trait was -- for example, Joyce himself was not a Jewish ad-salesman like Leopold Bloom -- it clearly reflects Joyce's Irish experience and his hopes and fears for his country and its people. The Ireland Joyce paints in Ulysses may be narrow-minded and bigoted, he argues, but on an individual basis its people are great of heart and full of life. It is no accident that the book ends with Molly's great life-affirming "yes". Leopold Bloom goes out on June 16, 1904 to discover the world, and finds it all in on the streets of Dublin before returning home safe and sound. Set amidst the dissonant and strident sounds of the modern city, Ulysses is a novel that could not take place any time or any place else. ...
