"Masterpiece of world literature"

Hello folks :)

Have you ever heard about the novel Ulysses by the Irish author James Joyce? Well, this book is kind of a myth. The preface says something like this:

“The Ulysses is even today the ultimate challenge for every friend of world literature.”

You may ask yourself now what’s so special about this novel. Well, the Ulysses is approximately 260,000 words in length and uses about 30,000 different terms. Considering the fact that a normal English speaker uses just about 5,000 different words in everyday speech, this is quite amazing!

The Ulysses is said to be one of the most important works of modernist literature. James Joyce describes every single detail of Leopold Bloom’s 16 June 1904 in Dublin. He wrote down what his fictional protagonist did, whom he met, where he went – simply everything. The title “Ulysses” is a metaphor for Homer’s poem “Odyssey”. I think this is quite suitable.

To sum up: Nearly thousand pages describe one single day of one single person. Sounds kind of challenging, doesn’t it? Well, I suppose that’s the reason why many people started to read the Ulysses but never finished. However this book has millions of fans worldwide. Every year the 16 June is celebrated as "Bloomsday" in Dublin. Thousands of people come together to re-enact the happenings of the book.

I bought the Ulysses a couple of days before Christmas. It was a bargain and I was curious about it. I didn't start reading yet but I will let you know if I finish this “masterpiece of world literature” or not ;).

Bye for now and keep reading J