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The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses | 
 enlarge | Author: Harry Blamires
Publisher: Routledge
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $20.99
You Save: $18.96 (47%)
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 274367
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0415138582
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780415138581
ASIN: 0415138582
Publication Date: August 29, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New !!!
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Product Description
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A Great Guide February 12, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I like the Bloomsday guide because it helps the reader understand Ulysses. It is good to see crossreferences and interpretations. He is very strong on religious symbolism, but Blamires helps get through the book Ulysses.
 A Miracle of Literary Criticism. January 7, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent example--if not THE example--of why literary criticism exists; it is a concise but amazing classic. I was first introduced to it in college and today I just read it for the third time. Its pages enhance Ulysses and in no way detract from the art and beauty of the most complex and scholarly book ever published (in my humble opinion). Blamires is a serious man who wastes few words or sentences in his sterling discussion and recapitulation of Joyce's masterpiece. His narrative features extraordinary erudition, yet it is quite readable. Nowadays, most people are not familiar with the intricacies of Latin, Greek, and the symbols of Christianity, but Blamires makes such mysteries obtainable. The effect of his analysis is to magnify both our enjoyment and our education. Literary criticism, in this new millennium, seems to be about everything other than the text with its omnipresent, and opaque, references to the troika of class, gender, and race. Luckily, Blamires is above all forms of trendiness and non-sense. The Bloomsday Book brings us closer to the truths James Joyce meant for us to discover, and there is no better service with which the author could have provided.
Highly Recommended (Except maybe if you want to become a Joyce Purist) June 20, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I took Ulysses as part of a course, and The New Bloomsday Book was a tremendous help in my enjoying Ulysses.
I read up to the Cyclops episode without Blamires, and, though I was basically comprehending the book, I was losing a lot of the significance of what I was reading.
My practice from there on in was to read the episode, read Blamires's guide for that episode, and then read the episode again - a bit tedious, you might think, but Joyce is all in the details and the repeated reading.
There are some arguments against having a guide: clearly, part of the reason for Joyce's style was to disorient the reader, to make the reader work, to make the reader give up the dream of total comprehension, of "licking up the cream of thought", to use the phrase of Joyce's protege, Beckett.
On the other hand, why torture yourself! If you read it concurrently with Ulysses, episode by episode, it really doesn't ruin anything plotwise (there's not much plot to speak of!), but it opens up a the world of significant details that otherwise might have passed you by.
I say Blamires accomplishes what he says he aims to do: to reveal the significance of details of Ulysses' on the first read that would normally only come to be seen on a second or third read through.
 Avoid June 9, 2005
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
A first reading of Ulysses is much more enjoyable without the blather of Blamires. If you absolutely cannot grasp the intricacies, sybmols, themes, etc. of Ulysses without outside help then read the cliffs notes of sparknotes or if you are devoted then get Gifford's Ulysses annotated. Blamires provides either too much information in some instances or not enough. The book has too much plot transcription and not enough GOOD (and up to date) analysis (he relies on readings of Ulysses by 1940s critics and not upon more recent scholarship and trends). Blamires tells toooooo much in the beginning. He prejudices the reader to think about or know certain things that he or she should only know as they are revealed by the author. For example, Blamires gives a bias to the reader by making him or her believe that Molly has been unfaithful many times before. Yes there is a list of former lovers in Ithaca (I think it's Ithaca) but most scholars believe that Molly's tryst with Blazes is her first. You don't need an "authority" to guide you through one of the greatest novels. Simply pick up Joyce and begin reading. To get the same effect of reading Ulysses with Blamires, just read Ulysses twice--it's much better the second time anyway!
(Another more pragmatic reason for not buying it is that the price of this book is at least double Ulysses--not worth the mostly hum-drum plot summary.)
very useful May 12, 2005
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This isn't exactly a work of criticism, and certainly not a "Cliff notes" guide to Ulysses: it's somewhere in the middle.
It's basically a paraphrase of Joyce's novel, roughly 260 pages, which tells the story of Bloomsday in plain language. So it's basically an understandable version of the novel in straightforward, unclouded prose.
It is not strictly a paraphrase, however, as now and then Blamires will tell you what is supposed to symbolize what. But it certainly doesn't list the characters or themes of "Ulysses" in any organized way, and there is no extended commentary.
Provided you understand this, the book can be immensely useful -- especially on your first reading of "Ulysses."
I should note that those who already have their sea legs with Joyce's book will, for this very reason, find Blamires's effort to be of limited use, for it largely tells a story you already know.
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