odysseus as storyteller

The man of many turns created stratagems but also told tales to manipulate situations. Joyce's Ulysses is about Odysseus the storyteller. A new Odysseus tells us about Bloom and Stephen's and Molly's day using many tricks and turns and styles. Some call it the reader's Odyssey through the styles. I call it an Odyssey of storytelling, wily, crafty, show-offy, and bewildering. The motives of the new Odysseus are far from clear. But think of Odysseus taunting the Cyclops. Joyce's motives for having a new Odysseus tell this tale may be similar. That makes the reader into the enraged Cyclops, and that seems to be about right.

joyce as odysseus

There's the Odyssey of the reader through Ulysses. But you could turn it around and make Joyce the wiley, resourceful man of many turns. Thus the "trick" of Ulysses is not random styles that make an ordinary day extraordinary. Rather, the "trick" is a (tantalizingly meaningful but) random story that makes Joyce's telling extraordinary.