incomprehensible as if Joyce is smuggling in a lot of gibberish behind his sleight-of-hand scientific method-acting. And there are many quite insane riffs which suddenly boil up and make the slog through this chapter suddenly delightful :

What relation existed between their ages?

16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen was 6.16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54 their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13 1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in 1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then 1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom, being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have have surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, 969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would attain that age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in the year 81,396 B.C.

**
18. Penelope

Difficulty : 7 (it really is completely unpunctuated)
Obscenity: 10 (in the context of the times – lots of penis talk, "that trememdous big red brute of a thing", ejaculation into handkerchiefs, contemplating a different use for a banana, etc etc)
General mindblowing brilliance : 7
Beauty of language : 7

Joyce :

the final amplitudinously curvilinear episode...

The last word (human, all too human) is left to Penelope. This is the indispensible countersign to Bloom's passport to eternity....

Though probably more obscene than any preceding episode it seems to me perfectly sane full amoral fertilisable untrustworthy engaging shrewd limited prudent indifferent.

The men go out into the world (Bloom, Stephen) and do their stuff (mainly, it seems, drinking and yammering). They finally return home (or try to). The women stay at home – Molly does, in Ulysses, and enjoys the company of a man who has left his home and visited hers. Joyce's novel is very male in its peregrinations & so ends with 70 pages inside the head of Mrs Bloom. The male chapters have been increasingly rigidly structured, ending in the pan-galactic encyclopedia of Ithaca with its facts and figures and firm absolute knowledge of all things & so now we get this unpunctuated flow splurge torrent cataract of thought feeling emotion observation sex memory argument churning on & on to the final yes.

Critic PJ Smith describes Molly as

garrulous, ignorant and damnably annoying. The only thing in her favor is that she is never for a moment dull

and she is a huge feat of ventroloquism, Joyce's presuming that he can speak – think – for a woman on such intimate levels as this and I'm not sure I can say if it works or not. What I take to be its verisimilitude pretty much convinces me, I can say that. And it's a great sad compassionate way to end the day.


And that's it.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an excellent guide to Ulysses—a book for Joyce's student lovers.
Alas, this book makes similar connections with Greek mythologies and other works by comparing the author and, by context, with other famous authors.
The first part reflects the book; the second represents eighteen Greek mythology characters and the proper author's work.
On the other hand, it left me with something I didn't understand about the work.

[Sarah (Presto agitato) · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s hard to resist the idea of a guide to Ulysses endorsed by Joyce himself, but at times I wondered if Joyce’s approval of this book may have been a joke in itself. I’m almost certain that he parodied Gilbert’s pedantic and tiresome style somewhere in Ulysses. This book seems to be mostly a series of long quotations from the novel, which I’m sure were worth including initially since this book was published before Ulysses was available to most readers due to censorship, but it’s repetitive, and Gilbert often doesn’t add much to the text of the novel itself.

I try not to get too upset by male chauvinism from other eras (this book was first published in 1930), but it was so blatant here that I can’t avoid a mini-rant. Gilbert starts his chapter on Molly Bloom’s soliloquy with the patronizing statement, “And the comment of the average woman on this, the last episode of Ulysses, is apt to run: 'How true - of that class of woman, with which, thank goodness, I have nothing in common!'” He then quotes another critic’s assessment of Molly’s chapter:

The long unspoken monologue of Mrs Bloom which closes the book . . . might in its utterly convincing realism be an actual document, the magical record of inmost thought by a woman that existed. Talk about understanding ‘feminine psychology’!

I’m glad Gilbert and his buddies seem to have figured out how all women think, apparently just by unlocking the feminine mind with Molly Bloom’s magical key. I like the “Penelope” chapter very much, but not because I think Joyce succinctly sums up the thoughts of all women. Instead he creates a nuanced and multilayered picture of Molly herself. It’s frustrating to read an analysis where the male characters get to be multidimensional individuals, but the female characters (and readers) have to be archetypes and stereotypes. I don’t think that at all reflects what Joyce actually did in Ulysses.

Ranting aside, Gilbert does offer some useful information in his study. He lays out the structural scheme of the novel, breaking down the episodes and their art, colors, symbols, etc. He also expands on the many mythological references. Readers today, though, are lucky enough to have access to the actual novel, which is a lot more fun to read than this book.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in collaboration with James Joyce, this book is an excellent guide to Ulysses. Gilbert was intimately familiar with the text and his direct access to Joyce make this a unique contribution to Ulysses-related works.

Highly recommended!

