Are You Somebody?: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman

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the struggle to overcome pain, find love and meaningful work

Another classic case of denial

mid life in the mid west

R U Somebody? She Sure Is, and Don't You Forget It

Boring, Hard to Keep the Thread

Are You Somebody?: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman
Nuala O'Faolain
Manufacturer: Holt Paperbacks
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805056645

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Self-preservation did not come instinctually to Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain. One of 9 children--her mother had 13 pregnancies in all--she grew up in the 1940s and '50s in a defeated Dublin household. Her reporter father seems to have spent his time and money, and even love, elsewhere--and as the family grew more isolated and unable to cope, alcohol became her mother's only way out. "One of the stories of my life has been the working out in it of her powerful and damaging example in everything," the author admits, "Nothing mattered to her except passion." Some of O'Faolain's siblings emphatically didn't make it, but she was lucky to find refuge in books. They have been a defense, a comfort, and a delight.

Does her memoir then follow the standard rags-to-self-acceptance trajectory? Are you wondering if perhaps you can give it a miss, and in fact send the entire genre on a well-deserved vacation? Don't. Are You Somebody (the title unaccountably lost a question mark somewhere between the Irish and American editions) offers a wrenching account of childhood and a highly provocative take on the sexual and professional situation of Irish women. Though literature made O'Faolain, the male-dominated literary life and industry certainly didn't, and she now gives it more than a few body blows. It was a world in which writing and drink mattered far more than women: "The 'literary Dublin' I saw lied to women as a matter of course and conspired against the demands of wives and mistresses.... Women either had to make no demands, and be liked, or be much larger than life, and feared."

Irish women didn't seem to know to look for, let alone demand, equality. O'Faolain miraculously avoided pregnancy; but others were not so blessed. "Lives were ruined at that time, thousands and thousands of them, quite casually.... They were hotly pursued, and half longed to yield, but they were not able to defend themselves against pregnancy, and they were destroyed if they got pregnant." For all her energy and ambition and good fortune (and she needed this trio to jump her family's "sinking ship" and avoid getting pregnant), O'Faolain fell for the cant that she must marry, have children, and serve. Some will be initially shocked by her assertion that she was lucky never to have had a child. "Childbearing, along with bad education, relationships that managed to be simultaneously all-absorbing and rewarding, and financial dependence--these were the enemies of promise. But that's not why I'm glad; I didn't think of myself as having promise. I'm glad because under the old system it was so easy to rear children badly. The child wouldn't have properly survived." Yet the '70s enabled her to break out of the assumptions and realities of Irish women's lives, not to mention her yearning to be like "the troubled, rich, English upper-class people in books."

At the end of her memoir, O'Faolain knows she finally is, in fact, somebody. Still, those who don't recognize her see her only as a single, middle-aged woman. Like children, such individuals "aren't supposed to kick up." Thanks to this bracing book, the author gets to permanently do so. The writing exercise has answered some of her questions and some of her fears, but O'Faolain is too honest not to admit that for others there is no response or cure. She leaves us wanting to know more about her life but grateful that she has allowed us in.

Book Description

Nuala O'Faolain attracted a huge amount of critical praise and a wide audience with the literary debut of Are You Somebody? Her midlife exploration of life's love, pain, loneliness, and self- discovery won her fans worldwide who write and tell her how her story has changed their lives. There are thousands who have yet to discover this extraordinary memoir of an Irish woman who has stepped away from the traditional roles to define herself and find contentment. They will make this paperback a long-selling classic.

Customer Reviews:

the struggle to overcome pain, find love and meaningful work.......2007-03-21

This is a splendidly written autobiography, unbelievably rich in detail and raw emotion. While other reviewers have ably described her life's journey - from a chaotic household with alcoholic parents to a very good job as TV producer and then columnist - this is also a beautiful and vivid evocation of a changing Ireland. O'Faolain provides the grittiest of portraits, of a stalled society that is emerging from centuries of repression and excessive religiosity to a modern society. She herself embodies much of it, journeying (across class lines) from desperate loneliness (seeking love as a panacea) to a self-empowered feminist writer who has the strength to keep going. It is deep and gets you to reflect on your own predicament, particularly middle age.

