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JOYCE'S ULYSSES FOR EVERYONE: OR HOW TO SKIP READING IT THE FIRST TIME

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I distinctly remember being feeling flushed with shame and failure back in 1979 when, after signing up for my first course in Irish literature, I found myself back at the "unofficial" section of the campus bookstore sneaking the Cliff's Notes for "Ulysses" into my shopping basket, keeping it concealed under a magazine until the work-study student at the cash register announced my purchase for anyone within earshot to wag a finger at me. I walked around for days feeling like my face bore those identifiable diagonal yellow and black stripes.

That was a time when study aids for Joyce's book--or, indeed, for any great work of literature--carried such a stigma. Today, as a teacher of literature, I know that study aids when properly used are gifts from caring scholars who genuinely love the literature about which they're writing and who want others to know how to love it as well. Far from being tawdry cheat sheets, they're micro-courses unto themselves about literary appreciation. Such are the happy circumstances of John Mood's most recent book, "Ulysses For Everyone." Without snobbery or self-aggrandizement, Mood makes Joyce's formidable book a work of public literature again; like Robin Hood, he reclaims Joyce from the esotoric academician and puts him back in the hip pocket of the lay reader. "Ulysses For Everyone" is neither propagandistic nor unreasonably dogmatic. Any student undertaking a thorough reading of "Ulysses" will find the book helpful but stimulating. Any teacher planning to present "Ulysses," even if only selected chapters of it for a survey course, will find Mood's book to be an unobtrusive guide to the book's characters, themes and plot points.

For those interested in finding out more about why John Mood wrote the book, or in finding out more about Mood himself, the following website might be of assistance:

http://members.cox.net/1happyalien/UlyssesForEveryone/UlyssesForEveryone.htm

I studied Joyce's great novel "Ulysses" in a college English course and enjoyed some of it. But frankly, I never could get all the way through it, try as I might. Now, along comes this short non-academic guide to the plots of the novel. It has motivated me to begintrying to read "Ulysses" again, and it works! I don't need to worry about all the Homeric, Catholic and other allusions, but just enjoy the stories and the lovely language. I highly recommend "Joyce's 'Ulysses' for Everyone."