What you feel reading Ulysses today is the extent to which a modern society imposes itself upon everyone. The common man who, in the past, knew little about the great world now stands in the middle of it. At least he thinks he does, as reader, hearer, citizen, voter, judge of all public questions. His imagination has been formed to make him think himself in the center. The all-important story appears to belong to society itself. Real interest is monopolized by collective achievements and public events, by the fate of mankind, by a kind of “politics.”
