An authoritative reading companion to Joyce's leviathan. Without it, I would have undoubtedly floundered. Kiberd, who wrote the introduction to my paperback Penguin edition of Ulysses, is convinced that Ulysses is a read for everyman and that it's appropriation by an intellectual elite is the exact opposite of what Joyce intended. It's a thesis I find somewhat difficult to swallow, but I do appreciate the guiding hand that Kiberd is prepared to offer to the tentative virgin reader.

I knew Ulysses dealt with the activities of Leopold Bloom and student Stephen Dedalus on one day single in Dublin in 1904 and that the structure of the book was based upon Homer's Odyssey. But that was about it.

In Ulysses and Us Declan Kiberd provides a chapter for each of the eighteen episodes of the book, which I found an essential preparatory reading. These are bookended by an introduction (read before starting Ulysses) and, at the end, a series of chapters covering the books relationship to Dante and Shakespeare (particularly and most fascinatingly, Hamlet).

Don't consider reading Ulysses without a guide and I'd recommend this one! ( )