The Book About Everything

by Declan Kiberd (Editor), Enrico Terrinoni (Editor), Catherine Wilsdon (Editor)

To celebrate the centenary of the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, the most important literary work of the twentieth century, eighteen artists, writers and thinkers respond to an episode each of the great modernist text.

Genres: Nonfiction

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Declan Kiberd is a professor of Anglo-Irish literature at the University College Dublin and the author of Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, which won the Irish Times Prize, and of Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce's Masterpiece. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not even a fan of James Joyce – apart from Ulysses what did he give to the world – a mournful short story collection, an autobiographical novel which is half great and half terrible, and a vast unreadable tome consisting of the kind of homemade gobbledygook that only an acidhead from 1967 could appreciate. But Ulysses is something else entirely, something weird and magnificent, and I have read too many books about it, I know, but when I see a new one I just have to grab it and read it, it’s an affliction. This one was like all the others, veering from the cringingly ridiculous (“Sgt Joyce’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) to the cool and delightful (Richard Kearney on Proteus) and all points in between. Ulysses is inclined to drive people mad, it’s quite understandable.

[Sabrina Schioppa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars only because i really did not like the essay Rites of Passage by Lawrence Taylor. I found it badly written, out of context. Had nothing to do with the rest of the books. All the other essays are superb - my favourite Jumpha Lahiri in Nausicaa and the last one, Penelope.

[Brandon Pytel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of three(!) companion books I had while reading Ulysses, but unlike Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey, this one was a bit more superfluous, i.e., a nice to have, but certainly not necessary.

In that way, it added some color and new perspectives to the text, which is always welcome, but for those trying to tackle Ulysses for the first time, and who are already discouraged by the length of the original text, adding yet another book of essays may not be the move.

That’s not to say there aren’t great perspectives to be found in this book, one with each chapter and accompanying essay devoted to a particular subject or profession, making it true to its title: The Book about Everything. We get the topic of Greeks in Telemachus, race in Nestory, psychology in Lotus-Eaters, journalism in Aeolus, surveillance in Ithaca, and so on.

The best essays here offer a helpful summation of the text (why, after all, I do think it merits to be a worthwhile companion book), while also giving us a unique perspective, usually written from the essayists own experience from the text, and also punctuated by some fantastic writing.

“I’m suddenly obliged to see Jouyce’s conspicuous stylistic mastery and relished irony aligns itself with Stehpen’s desire to wrest victory from defeat, to convince himself of his superiority,” writes Tim Parks in Calypso. “Rather than drawing us into the ‘action,’ the text invites us to feel intelligent, perhaps to become more intelligent, outside and above these petty clashes, but always in the knowledge that Joyce is more intelligent still.”

In Proteus, Richard Kearney unlocks this complicated chapter with clear, articulate and patient analysis, analysis that is welcomed in the sea of mud when we find ourselves trapped within Stephen’s mind.

“The mixing of conceptual and the banal in Stephen’s thoughts is Jouyce;s way of reminding us, readers, that this is how we actually think,” writes Kearney, before summarizing the chapter with one clear thought: “It is all about going from high to low, from intellect to sensation, from heady ideas to the tactile experience of hands and feet and water and weeds.”

And in Cyclops, Derek Hand reveals this passage, seeped in Irish history, without pretentiousness and in his notion of doubleness and the one-eyed perspective of the Citizen, who espoused a very narrow and exclusionary version of Irishness.

“It is a story told for entertainment, highlighting the foolishness of men, and perhaps inadvertently, intimations of everyday heroics,” as Bloom chooses “the more challenging and authentic option of being just himself, with his flaws and the inevitable tribulations and trials he must endure.”

Of course, not every essay is perfect, and despite the book’s intention of staying away from academia, some academic text inevitably seeps in, most notable in my least favorite essay of the bunch, Nestor, which is so entrenched in racial theory and philosophical musings that it is almost unreadable.

The Lotus-Eaters, which touches on everything from AI to the oppression state to algorithmic machines, is similarly poor. And, though I hate to say it, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Nausicaa episode reeks of academia, unapologetically giving heightened meaning to one part (the bat) of this masturbation/beach episode.

But for every weak essay, there are two to three strong ones, which makes this book a helpful and handy companion for anyone looking to take their reading of Ulysses one step further. Though you can theoretically skip it and be fine, you won’t be disappointed if you do end up reading it, for it only offers yet another series of colors and layers to this wonderful text that can be interpreted so many ways.

[Andrew Pitkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Declan Kiberd does a great job of compiling some essays here that explore the cultural relevance of 'Ulysses' for contemporary audiences. He does a great job of engaging the uninitiated with relatable essays and accounts of Joyce's book that will hook new readers into one of the greatest novels ever written.

The mission to unshackle 'Ulysses' from the clutches of academic stupidity had started a while ago, and Kiberd does well to point out that so many academics misuse and mistake parts of 'Ulysses' by assuming that it is a book solely for the elite. Were Joyce alive, he would have smacked academics who have gotten his work wrong, save for Richard Ellman and a few others.

[Simon Pitfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many of these essays were disappointing, with the writers concentrating more on themselves than on Joyce or on Ulysses, to the extent where one chapter was stuffed with what appeared to be references almost exclusively to the academic output of the contributor's partner and immediate family. It got better towards the end, with the standout contribution being Joseph O'Connor's brilliant piece about the 'Sirens' episode and the music and musicians of Dublin, made even more poignant by the powerful, palpable, aching absence of one name from the list. Search that out and read it, but don't waste much time on the rest.

[50andsomething · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays that make up this book are each written by a person with professional expertise relevant to a corresponding episode. The standard is mixed, but together they have brought forward ideas that are new to me, and that will enhance my next reading of Ulysses.