James Joyce's Dublin

Resumen del libro

James Joyce's Dublin is published on the centenary of 'Bloomsday', the day of the action in Ulysses. Among other things, Ulysses is one of the most realistic novels ever written. Commentary on it has often focused on its crucial place in the history of modernism, its break with narrative convention, its exploration of the dilemmas of life in the twentieth century, or its concern with Irish nationalism, but the authors examine instead the importance of its basis in physical fact.

The characters, many of them Dubliners appearing under their own names, visit shops and pubs, some of which can still be located in the streets of Dublin. James Joyce's Dublin offers a full account of them all and analyses their significance in the narrative. This scrutiny reveals many otherwise hidden relationships and ironies.

There is a wealth of correspondences, many of which depend for their effect on a knowledge of who is doing what, and where, while other characters are otherwise engaged. Accordingly, the authors offer a detailed timetable of the book?s action, relating event to event. The book includes: a detailed set of maps based on early twentieth-century originals; an analysis of Joyce's use of Thom's Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; an account of the characters' movements; a list of the postal addresses of characters and places; a timetable of events; and a selection of historical illustrations, mainly of places and monuments that no longer survive.

This unique collection enables the reader to approach more fully the perspective of the native Dubliner in 1904 and enhance the delights - the understanding - of Joyce's great novel.