Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0415138582, Paperback)

The New Bloomsday Book is a crystal clear, line by line running commentary on the plot of James Joyce's Ulysses which illuminates many symbolic themes and literary structures along the way.

Since 1966, readers new to James Joyce have depended upon this essential guide which makes this intimidating novel accessible. Designed to help the student and the general reader to find their way quickly about Joyce's formidable novel, The New Bloomsday Book will enable someone approaching Joyce for the first time to reach an understanding of the novel which otherwise might have taken several readings.

"It remains, the only commentary in which paraphrase is largely employed without detriment to one's sense of the interest of the novel." --Books Ireland

To ensure that Blamires' classic work will remain useful to new readers, this third edition contains the page numbering and references to the three most commonly read editions of Ulysses: the Gabler `Corrected Text' (1986) editions, the Oxford University Press `World Classics' (1993), and the Penguin `Twentieth-Century Classics (1992).

From the Preface: "Ulysses must not be made to appear more difficult than it is. Joyce's text is a highly organized one, and it only requires a little attention to the network of thematic linkages which undergirds the work to make the reader feel at home in Joyce's world." --Harry Blamires