Warmly recommended.

Another classic case of denial.......2006-12-16

Nuala O'Faolain writes reasonably well. She has developed her craft enough to be labeled lucid, although inspired isn't a word I would use. When she writes about the shift in the concept of family that has taken place over her lifetime she can hold my interest. But what she did with whom over the course of her life, without a deeper examination of why, falls more in the category of vaccuous gossip, and won't hold any serious reader's interest.

Most disappointing of all is the absence of the story that Nuala can't relate, the one she has yet to understand herself. Ms. O'Faolain tells us all about her upbringing as a child of alcoholics, complete with a horrific description of seeing her mother dead drunk on the floor of her home. She even laments the alcoholic demise and early death of her younger brother. But she never admits to alcoholism herself despite a book-long description of irrefutable symptoms. Aside from a borderline flippant remark about what she refers to as a brush with alcoholism and a one-line mention of "addiction" to pills in her younger years, Nuala never conveys any grasp of the nature of the disease that killed her mother and brother, and shortened the life of her father.

For those of us with more than a casual relationship with alcoholism, Ms. O'Faolain's present condition of relative isolation is revealing, as well. It's another predictable phase in the inevitable progression of the disease. She also talks (writes) like a "dry drunk," and has the dysfunctional relationships to prove it. When she writes about retiring alone to read - with a bottle of wine - it is painfully obvious that she is living in denial of her own condition, that she has missed perhaps the most important revelation available to her. As she left us at the end of her book, it appears that the lessons her ancestors paid such a terrible price to impart have escaped Ms. O'Faolain.

Alcoholics and their families and friends are among the many who would want to read "Are You Somebody?," and they want to read it with the hope that an understanding of alcoholism was reached by the author, especially after such a traumatic lifetime experience with the disease. Nuala has yet to absorb that lesson. When she does, the story she can relate will acquire a depth that escapes her present version.

mid life in the mid west.......2006-11-10

I love the flow of Nuala's writing style. So beautifully written, almost poetic. I find myself reading some passages over many times to contemplate what is being said. She's so insightful to human character.

R U Somebody? She Sure Is, and Don't You Forget It.......2006-09-27

Nuala O'Faolain has been a waitress, sales clerk and maid; a university lecturer; a television producer, and, most recently, a columnist at The Irish Times. She is Dublin-born and bred, but received an education at Oxford, England, and did tv work in the United Kingdom. She has now returned to Dublin, and, in middle age, written this well-received memoir.

Through most of its history, Ireland has been a tough country for women merely to live, let alone to establish satisfactory lives and careers, and O'Faolain's struggle to do both is at the heart of her memoir. Born one of nine children to an overwhelmed alcoholic mother; and a charming father who chose to spend his time, his money, and his charm elsewhere, leaving his family day-to-day poor, O'Faolain claims to have had the classic hard-scrabble Irish childhood. And from her writings, it seems she did. Though it should be noted that, whatever her father's faults, he was one of Ireland's best-known journalists, under a "nom de plume," as it happened. And it simply does not seem to me that, however hard Ireland was on women -- and we know it was-- it's quite so miraculous that a child of a well-known journo, whether male or female, should rise to become a well-known journo in his or her own turn. It's just not quite as extraordinary as, say, a child of an illiterate day laborer taking that same career path.

Be that as it may, the North Dublin family was poor, and Mam wasn't up to much. Nuala reads books, struggles to get herself an education, discovers boys, pushes at the restrictive boundaries of Catholic Ireland at that time, and finally leaves the country to complete her education and begin her career. She seems to have been expert at finding help in stony ground, always a helpful ability. She seems also to take pride in having been an icebreaker for others as she pushed at those booundaries, as well she might, and she gives us quite an interesting view of talented young people struggling to find the way out of stultifying mid-20th century Dublin. She also seems to have found help in working herself up the career ladder, on her back, as they say. Some pretty heavy names are dropped, some others are held back. But there's no denying a girl can, at a minimum, learn a lot from pillow talk, if she picks the right pillow talkers. And she's certainly not the first or last woman to have gotten that kind of help up the ladder; let anybody who cares to throw the first stone.