[Mesoscope · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult to assess Giblert's classic study of James Joyce's novel. On the one hand, one can't help but value its key role in the history of Joyce scholarship. For decades, this was universally praised as the best-available work on Joyce's enigmatic masterpiece. It allowed two generations of readers to get enough of a foothold into its structure and method that they could derive pleasure from this mighty work. And some of its less-fortunate tendencies, such as Gilbert's proclivity for stringing together a great many very long quotations, result precisely from its age - modern critics must remember that it was first published in 1930, when the work that it treats would have been unavailable to most of the book's readership.

These excuses only go so far, however. This book belongs to a different age, and while we can still value his excavation of Joyce's schematic structure, we are still compelled to snort contemptuously along with Nabokov, who castigated Gilbert for his conspicuous over-enthusiasm for these schema, as though the deep meaning of the book is best recovered through decoding its most obscure and tangential Homeric parallels, or understanding that the organ symbolized by the Circe episode is "locomotor apparatus."

My rating of this book wandered throughout between two stars and five, depending on my mood. I inclined toward charity because of its historical role, but was forced to settle on three by the dispiriting and inept handling of the Penelope chapter that concludes the book. Even the most generous forgiver of the values of another era will be challenged by his imbecilic conceptions of the universal feminine as so masterfully rendered by Joyce, such as Gilbert's piquant observation that "The next phase of her monologue, equally feminine, reveals her cult of personal beauty and fine raiment and leads one to a characteristic homily on the nuisance a husband can be when one goes out shopping."

Suffice to say, Joyce himself uttered no such nonsense, and in fact showed himself to be constitutionally averse to theory mongering on the whole, preferring to show glimpses of the universal through the particular. His sense of that relationship was altogether more subtle than Gilbert's excavations would suggest.

Nonetheless, I would be an ingrate if I didn't note that he does make numerous exceedingly useful observations about various themes and ideas which I have not seen echoed in other commentaries. One such observation was his persuasive argument that the section of the "Oxen of the Sun" chapter which is universally described as a satire of Tacitus is no such thing. This misconception, he believes, arises from an early scheme Joyce described in a letter and subsequently abandoned, but anyone who has read both Tacitus and Joyce, as I have, can only be puzzled at this supposed relationship. The passage in question does not sound remotely like Tacitus.

All in all, I found it worth skimming for its gems, though the entire introduction and large portions of the commentary are useless and tedious to plow through. Still, its crucial role in the history of Joyce scholarship must be acknowledged and appreciated.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gilbert got his tips straight from the Joyce's mouth while contributing to a French translation of Ulysses, so it’s really fun to speculate about how long the world would have had to wait for that extremely enlightening Odyssey-episode title/Organ/Art/Symbol/Technic schema if Joyce hadn’t just told him. Some of the opening essays are similarly useful (like "Met-him-pike-hoses." Read it!), and during Gilbert’s analysis of the episodes, he would periodically fling out a nugget of interpretation that would untangle whole thorny Ulysses messes.

After having finished the actual Ulysses, though, I am a bit perplexed by the way he allocated his attention. He dwelled on things that seemed relatively tangential, while glossing over others that seemed more central. But then this guy gets to, quite seriously, say things like, “the ideas, interpretations and explanations put forward in these pages are not capricious or speculative, but were endorsed by Joyce himself.” And me, I’ve read Ulysses once and could hardly even tell when Stephen Dedalus was peeing, so who are you going to trust?

Still, if you're reading Ulysses with that big old red "V" on your forehead and want to spring for only one piece of tutsi-fruitsi, I have to say The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses might be a better way to go.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great help when reading Ulysses. In the first half of the book, Gilbert has several essays about the themes and style in Ulysses. In the second half, there is a chapter devoted to each section of the novel. Gilbert does the best job at making the connections to The Odyssey, explaining what parts of the chapter harken back to the original epic poem.

I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 because sometimes the formatting and length of quotations makes it harder to read. Especially when I have just read Joyce, I'm not sure I need it quoted back to me so extensively.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ulysses is one of those few iconic books that is discussed far more than read [see Tristram Shandy, Fairie Queene, Finnegans Wake, In Search of Time Lost, and a few others]. This is the tragedy of James Joyce's classic work, Finnegans Wake is in a class all its own, of experimental/analytical literary fiction.

Nothing new may be said of this book here, this anti-novel. What may be said is that it is NOT impenetrable; the book is not beyond the average reader; the book IS enjoyable, and Ulysses is well worth the read.

This is a book that takes time. Ulysses is not a Stephen King pop tart; not a Clive Barker cringe fest; not a popular novel that is to be wolfed whole and excreted the next day. Ulysses takes time, but it is time well spent. Therefore, keep this one on your night table and read a few pages before going to sleep.

Highly Recommended for those with an interest in Ireland, experimental fiction, beautiful writing, and disturbing/enlightening characters.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

A Must Read!!!

