An AudioFile Earphones Award Winner

"Irish actor Donal Donnelly and the people of Recorded Books have brought Ulysses to those of us who are on, dimly able to hear Joyce's magnificent language through silent reading. Oral interpretation has rarely achieved such heights ... It's obvious that Donnelly and the production and research staff of Recorded Books care about every word and sentence ... Miriam Healy-Louie, a lovely voiced Iris actress, performs with natural ease ... Donnelly tirelessly performs dialects of all types; conveys the humor and satire so easily missed ...'' --AudioFile

A masterwork of modernist literature, Ulysses records the events of a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin. Ireland. Joyce used the structure of Homer's epic The Odyssey as a contrast to the lives of the Dublin working class. Like the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, Ulysses contains leitmotifs of vanity and the uselessness of pursuit. Ulysses follows two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom through a day in Dublin, Ireland. The men participate in and observe human activities, many base and obscene, and respond with their own emotions, thoughts, and memories. Through these observations Joyce contrasts subjects such as religiosity vs. irreligiosity; realism vs. sentimentality; and pessimism vs. optimism. Each extreme has an extreme opposite. Ulysses was banned in the United States until 1933.

James Joyce originally conceived of Ulysses as a short story. For more than 10 years the idea germinated, until Joyce began the novel in earnest in 1914. Seven years later, this masterpiece, perhaps the greatest literary achievement of the 20th century, was complete.

Ulysses records the events of a single day in Dublin, June 16, 1904, through the words and deeds of the three principal characters—Stephen Daedalus, the hero of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Leopold Bloom; and his wife, Molly. On this simple foundation Joyce builds his legendary tale.

When extracts from Ulysses appeared in The Little Review in 1918, the publishers were arrested and charged with printing obscenity. It was not until 1933 that the novel could be legally published in America. This audio production, narrated by Dublin natives Donal Donnelly and Miriam Healy-Louie, makes the story more accessible than ever before.

About the Author: James Joyce is perhaps the best-known Irish writer. His name is forever linked with Dublin. Seeking to escape the Irish literary revival, he relocated to the European continent in 1904. Dubliners, a book of short stories, sparked a heated debate with Joyce's Dublin publisher, George Roberts. In 1912 Roberts destroyed the entire first edition. prompting Joyce to leave Ireland forever. Joyce is well known for his autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and for Ulysses, which forever changed the landscape of world literature. His final novel, Finnegan's Wake, took 17 years to complete.

About the Performers: Donal Donnelly, an Irish-born film and stage actor, trained at Dublin's Gate theater and later joined the world-famous Abbey Theatre. He has played numerous roles on Broadway and in films. Says Kliatt, "Donnelly could get an Oscar for reading the entries for `Smith' from a phone directory."