Now in lonely middle age, without male companionship or children, O'Faolain's unusually honest about her circumstances. Of course, it seems evident that, as a younger woman, O'Faolain was choosing her male companions for qualities other than the likelihood that they would stick with her for the long haul. Nevertheless, plenty of men and women have looked hard for mates for the long haul, without necessarily finding them. Ways to live must still be found. A lot of people wind up middle-aged and lonely, and can be grateful for the author's honesty.

O'Faolain's trip has taken her some interesting places, and she has always been a keen-eyed observer with a keen pen. At one point, she writes of life in Oxford,"In real life, glamour consisted of my friend and myself getting done up in high heels and tight black skirts. Tucked into the skirts, and anchored by wide elastic belts, we wore men's white nylon shirts with the sleeves rolled up. We had big pointy breasts (old nylons stuffed in our bras), a thick layer of yellowy Pan-Stik on our faces, black lines going up from the corners of our eyes, Vaseline on our shocking-pink lips. In the Crystal Ballroom we two beauties eyed guys with duck's arse haircuts and crepe-soled shoes, while we condescended to dance with awe-struck Malaysian students." It's the next best thing to being there for us readers.

Later she remarks, " I am still acquainted with a lot of the people I knew in Dublin around 1970. But most of them are so different now that the past might never have been. I remember the vulnerable, not always dignified young people who are, now, dignitaries: a judge, a professor, a feared critic, a consultant. In a more confident culture, people like these would reclaim their youth. In North America, people, however powerful they become, are happy to go to reunions to recapture the innocence of youth."

O'Faolain found her way through her years, through alcoholism and severe depression, to become, at least, a person who owns her own life. And, hey, that's not so bad: generations of women all around the world have never achieved it, and still don't.

Boring, Hard to Keep the Thread.......2006-01-16

I found the parts about her family most interesting, and also depressing. Her alcholic mother and wayward father made for a sad upbringing. After about page 80, I scanned the rest of the book.

Joyce's Dublin: A Walking Guide to Ulysses

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Joyce's Dublin: A Walking Guide to Ulysses
John F. McCarthy , Danis Rose , and Jack McCarthy
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
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Dublin's Literary Pubs
Peter Costello
Manufacturer: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr
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Dubliners (Cliffs Notes)
Adam Sexton
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ASIN: 0764537156

Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into critical elements and ideas within classic works of literature. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

CliffsNotes on Dubliners looks into a collection of stories that author James Joyce unites by place, time, and meaning.

Following a portrayal of scandalous and ugly human behavior in a series of straightforward stories, this study guide provides summaries and commentaries for each of 15 linked tales, narrative prose centered in Dublin, Ireland. Other features that help you figure out this important work include

Focus on the author’s education, literary style, and awards and honors
A synopsis of the book’s setting, characterization, dialogue, and point of view
Character analyses and critical essays
An interactive quiz, plus suggested essay questions and practice projects

Book Description

One of the most important literary works of the twentieth century, Ulysses is also one of the most realistic novels ever written. The characters, some of them Dubliners appearing under their own names, visit shops and pubs that can be located precisely in the streets of the city in which Joyce grew up. Despite the renovation of Dublin in recent decades, many of these neighborhoods and establishments remain.

Book Description

Masterpiece of semi-autobiographical fiction reveals a powerful portrait of the coming of age of a young man of unusual intelligence, sensitivity, and character. Telling portrayals of an Irish upbringing and schooling, the Catholic Church and its priesthood, Parnell and Irish politics, sexual experimentation and its aftermath, and problems with art and morality.

