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The Scroll

Spring Is a Time for Bloom

Rosenbaum praises his favorite chapter of ‘Ulysses’

By Marc Tracy|April 8, 2011 12:00 PM|4comments
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James Joyce.(Wikipedia)

Tablet Magazine contributor Ron Rosenbaum devotes his Slate column, in both substance and form, to the penultimate chapter of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. “Ithaca” depicts the doings of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus after they have returned to Bloom’s house in the middle of the night in catechism-inspired question-and-answer form. (Rosenbaum says it is his favorite chapter, and that much of the rest of the book is overrated—which is slightly true, but not as much as he says it is.) This is relevant to us, of course, because Bloom is one of literature’s most famous Jewish characters, and because last year Tablet Magazine sponsored a celebration of the book on Bloomsday.

So, two things:

1. Lit-geeks: Which is your favorite chapter of Ulysses? Mine is Chapter Six, “Hades,” which, naturally, finds Bloom attending a funeral. Leave your answers in the comments.

2. June 16: Save the date. Tablet Magazine will, once again, be putting the Bloom back in Bloomsday.

Is ‘Ulysses’ Overrated?
Earlier: Celebrate ‘Ulysses’ with Tablet Magazine
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  • Josh Lambert

    My favorite is “Nausicaa,” hands down (pun intended: sorry). It was the chapter that got the book banned in the U.S., in 1920, when the Little Review had been serializing it. If you don’t know why this chapter, in particular, was the last straw for the prudes at the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice–hint: it wasn’t for any four-letter words–do yourself a favor and go read it.

  • Daniel Solomon

    Cyclops, obviously. Joyce’s heroic cosmopolitan confronts the ills of right-wing anti-Semitism? How is that not Tablet’s favorite?

  • Dan Klein

    I like Penelope because I’m a softy and a highschool english teacher once said I could be the next Joyce what with all the run-on sentences I write and my general lack of punctuation and this joke doesn’t really work since punctuation is optional on the interwebs anyway.

  • http://nowebsite sylvia kingsley

    Please publish the paragraphs worth reading in Ulysses, recommended by Mr. Rosenblaum to save me the trouble of buying and reading the whole book. Sounds all too tirig to do that. I am a very senior person. Thanks
    Sylvia

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Spring Is a Time for Bloom

Rosenbaum praises his favorite chapter of ‘Ulysses’