Review – Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey

Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey

By Daniel Mulhall
New Island Books, 2022

Review by Allen Ruch
30 July 2022

The current Irish Ambassador to the United States, Daniel Mulhall has spent over four decades in service to Ireland as a key diplomat, having been the Irish Ambassador to Malaysia, Germany, and Great Britain. He’s also the Honorary President of the William Butler Yeats Society in Sligo and a lifelong Joycean. Mulhall combines these passions by sharing his enthusiasm for Irish literature wherever he’s posted, from organizing Bloomsday celebrations in Kuala Lumpur to speaking on Yeats at public lecture halls.

Written in celebration of the Ulysses centennial, Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey is a public love letter to Mulhall’s favorite novel. Part guide, part personal memoir, the book covers the eighteen episodes of Joyce’s novel in a readable and uniquely personal style. Having said that, Mulhall’s book is not an attempt to re-create Blamires, Killeen, or Hastings—this is decidedly not a “beginner’s guide” to Ulysses. While it contains a lot of useful information about character and plot, Mulhall is more interested in telling his readers why Ulysses is a great book, even if he admits it’s “hard going” at times. More on this in a bit.

A Reader’s Odyssey opens with a lengthy introduction to Ambassador Mulhall, his career, and his relationship to—as he frequently writes—“James Augustine Aloysius Joyce.” While this background is both fascinating and necessary for Mulhall’s project, it’s the weakest part of the book, as Mulhall can’t quite figure out where to start. He repeats himself numerous times, making the same points across several discursive iterations. Ironically, later Mulhall half-jokingly proclaims that Joyce could have used a better editor. It’s a shame he didn’t take that advice himself, as a more insistent editor might have tightened up this intro and guided the reader directly into the heart of the book. (Mulhall did publish a book about Irish history, but he’s a diplomat by trade, not a professional writer.)

Once the reader clears this rambling intro, the book comes alive as Mulhall begins his chapter-by-chapter discussion of Ulysses. As Mulhall states on numerous occasions, he’s no academic or Joyce scholar, and makes no effort to explicate or annotate every detail of the episode in question. The book describes itself as a “reader’s odyssey,” and that’s not a bad description—rather than an academic, scholar, or guide, Mulhall is a storyteller.

Imagine you wander into a pub and take a seat by the fire. Suddenly some white-haired Irish fellow is handing you a tumbler of whiskey, and before you have time to ask what he’s on about, he begins talking about Ulysses. Sure, sure, we get it—Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan are in the tower, Stephen’s mother has died, Buck’s supposed to be kind of an asshole, but you can’t help liking him more that Stephen at this point, right? Tossing more peat into the flames, the amiable fellow quickly outlines the history of Martello towers, then describes a famous murder that enthralled Ireland during Joyce’s boyhood. Before you can mention Don Gifford, he’s on another tangent—wait, this guy knows the Prime Minister? Then he points out that U2 built a recording studio at this place mentioned by Joyce; suddenly we’re hearing about the 1916 Easter uprising. Then we’re back to Bloom…

It’s this wandering, anecdotal approach that gives A Reader’s Odyssey its essential charm. Mulhall has led an amazing life, and every other page produces a surprising gem offered with disarming modesty: “I really liked what this famous Joyce scholar had to say, so I called him up for a drink and now we’re besties,” or “When I was organizing a Bloomsday celebration in darkest Peru, I got a family of talking bears to read ‘Calypso’ out loud.” Well, maybe not so outré, but you get the point. As the episodes progress, it becomes clear that Mulhall’s admission of “not being a Joyce scholar” was—how should we say?—perhaps a bit disingenuous. (As Mulhall delights in pointing out Irish quirks, let’s say he was engaging in that species of Irish charm that’s one part false modesty and one part genial bullshit.) The anecdotes keep coming, all the way to “Penelope”: Joyce’s tangled biography, the publishing woes of Ulysses, Joyce’s unfair mischaracterization of Michael Cusack in “Cyclops.”

This opinion about “Citizen” Cusack is a good example of where Mulhall is particularly informative, even to a person on solid ground with Ulysses. Having spent a lifetime representing Ireland, Mulhall is steeped in Irish politics, and many of his tangents involve the political aspects of Ulysses, from its scandalous impact on polite society to discussions of Irish nationalism. As one might expect from a diplomat, controversial topics are narrated with careful neutrality—the Phoenix Park murders, the Easter Uprising, and the origins of Sinn Féin are discussed with a balanced tone incapable of causing offense on either side of the border. Mulhall never takes off his diplomat’s hat, and his conversations about Arthur Griffith and “Skin-the-Goat” Fitzharris are the better for it.