Download Description

Published in 1916 to immediate acclaim, James Joyce's semi-autobiographical tale of his alterego, Stephen Dedalus, is a coming-of-age story like no other. A bold, innovative experiment with both language and structure, the work has exerted a lasting influence on the contemporary novel.

Customer Reviews:

Have a good measure of patience ready to exchange for keen insight and impeccable writing.......2007-06-18

Actually, I listened to an audio version of this book - it was the only way I was able to finish it. Even so, it still took me quite a while to get through it. The writing is very dense, and self-absorbed. The book offers many rewarding insights into stream of consciousness thought processes, and typical youthful struggles with issues like religion, good and evil, aesthetics, books and learning, family relations, nationalism and politics, sex and love, asserting one's independence, and getting along with teachers and peers. The detailed accounts of Roman Catholic dogma were a bit tedious, yet I ran into references to them in other works soon after finishing those sections. Having been brought up Protestant, I was spared a lot of the gory details created by the human imagination regarding what hell must be like.

A rather profound insight that came in handy one day while teaching was that people who work hard to live pious lives often end up with a short temper, impatient with the visible weaknesses of others. That also was confirmed in a separate context soon after I listened to that part.

I had to give this work five stars - it is acknowledged great literature - but I wasn't so sure I liked the narrator that much the further I got into it. I guess anybody can be hard to like when they make an effort to be brutally honest about their thoughts and feelings. The narrator's ambivalence about things like his teachers and his interactions with them were sometimes disorienting, but that was certainly his purpose - to show that there are many possible views of the same interaction, and you have to make your own calls. The question posed to the narrator toward the end, about whether he had actually ever loved anyone in his life so far, put the entire work in a perspective worth pondering.

I think for the razor-sharp insights and the utterly lucid writing, this work is eminently worth reading. But you may have to push yourself to make it to the end - I did, anyway.

Highly moving coming of age story.......2007-05-25

This is the semi-autobiographical coming of age story of Stephen Dedalus. I read it about 10 years ago when I was an undergraduate and found it fairly hard to get through, so I thought I'd give it another go. On my second reading I found I was able to relate far more closely with the protagonist and appreciate the quality of Joyce's prose. The story, which is told mainly in the third person, recounts several stages of Stephen's youth. The beginning of the book is written in almost childlike prose as it depicts Stephen's experiences as a schoolchild at a Catholic boarding school. I was able to relate to Joyce's depiction of a very precocious yet sensitive young boy, full of childlike curiosity and terrified of the harsh discipline meted out by the priests. The latter part of this chapter also contains an interesting discussion between Stephen's father and his colleagues about Parnell and Irish politics. Not being an expert on Irish history, I couldn't follow this debate as intelligently as many readers will be able to, yet through it Joyce depicted the sharp political cleavages dividing Ireland at the time.

The next two chapters follow Stephen at a Catholic high school. He has become increasingly alienated from society and emotionally withdrawn. He also begins visiting prostitutes, which leaves him feeling disgusted with his sinful nature. Perhaps the most amazing part of the book is in chapter three, which details Stephen's religious conversion and subsequent renunciation of his faith. This chapter contains a sermon on the torments of hell which terrorizes Stephen and leads to his initial spiritual immersion. This sermon carries on for about 15 pages and is given in the most lurid, evocative prose that one can imagine. The sermon is explicitly designed to terrorize young minds and lead them to renounce their sinful ways. It really resonated with me, as I myself grew up in a conservative church where I was reminded every Sunday of the unimaginable horrors that awaited me if I did not turn my back on the sinful world. While Stephen, shaken with guilt and terror after this sermon, initially tries to immerse himself in the rites of the church, he continues to be assailed by doubts and skepticism, which ultimately lead him to renounce his faith. Joyce vividly describes the joy and freedom that Stephen feels upon freeing himself from the reins of religious doctrine and proclaiming his independence from all such confining systems of thought.

