It isn't Bloomsday yet, but if you found reading "The Origin of Species" or "The Name of the Rose" too difficult, you will find reading "Ulysses" a real challenge, both now and on June the 16th.
Maybe you should just watch this 1967 drama film so that you can wisely nod your head when someone quotes "We can't change the world, but we can change the subject" or mentions James Joyce's 1922 novel.
The film is loosely based on the novel which in turn is loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey" - another challenging read - and traces the paths of Leopold Bloom and other Dubliners through an ordinary summer day and night in 1904 — a typical day, transformed by Joyce's narrative powers into an epic celebration of life. To wit, "If Ulysses isn't worth reading, then life isn't worth living", as Joyce said in shameless self-promotion (you may well think that life isn't worth living after the first few pages).
During my eighteen months in Athens and in an attempt to pay homage to my host country, I started to read the far fewer pages of Homer's "Odyssey". I never quite finished it as I was always too busy during the day and could only fit in a few hours after work, but "Never on Sunday".
So, if you have trouble reading all 730 pages of Joyce's novel or fear that in the process of doing so you may, like Homer himself, go blind, I suggest you listen to this splendid audio rendition instead - click here.