[Bob R Bogle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously essential for every Joycean. Has its share of gems. Of course it's troubling when a writer tells you what his book means, or in this instance assists another writer in telling you what his book means, episode by episode, page by page, symbol by symbol, incident by incident. Certainly emphasizes the depth of the Homeric references, which I now appreciate more than I did before. Easily readable (except when it sometimes slips into Greek, Latin, French, Italian, or German) and no doubt of most use for neophytes to Ulysses.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuart Gilbert made the first official translation of Ulysses into French for James Joyce (which Joyce personally edited and is still the version published by Folio here in France) and was a close collaborator and friend to Joyce. I found this book full of insights into what Joyce's intentions and inspirations were. Ulysses is quite a beast to conquer for the first time (I have read it 4 or 5 times), and this book as well as a few others is a great companion. I am not one for play-by-play Cliff Notes and this is more of a biography of Ulysses than a skeleton key. I can highly recommend it.

[Nathan Jerpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it for the discussion of The Saponiad: an account of the deeds and misadventures of the bar of soap that Bloom carries around in his pocket.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't help but put up a review of this guide. This book has its helpful moments, but you have to wade through Stuart Gilbert's chauvinistic, priggish snobbery to get to it. The book, from 1930, is incredibly dated in its cultural outlook and in terms of literary analysis and criticism. Full of bizarre asides (directed mostly at women and leftists) it ultimately reads like something Joyce himself would've lampooned: turgid, filled with untranslated references in Greek, Latin, and French. One is hard-pressed not to imagine Gilbert gently wanking himself off as he wrote this with each new footnote referencing an obscure piece of German scholarship bringing him closer and closer to completion. (Again, quite the Joycean send-up. Cue the Roman candles.)

There are surely better guides out there and though I admit I found this one helpful for giving me a general "plot" or progression to follow (and its sustained coverage of links with The Odyssey was also useful), the end notes in my Oxford World's Classics edition of Ulysses were at least just as helpful and had the benefit of being written by scholar Jeri Johnson (a woman) instead of this fossilized old cretin. While I am well-aware Joyce's portrayals of women are complex (a polite way of saying that they have their issues) Gilbert's reading of the text is so unabashedly sexist that it appears his own blinkered worldview blinded him to Joyce's subtler critiques of the woman's position in Irish Catholic Ireland in 1904 (and post WWI) alike leading him to make one of the most reductive readings possible of the novel's (in)famous final chapter that focuses on Molly Bloom.

[Allison Zink-McCormack · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful (and at times, much needed!) companion to Ulysses. Gilbert gives a thorough and articulate overview of the meandering plot and alluding references throughout the novel, pointing out parallels, symbols, and allegories that inspire contemplation.

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this concurrently with my first reading of Ulysses. Gilbert published this when the actual text he was commenting on was not widely available, and so half or better of this book is excerpts from Ulysses. While there were some points to his commentary that I felt were helpful to me, overall I didn't think it provided the depth I needed for this first reading. I'm sure there are better, more up-to-date guides, and if I ever pick up Ulysses again, there's a good chance I'll seek them out.

[Beatrice]

If you want a guide to Ulysses that isn’t as dense and overly-intellectual as Ulysses, don’t pick this one up. But this is the only “Joyce approved” guide so it’s handy to consult (I guess). Oh also he quotes extensively in French, Latin and Greek and offers no translations, which is hilarious because now I’m somehow more confused about what is going on than I was before I read the guide.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like other studies of Ulysses, Gilbert’s book includes synopses of the actions in each chapter and discusses the symbols and Homeric correspondences employed in the work. However, this study of James Joyce’s novel has a particular authority inasmuch as Gilbert was a friend of Joyce, and was able to get suggestions from the writer of the novel while producing this text.

Acquired 1992
The Word, Montreal, Quebec

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there are better and more contemporary companion books to Ulysses than Gilbert's treatment, which I found somewhat helpful but also somewhat "too much" across the board. The scholarly tone tends to take much of the fun out of Joyce's work, and some of the more recent companion books openly acknowledge the great humor in Ulysses, where Gilbert is looking for the academic gem. Still, I would not have understood certain Irish historical references or Catholic jargon without his help, and for that it's worth having at hand, especially in the absence of other guides.

[Danica · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times overblown and fusty, and prone to flights of fancy that come out of nowhere, piles metaphor on top of metaphor, while sticking quite close to a literalist mapping of every single parallel between Ulysses and the Odyssey. Still, I thought this was quite a nice thing to read alongside Ulysses and it saved me the trouble of feeling like I constantly had to Google references. GIlbert's use of French, Latin, and German with the expectation that readers would not need it to be translated into English made me feel a little undereducated, but... no matter. It was fun.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may have been a literary classic, but when the story is so difficult to comprehend even in consideration of the supporting analytical commentary, it is an indication that the book has past its time. Having read this book, I now have a good insight into what my novel would subsist of, should I write it entirely under the influence of a heavy narcotic. A day's account of two people could not have been told more cryptically, for this alone, it could not be a classic in my eyes.