Interestingly, it’s Mulhall’s role as President of the Yeats Society which proves more intrusive. W.B. Yeats looms over A Reader’s Odyssey to a surprising degree, and Mulhall never passes an opportunity to bring Yeats into the conversation. While this may be understandable—your man just adores Yeats—I found myself occasionally rolling my eyes, the way you quietly forbear a favorite uncle’s constant mentioning of the band Rush, for instance. (I’m not thinking of anyone in particular here…) In the end, it’s one more idiosyncrasy in a book full of them, some more charming than others.

Idiosyncrasies are one thing, but A Reader’s Odyssey invites criticism for a few less forgivable foibles. Mulhall sometimes explains Joyce’s motivations without providing any textual evidence, relying instead on his own personal feelings about the matter. This includes speculations passed off with dubious certainty. For instance, regarding the subject of Home Rule vs. post-1916 separatism, Mulhall writes: “If Joyce had any time to spare to think about such things as he laboured to complete [Ulysses], he would have concluded that his countrymen and women had indeed successfully changed the subject and, thus, their country.” Perhaps; but even freshmen history students know to avoid gazing into crystal balls. Also, Joyce’s views of Ireland were notoriously complex, something Mulhall frequently overlooks. (As does all of Ireland, it seems, having once put their favorite exile on a 10-pound banknote.)

There’s also Mulhall’s aforementioned insistence that Joyce needed a better editor, especially on episodes like “Oxen of the Sun.” While one can admire the blunt honesty of such remarks, Mulhall gives the impression that he enjoys the novel despite its more experimental chapters—in other words, they’re a bug, not a feature. This is perfectly fine, and there are many people who would agree with him. However, those are not usually the people who write books about Ulysses!

Indeed, Mulhall’s approach to Ulysses can be surprisingly casual. He’s so eager to show people why Ulysses is such a great book that he drastically undersells the more challenging sections. It’s true that these chapters cause some new readers to abandon the book, but on the other hand, they’re also the episodes that many readers find the most intriguing. The kind of people who become fans of Ulysses aren’t those who skip chapters like “Proetus,” “Sirens,” and “Oxen of the Sun”—advice that Mulhall gives with alarming frequency. Of course, every Ulysses guidebook tells first-time readers to cheerfully ignore parts they don’t understand; and no reader can fully “get” Ulysses in one reading. But Mulhall seems embarrassed by the more experimental sections, reluctant to challenge his readers lest they become annoyed or exasperated. Phrases like “discouraging,” “struggle,” “testing,” “hard going,” “forbidding challenge,” “difficult to digest,” and “truly daunting” don’t exactly encourage casual readers to push themselves and try something new.

Which raises the biggest question about Mulhall’s book: who is the intended audience? The cover proclaims, “this joyful introductory guide opens up Ulysses to a whole new readership.” But that’s just publicist’s copy, written by someone who’s probably never read Ulysses and only skimmed Mulhall’s introduction. As enjoyable as it is, A Reader’s Odyssey is too idiosyncratic and digressive to be a true “introductory guide.” First-time readers are better served by Harry Blamires’ New Bloomsday Book or Patrick Hastings’ Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses. And it’s unlikely a potential “new reader” is going to read an entire book just to pique their interest in reading another entire book.

In the end, I believe the question of audience is best answered by the book’s title. If Mulhall’s book is “a reader’s odyssey,” the ideal readers of his Ulysses insomnia are fellow travelers, those who’ve made the odyssey themselves and enjoy hearing more tales from the road. And let’s be honest here—this book would never have been published if the author wasn’t the Irish Ambassador, and that’s what makes it interesting. At the beginning of this review I compared A Reader’s Odyssey to a fireside chat with a fellow obsessed with Ulysses. And for fans of Joyce’s brilliant, beautiful, maddening book, that’s not a bad way to spend your evening. Especially if that fellow happens to be friends with several prime ministers and presidents!

Additional Information

Amazon: Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey
You can purchase the book at Amazon.com.

New Islands: Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey
The publisher’s page.

Daniel Mulhall
The author’s Wikipedia page.

Yeats Society Sligo
The Yeats Society’s page honoring Mulhall’s appointment as honorary president.

Author: Allen Ruch
First Posted: 30 July 2022
Last Modified: 31 July 2022
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