The last part of the book shows Stephen as a university student. There were parts of this chapter that were hard for me to relate to. First, there is about a ten page section in which Stephen elaborates to a friend his theory of aesthetics. Art scholars and philosophers might find this fascinating, but it was somewhat hard for me to follow. There is also a very peripheral romantic interest that is never fully fleshed out. Joyce's ultimate aim here, though, was to depict Stephen as a highly independent young man. Stephen refuses to lend his support to the various faddish social and political movements of the day, whether it be Marxism or Irish nationalism. In the end, Stephen makes the decision to leave Ireland, finding that his artistic aspirations will never be fulfilled if he stays.

Overall, this book clearly deserves its reputation as one of the best works of literature in the English language. Although several aspects of the story are hard to relate to for those who are either not Irish or experts on Irish history, there are also a number of universal themes that resonate more widely. First, this story can be read as a sort of free-thinker's manifesto. While it is admittedly hard at times to fully relate to Stephen (he is depicted as elitist and anti-social), many will be able to relate to his feelings of alienation and his independence of thought. Finally, one cannot properly review this work without noting Joyce's prose. Joyce reminds me of Nabokov in the sense that, although he is often longwinded, one can forgive him his longwindedness because it is simply a pleasure to read his beautiful prose. This is one of those books that contains passages that I will go back and read over and over again.

Education Book.......2007-05-13

Required reading for daughter. Book took too long to arrive. MysticBleu

Being James Joyce.......2007-02-07

Several years ago a movie came out called "Being John Malkovich." I didn't see the movie, but the title was always intriguing to me. Essentially, this book is as close as one could come to "being" James Joyce as a young man.

As other reviewers have noted, the book starts slowly. I did not find the storyline to be particularly compelling, but the revolutionary "stream of consciousness" style introduced by Joyce to the literary world in this book was quite compelling. While I could not call this book a "page turner," make no mistake: it is well worth the effort to persevere to the end. There is a reason why some books are considered "literature." This is one of them.

My Viking Press edition contained no notes or explanations...just the simple, unadorned manuscript without someone's notes telling me what I should extract from the book, what I should think, why it was great literature, etc. Nothing to "coach" me in a particular direction. Now that I have finished reading it, I would enjoy exposing myself to notes and essays on this work, to compare my own impressions with those of others.

The plot of the book is simple enough: a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story featuring Stephen Daedelus, Joyce's alter ego - hence, the title of the book. We follow Daedelus through his formative years, first as the young son of a wealthy family sent off to boarding school, then as the adolescent whose family has fallen from political grace and is now struggling to make ends meet as young Stephen changes to another school that while different, is still as much about religious instruction (Catholicism) as about secular topics. Then, we find him in his mid-teens undergoing a stage in which he abandons himself to lust and then swings the pendulum to the other extreme by attempting something approaching mortal perfection in his religious devotion and briefly even considers entering the priesthood. At the close of the book we find Daedelus in college demonstrating his clearly formidable intellect as he ponders and debates subjects with his professors and peers such as the meaning of beauty and the responsibility of the artist. Ultimately, Daedelus gives us his conclusion on how he intends to live his life that is at once both profound and cliché: to express himself through his art (his writing) as freely and wholly as he can, even if it means being spurned by society and making mistakes. In today's vernacular, it would probably come out as something like, "I gotta be me." But of course Joyce leads us to this conclusion not as some airhead MTV-generation pronouncement, but as the result of his coming-of-age experiences and his deep philosophical ponderings about the meaning of life, the role of religion, and his purpose on this earth.

The stream-of-consciousness style pioneered by Joyce in this book is remarkable, both in its originality to the literary world, and in its ability to give us the events of the story not just through the eyes of Daedelus, but almost through his subconscious. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to read someone's thoughts, right down to the sometimes erratic ways in which one thought leads to another or the impressions that occur somewhat randomly, this is what Joyce delivers. In these pages, he delivers not what it would be like to observe James Joyce, but what it would be like to actually be James Joyce.