[Padraic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Word was that Joyce spoon fed this stuff to Gilbert, but what the heck. How else can you figure out who Bella Cohen is supposed to be in the Odyssey? And if Joyce was merely pulling our legs, it's all good craic.

[Erich · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the three valued books I had with me to decipher Joyce's puzzle.

[James C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joyce was 40 yrs old when Ulysses was published, it is a day in the life of a husband and father of Joyce's age (at publication). Joyce loved Dublin and Ireland and though the book was written on the European continent - he wanted to memorialize his birth home (Ireland). The framework of Ulysses is Homer's Odyssey - The Roman Ulysses: 1 Telemachus, 2 Nestor, 3 Proteus, 4 Calypso, 5 Lotus Eaters, 6 Hades, 7 Aeolus, 8 Lestrygonians, 9 Scylla And Charybdis, 10 Wandering Rocks, 11 Sirens, 12 Cyclops, 13 Nausicca, 14 Oxen Of The Sun, 15 Circe, 16 Eumaeus, 17 Ithaca, and 18 Penelope.

Ulysses is the tale of a Modern-day Odysseus, Leopold Bloom in his personal existential/sexual quest. The conclusion of this quest is the quintessential affirmation of humanity, the fundamental family unit - the father, mother, son, and daughter. Like Odysseus, absent from Penelope, traveling the world, for many long years, Leopold Bloom is also absent from his Penelope (in Dublin). Like a traveler (Odysseus), Bloom is sexually absent (abstinent) from Molly “10 years, 5 months and 18 days” (736). Unlike Odysseus, the obstacles Bloom faces are psychological (modern) - internal travails instead of Odysseus' external travails. Bloom's only son’s death has become a psychological barrier; as Molly reflects: “we were never the same since” (778). Yet Bloom is optimistic throughout the work - in regard to the possibility of another child, again Molly: ”Ill give him one more chance” (780). Affirmatively (as we grow to know Molly) we find she has given and is willing to continue to give Bloom “one more chance”. Through the course of the (Dublin) day, Bloom experiences “deep frustration, humiliation, fear, punishment and catharsis” (Herring, p.74). Bloom needs to lead himself back, out of self-deception, fantasy, and frustration to Molly’s (and his marriage) bed.

Bloom’s travails come in the Circe chapter and it is imperative (for Joyce) that as readers, we recognize Joyce’s change from Homer's Odyssey - this is Joyce's major rework, deviating from his Greek predecessor. For Odysseus: insight, understanding, enlightenment, and all importantly direction come to Odysseus in his journey to the (ancient Greek) Underworld. For Bloom, the Hades chapter or “the other world” represents an “emptiness of mind”; Joyce was a man grounded (and devoted) to the present world of man's consciousness and unconsciousness. In Ulysses enlightenment comes in the Circe chapter: described though the Joycean technique of hallucination or the discoveries of the "unconscious mind”. Joyce's Circe chapter (a surrealistic one-act Ibsen-like play) is where Bloom finds self-possession - (Joyce makes) Bloom encounter his own psycho-sexual existential questions, rather than finding life's answers in the dead ghosts of his life (the ancient Greek Hades chapter of the dead past).

In the Circe chapter, Bloom confronts and overcomes every major obstacle in his existential/sexual quest: the Molly he serves in Calypso reappears as Bello the whoremistress, Molly’s letter from Boylan and his from Martha are reworked into a series of seductive letters ending in a trial, his sexual infidelities beginning with Lotty Clarke and ending with Gerty McDowell are relived (importantly balanced by Molly’s infidelities) and reconciled, and lastly, Bloom triumphs over whore, Virgin-Goddess, and most importantly himself. Joyce equanimously gives both Molly and Bloom extramarital sexual infidelities - infidelities known by each of the other (as early as the Calypso chapter) Bloom was conscious of what was to come. Of course there will be resolution in marriage, for Molly only needs to feel that Bloom is willing. As we read, Bloom has undergone the travails of his own mind and has emerged Victorious. He has succeeded in his psycho-sexual existential quest. He has arrived at Molly’s bed. Self-possessed. Victorious. Eager.

Molly "I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him...then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down in to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (END)".

After publishing Ulysses, Joyce began FINNEGANS WAKE (FW) - Joyce largely stepped out of one work into his next (and last work). The change Joyce made in FW was instead of using Homer's Ulysses as a framework - FW's framework is Giambattista Vico's "La Scienza Nuova's" 4 cyclic stages of history.

