Continuing the
AlphaBooks project, another of my very favorite books: James Joyce's
Ulysses. This passage is from
Chapter 17, Ithaca. The entire chapter is in the form of a scholarly catechism. It's that sort of playful, inventive use of language that makes me so crazy about this book. You might say it's a grown-up version of Carroll's wordplay in Alice. Oh, I could go on & on about it, but if you've read it, you already know, & if you haven't, just read it & find out, okay? :-)
In this scene Bloom discovers that he has forgotten his key & decides to scale a fence to get into his house without waking his wife. I had to contort poor Bloom quite a bit to make him into an admittedly wonky "B". But I imagine he had to contort himself too, to get over that railing!
Acrylic on text scanned from a 1961 Vintage edition, with a few Photoshopical interventions, ~8"x 8"
p.s My Bloom was loosely inspired by
Joyce's own sketch.