The language throughout is beautiful, many times a form of prose poetry. Often described as a novella rather than a novel, the rather sparse page count is rather deceptive: this is a dense book and will take as long for most people to read as a book three times its length. One thing in my edition of the book that was unconventional was Joyce's refusal to use quotation marks to distinguish dialog. He set off dialog with elongated dashes at the beginning of dialog sentences instead. Occasionally, I had to read passages several times to understand who was speaking because Joyce depars entirely from the convention we are all used to.

All in all, this is an excellent starting place for those new to Joyce such as myself, both because it gives insight into the author, and because it introduces the character Daedelus who apparently figures prominently in other books by Joyce such as "Ulysses."

Charting your own course in life.......2007-02-06

The narrative point of view of this book was very innovative for its day. Its not a traditional driving narrative where the author weaves together elements of a plot that leads the characters to a telling conclusion. The point of view is interior to the main character, but in the third person not the first, and the language changes as the character changes.

The narrative follows the growing up and coming to age of Stephen Dedalus from his earliest memories. It shifts from exterior events to interior reflections and fades in a disconnected way into dream events. Some of the exterior events are quite striking and memorable, such as Stephen getting whipped for something he did not do, the bird-girl on the shore, and a long priestly harangue about going to hell. Many signs along the way acquire a mythic or symbolic significance. There are frequent references to birds and flying, which signify Stephen's growing intention to leave Ireland.

The heart of the book is the story about a struggle against authority. The ability to rebel against dire warnings of everlasting punishment from disobeying a religious order requires considerable strength of mind from a lone individual. It requires inner resources, a constant source of solace that gives one an unwavering resolve. Stephen experiences the travails of youth, the giving into lust and subsequent shame, and then turning to the Church. He realizes that by becoming a priest all his material cares would be taken care of and the Church would allay his security anxieties. But his artistic temperament is awakened, most notably in the epiphany of seeing the girl on the shore; and he knows that he cannot endure the kind of sick drudgery that he would feel in the labors of renunciation of his self. Instead of having others chart his course, he awakens to the freedom of charting his own course.

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A Literary Guide to Dublin
Vivien Igoe
Manufacturer: Methuen Publishing, Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0413691209

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This fascinating travel and reference book is a guide to the city that has been home to some of the most famous writers in the history of literature and drama, as well as the birthplace of three Nobel Prize winners for literature: Shaw, Yeats and Beckett.

The Ulysses Guide: Tours Through Joyce's Dublin

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A Guidebook to Ulysses: Literally!
A Guidebook to UlyssesýLiterally!

The Ulysses Guide: Tours Through Joyce's Dublin
Robert Nicholson
Manufacturer: New Island Books
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ASIN: 1904301010

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A Guidebook to Ulysses: Literally!.......2000-09-27

A unique, creative volume, both a guidebook to contemporary Dublin (circa 1989) and the Dublin of Joyce's "Ulysses", and a guide to interpreting the text of "Ulysses." The book contain eight tours of Dublin corresponding (though not strictly chronologically) to the inner and outer voyages of Leopold Bloom on "Bloomsday," (June 16, 1904) the day chronicled in "Ulysses."

Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it." It is truly a remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.

A Guidebook to UlyssesýLiterally!.......2000-09-06

A great deal of the text is included, along with explanations of Joyce's historical, religious, place-name allusions, as well as information on how to follow Bloom on his walking and riding tour of Dublin. (Bloom walked, took trams, trains, and hose-drawn conveyances, today's visitor is told how to use DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to negotiate Bloom's wanderings that day. Some of the city remains as it did in 1904; others have places have changed, partially as a result of being mentioned in the fictional "Ulysses." For example, Sandycove Tower, which was a real tower in 1904, and is the initial setting of "Ulysses." It is now the site of the "James Joyce Museum." The bar of the old "Jury Hotel" (one of 60 actual establishments mentioned in "Ulysses") has been transported to Zurich and renamed the "James Joyce Pub!" And some things apparently do not change: The brothel setting of "Circes" is still "one of Dublin's danger areas where street crime is common...and [the area] should be treated with caution." Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it."

This is a truly remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.

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