Joyce realized that he ended Ulysses wrongly (not in accordance with the Universe) in Molly's bed - Joyce corrects his mistake in FINNEGANS WAKE by incorporating Vico's revelation of restart / recirculation. "HCE day" similar to Bloomsday (roughly 24 hrs): Chronologically FW starts with memories in "book I:3" of HCE arrested in front of his tavern/home, like Bloom unable to enter his front door (but HCE does not enter his home through the back door) - instead HCE is arrested for disturbances in hours before dawn. Then memories "book I:4" HCE's conscious/musings or unconscious/dream psychological travails of past guilts (underworld coffin, Ulysses ch Hades) while incarcerated in early hours of morning. Followed by memories "book I:2" HCE walks home through Phoenix Park accosted for the time of day (12 noon) which threatens (real/unreal memories, Ulysses ch Nausicaa) his innocent well-being. These 3 chapters in FW are Joyce's major rework to incorporate Vico's revelation of restart / recirculation into FW - Joyce rewrites 3 chapters of Ulysses: When He is denied Her front door, He is in Hell (on earth), when released (from Hell) His odyssey to Her begins again (with His ever-present accompanying internal travails) for She always knows when He is worthy of Her acceptance (their Paradise).

Then "book I:1" Finnegan's afternoon wake at HCE's tavern and retelling memories (books I:2-4). Inside HCE's tavern (his ship) his patrons talk about his family (Norwegian Captain and the Tailor's Daughter), truthful letters (ALP) and fabricated stories (books I:5-8 & II:3); while the children (Shaun, Shem and Iseult) are in and out of the family tavern/home all day taking their lessons (book II:2) and playing about with their friends (Shem's closing dream, book II:1); HCE, as proprietor, defends himself with a self-deprecating apologia before his intoxicated collapse late night (book II:3). HCE dreams on his tavern floor (book II:4); then dreams in his bed (books III:1-3); before intercourse with his wife ALP (book III:4). HCE & ALP's lovemaking dissolution dream (book IV) to awaken to a new day, Joycean Nirvana is attained by ALP's (& HCE's) unification with the Unmanifest (Creation, Incarnate conception) and Reincarnation (the baton has been passed on again), awaiting Joyce's God "thunderclap" at the beginning of FW's "book I".

FW is aural (oral) history like Homer's Odessey and Celtic folktales - when one pronounces (phonology) FW's words (aloud) there are more languages than just English; also, when one reads (morphology) FW's words almost all the words are "portmanteaus / neologisms" which gives each of FW's "poly-syncretic" words many meanings (universal impermanence, Heisenberg uncertainty/obscurity), each FW syncretic sentence dozens of possible messages, each FW syncretic paragraph hundreds of possible readings, Joyce's rendering of a more expansive English language and multiplicating universal book with coalescing syncretic themes/stories (that responds/opens to each reader's inquiries). Joyce schooled in Christian Jesuit metaphysics (pushed down into the mindfulness of human consciousness) breathes in the spirit of expansive Celtic (Irish) democratic community tavern life where man's stories of life are told. Tavern life teaches the evolution of Joyce's ten God "thunderclaps" (one hundred lettered words) pushing man's evolution forward from cave man's tales to modern tv media tales. Inside the tavern man learns of the purely human (animal) fall, taken down by another human(s) - like animal taken down on the African savanna. A granular reading of FW can render FW as an updated John Milton's Paradise Lost (regurgitated knowledge from the tree, to affirm man's damnation); however, Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species was published in 1859 and Joyce in FW book II clearly walks Shaun, Shem and Iseult through their earthly evolutionary lifetime travails, our mortality is a consequence of Life's evolution. Every page of FW speaks to man's evolution (unconscious biological, conscious social, aspirational personal) and to Life recirculating (West meets Dzogchen East a "meeting of metaphysical minds") that binds humanity together into the future. Dzogchen (beyond all dualistic polarities) the heart of human consciousness - Joyce's underlying (subcutaneous) arguments refute the "Western curse of metaphysical/mythological damnation", the curse does not exist in the Eastern mind. Like "counting the number of angels on the head of a pin" (Aquinas 1270) Joyce provides a granular/expansive reading of FW as a "defense against all Western adversity" for our conscious and unconscious Western travails. HCE's angst is caused by his community that imposes a Western curse (damnation) upon him that man is not guilty of...to experience Joycean Nirvana, a defense against this man-made guilt is required - for as Zoroaster revealed cosmogonic dualism, evil is mixed with good in man's universal everyday travails (even the Dalai Lama must defend Nirvana rigorously from the most populous authoritarian state in human history).

