James Joyce: Ulysses / A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Essays * Articles * Reviews Book

Appropriately enough, I began reading this book on June 16, Bloomsday, in anticipation of that night's annual festivities at Symphony Space, where actors would read aloud passages from Joyce's "Ulysses" and musicians would play Irish melodies. Frank McCourt, who wrote the book's Forward and "Angela's Ashes," and Isaiah Sheffer, who wrote the Introduction and who had been instrumental in creating "Bloomsday on Broadway" at Symphony Space, have since passed on.

On the evening that I attended the celebration at Symphony Space, Frank McCourt's brother Malachy, seated in his wheelchair, turned in a lively, spirited set of performances, imbuing each role with characteristic Joycean bravado and gusto.

And as for the book in question, editor Nola Tully manages to cover a great deal of ground in less than 150 pages with both intelligence and humor on such subjects as censorship, scholarship, typography, history and biography, while honoring James Joyce's massive literary achievement and
Bloomsday as it is celebrated every June 16 around the world.