During the early 1990s ULYSEES by James Joyce accompanied my travels around the world. The hardcover classic sat on desks in bungalows across Asia without my turning a single page to read the first line of the modernist novel published in 1922 in Paris. 732 pages. 265,000 words with approximately 30,030 distinct words.
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."
I only read the first line today, yet carried the weighty hardcover from Biak to Bali to Java and beyond. I think I left ULYSEES in Penang, Malaysia. At the Swiss Hotel on Chulia Street. It was still there in 1994. I carried it to my room hoping the reunion might resuurect a desire to read the celebrated tome. Not a chance. I left it there again. Never to know anything of Eccles Street, Davie Byrnne's Pub, and the Ormond Hotel. nor any of the characters. I do not pride myself in this ignorance, bur millions have read ULYSEES. It has never been made into a movie and I respect that.
Confession of a pseudo-intellectual
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