Joyce's FW celebrates the Joys of Christian/Buddhist diversity of humanity (expansive human consciousness: Gnostic Norwegian Captain, Shem, Archdruid), Brahma (Finnegan, HCE, Shaun), Divine Women (ALP, Iseult, Nuvoletta), his family - and the Sufferings of the inescapable "evil" of Shiva (Buckley), the debilitating harmful sterile intrusive authoritarian institutionalizing damnation (MaMaLuJo, St. Patrick) by Augustine, the manufactured clerical corruption identified by Luther (since 367 AD) and the burdens of "survival of the fittest" anxiety (modern commerce) met with a Dzogchen Buddhist stance. The (innocent infant) Norwegian Captain (Krishna, HCE), occasionally defensive (Shiva, HCE), though concretized (Brahma, HCE) by community family life (MaMaLuJo) - through spirits (drink) HCE can access his spirituality (dreams) and through spiritual (cutting through) love-making with ALP (direct approach) can access (their Krishnas) unification with the Unmanifest. Joyce was a Prophet who consumed Man's conscious and spiritual "thoughts and dreams, history and gossip, efforts and failings" - to reveal the joys (Nirvana) and sufferings (Saṃsāra) of Mankind.

Joyce's FW message: Christian/Buddhist omniscient compassion (Christ/Krishna) is eternally joyful and recirculating. Affirmative family (HCE/Brahma, ALP/Divine woman & children) existentiality: life's biological evolution (sex), modern survival (money), constraining community (Dharma, social evolution) are constantly assaulted by inescapable "aggressive insidious vile" corrupt soul(less/sucking) ossified demonic antipathetic attacks. Joycean Nirvana is attained via the Christian/Buddhist affirmative middle way, "beyond polar opposites" the path of Christ/Buddha.

JCB

[James Schlichter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gilbert was a friend of Joyce's, and so was able to sit down with him and get a first hand account of Ulysses. That in itself gives this book a weight other writers may not carry. That said, I found much of Gilbert's text almost as difficult to follow as Ulysses itself! Gilbert's book was one of 4 sources I used while reading Ulysses. I only turned to the others when I really couldn't comprehend Gilbert himself. It almost seemed as though he sometimes took on the persona of the Ulysses chapter he was writing about. There are probably quite a few books out there which examine Ulysses. For me, this was the best one of all that I have. Before turning to it, however, I would recommend seeing what else is out there. It was originally published in 1930, and the level of academia he expects the reader to come to both his book and Ulysses with in tact, is obviously pretty high. I'm sure there must be more contemporary guides through Ulysses out there which are written for the nascent Ulysses reader. One of the sources I used, and I admit this without shame, was CliffsNotes. It is extremely easy to understand. But it also doesn't get into the important nuances of Ulysses' genius; therefore, I would only recommend it as in addition to a book which goes deeper into Ulysses.

A major point that rankled me throughout the book, but especially Gilbert's study of the final, Penelope, chapter, is how chauvinistic he comes across. And I don't mean that Joyce was being chauvinistic (that's a different discussion), but Gilbert himself. I'll quote directly....'"The long unspoken monologue of Mrs. Bloom which closes the book"', Arnold Bennett wrote (in The Outlook).....'"might in its utterly convincing realism be an actual document, the magical record of inmost thought by a woman that existed. Talk about understanding 'feminine psychology'!.....I have never read anything to surpass it, and I doubt if I have ever read anything equal to it."' That is not a review of the book at all, but an opinion.

This kind of condescending paternal surety is a little tough to swallow in the 21st century. Gilbert quotes Bennett only because he agrees with him. One can almost see them sitting before the roaring fire at the men's hunting club, fat cigars in their mouths, pontificating upon the "weaker sex." This unconscious sort of agreed upon entitlement threads throughout Gilbert's analysis. Beware. Like I said, this book did the job, but I would take a look around for a more balanced, less biased study of Ulysses.

[Johann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Da schreibt also, am Ende der Reihe, ein Mann über den Monolog einer Frau, den ein Mann schrieb. Noch dazu jener, der den Rest der Reihe vorher schon geschrieben hatte. Im Zitat ein anderer Herr, der niemals etwas Besseres gelesen hatte und glaubt, dies könnte sich auch niemals ändern. Und sie sagen: „Gaea-tellus“ – griechisch-römisch, versteht sich, selbstbewusst und angestrengt - die Reihe kommt zu ihrem Ende. Und weil dort die Erde redet, Mutter Natur, Weiblichkeit die bejaht und sich hinwegsetzt, über das ihr eingeschriebene IRDIG, deshalb wars die Rei(h/s)e wert. Historisch-systematisch soll sie sich vollzogen haben. Immer wieder den Tag betont, die Stunden und ihr Verfließen, immer die Begegnung betont - bleibt sie aus, geschieht sie nicht, geschieht sie doch? Darin mehr als sich hereingelegt und mit Wahrheit verwechselt; das H für das S gehalten. Sich selbstgerecht Elias geheißen, James Stephen Leopold, die Apotheose in und aus dem „Land der Dichter und Propheten“ schon vorweggenommen. Sich dann folgerichtig (!) über die Reihe hinweggesetzt, das Wort der ANDERN in die Mündin gelegt. Den eigenen fatalistischen Optimismus verkennend, die hehre Geste kreisend-distanzierten (als wäre Griechenland nicht gewesen) Schreibens für sich eingenommen. Als wäre das JA demgegenüber wörtlich. Gewolltes Nichtbewusstsein über das Vorausgehen des Optimismus vor der Einschreibung. In Furcht vor und Bewusstsein um „den hinfälligen Vorteil des Wortes gegen die Gewalt“ entkommen die hElDeN dem Kyklopen (Polyphem, Bürger, Nation) nur durch die ihnen selbst (historisch) inhärente Gewalt das weibliche JA erzwingen zu können. Es einfach hinschreiben und denken zu können, das wäre schon okay so, hätte seine Begründung im Ganzen, als Gegenstück, „Gaea-tellus“, zum angeblichen Leiden der Systematisierung, die die Historie genauso angeblich aufzwingt. Während doch diese jene nur abstrakt toleriert, weil jene dieser gegenüber hinfällig ist! Auch das ist Furcht-Bewusstsein. Dann, hier, jetzt, in scheinbarer Ermangelung des Ausgangs, eröffnet sich immer jener Monolog, DARF (!-wie infam) er sich öffnen. Unabhängig vom scheinbaren Unterschied zwischen allen hElDeN und ihrer spezifischen Geschichtlichkeit, gegenüber derer Systematisierung nur Ignoranz werden kann. Diese Ignoranz ist der Kern jener Studie um das „Rätsel“ und des rÄtSelS selbst. Es ist die Ignoranz prophetischer Dichtung, die Gewalt von Worten, die sich selbst nicht wörtlich wissen wollen und denen eine andere Wörtlichkeit am Ende zu Hilfe kommen mUsS. (biitte bittee bitteeee)

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished this study of Ulysses. Took awhile because the print was so small that it was best read outside in shaded daylight... but it has been over 100°F all week, thus uncomfortable to read outside for very long.
Anyway, I enjoyed this detailed analysis and explication of the book, which was made even better in that it had been prepared with the full cooperation and input of Joyce, himself. I was also glad that I had recently read Portrait of a Young Artist and Dubliners, as Gilbert frequently shows how the Ulysses events call back to events in those books.
I was struck again, by the nature of classic British (in the largest sense) education. That university, and even high school students, had at least a smattering of classic Greek and Latin, was sobering. True, only a small fraction of students attended secondary or tertiary school, but attaining a classical education was a significant achievement. I've had two former students attend St. John's, where they instruct in a manner similar to the British. One of them is now a professor of political science, while the other I've lost track of. I imagine they would appreciate reading Joyce. The remnants of my modern Greek, plus what I know of classic plays and philosophy, did make many of the references clear, without having to read Gilbert. Still, it was good to have those memories acknowledged.
I'll now read at least one analysis of Finnegan's Wake though I'll hold off on the Skeleton Key for now... then launch into the Wake itself. The last time I tried to read it, about 50 years ago, I recall only getting to page 13!

[Tom Schulte]

Obviously the value of such a work as this depends on its authenticity, and "authenticity" in the present case im-plies that the ideas, interpretations and explanations put forward in these pages are not capricious or speculative, but were endorsed by Joyce himself. Thus it may be of some interest if I describe briefly the circumstances leading up to the writing of this book and those under which it was writ-ten. It was when I was assisting MM. Auguste Morel and Valéry Larbaud in the translation of Ulysses into French that the project suggested itself to me. In making a translation the first essential is thoroughly to understand what one is translating; any vagueness or uncertainty in this respect must lead to failure. This applies especially when the texture of the work to be translated is intricate, or the meaning elusive. One begins with a close analysis, and only when the implications of the original are fully unravelled does one start looking for approximations in the other language. Thus I made a point of consulting Joyce on every doubtful point, of ascertaining from him the exact associations he had in mind when using proper names...

Around him Joyce was gathering a new circle. Stanislaus distrusted them as sycophants, and perhaps they were. They were also hard-working sycophants, deeply committed to helping him with the preparation and publication of his difficult new book. Chief among them were Maria Jolas and her husband Eugene, an energetic American couple who were publishing extracts from Work in Progress in their cosmopolitan literary journal, transition. Another important recruit was Stuart Gilbert. Gilbert (whose name Joyce pronounced with three syllables: Gi-la-bert) was an Oxford-trained lawyer who had served as a judge in Burma and who was devoting himself to explicating and translating Ulysses. Gilbert's French wife, Moune, a small lively woman, was active in publishing. She soon became one of Nora's best friends.

...

In the afternoon Stuart Gilbert came over from his boarding house, and the two men worked on Gilbert's study of Ulysses, which was to become for many readers an indispensable, if humorless, guide to the difficult book.

- Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce

Jewish (Semitic) Leopold Bloom moves through the a real Dublin landscape as Ulysses made his Odyssey through the Semitic-named real geography of the Mediterranean.

In the course of his long study of Homeric origins M. Bérard demonstrates that the poet of the Odyssey must have had access to, and carefully studied, some Phoenician record of voyages in the eastern and western Mediterranean, a pre-Achaean "Mirror of the Sea". A very large number of the Odyssean place-names are of Semitic origin; these were the names under which the places came to be known to the earliest Greek navigators. The latter translated the names into their own tongue, and so each place had a pair of names-the Phoenician and the Greek. For instance (Odyssey X, 135) Circe's island is named Aiaie. The "island of Circe" is an exact translation of the Semitic compound Ai-aie...

[Davidg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The oldest of the commentarys on Ulysses, written with the support of Joyce himself. I am sure there are now 'better' books available, which give a fuller overview of Joyce's work and its impact, but this was the one I picked up second hand.
I couldn't have got through Ulysses without it. Yes, there are too many long quotes, but it was written whenUlysses was still banned, so it allowed people to get a taste of what they were missing. However, it did explain a lot that I missed or simply couldn't understand.
One thing that struck me was that Gilbert, and therefore Joyce too, expected the reader to have a certain level of education. They expect a classical education at some private school, with a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin, and most European languages. Gilbert says that you need to have read The Odyssey first in the original, as translations don't do it justice. He insists that this is easy, you just need a dictionary - being fluent in ancientGreek is assumed. Similarly, Gilbert puts in long quotations from European writers in the original languages - there are no translations, you are expected to be able to read Flaubert in French. We didn't do any of that in my local comprehensive school. I just had to skip those parts. It does mean that Ulysses becomes evermore elitist, as much Modernist writing is, e.g. Eliot, which is a shame.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this book appears to be motivated by two factors: 1. Joyce worked with Gilbert on this, and he wanted to get the main interpretations down in an influential place. That definitely worked. And 2. Gilbert wanted to get lots of the prose into print in England and America when the book was banned and before people were reading much of it.

And this worked. Undertstanding Joyce's novel through the Odyssey is standard now, and perhaps a bit tedious. But that is important. It does provide one point of entry into what is often a difficult novel.

And the long passages quoted in the book (as much as half of it) do give a pretty good sense of the different styles. They are expurgated, though. The novel is a lot more bawdy than one would get from reading Gilbert's take on things. Now he knows this and gives clues that he is censoring things. On the other hand, it gives the reader lots to discover in the novel itself.

So in some ways, it serves as a glorified 400 page sanitized Cliff Notes to Ulysses. But that's OK. I read it while I was reading the Joyce, keeping a couple of episodes behind, so when I got to the chapter in Gilbert my memory was being refreshed. And, yes, I could see some things I missed when I was working through the novel. So, yes, it was helpful.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

It must be something, to be a writer who writes books so deviously clever and obscure that they take another academic (writer) to explain them in simple terms to those "not in on the joke." As a prankster, Joyce seems to have been rather inimitable, and Irish patriot run riot though the English dictionary with allusion, metaphor, dual meaning, pun, and again, cleverly diabolical turns of phrase and reference.
One begins to wish Joyce had bothered with not one but TWO books of great length both in need of such eternal explanations and explainers (a Chair of Study all their own!) To some, this is genius, to others, not but pure arrogance and/or annoyance.
And that's just the thing about Ulysses, (and FW too)- you never know just about what he means unless you consult one of these other writers, who've spent so much of their own time and energy trying to figure him out exactly.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written helpful adjunct/explication of Ulysses. Correlations with Homer's odyssey were helpful; at some points, Gilbert may have gone too far afield into other myths. As the first edition of this book was published in the 1930's, one can understand Mr. Gilbert being circumspect about some of the bawdier scenes. My big beef with this book is the lack of translation of all of the many quotes in other languages: Latin, German, French, Italian. A critical essay written in French may take up almost a page in the book and not be translated. Thus I missed a lot of what the author was saying. I am sure I am not the only reader who doesn't have a PhD in the humanities.