The Second Coming of Ulysses

About the Book

It is not uncommon knowledge in the world of imaginary prose to know that many scholars, publishers, and writers consider James Joyce’s Ulysses (banned in the U.S. from 1922 to 1933) the most important novel of the 20th century. At the same time, it is not a maverick opinion to say that the novel’s content(via it’s technique) is impenetrable to the most ardent of readers.

The Second Coming of Ulysses has been described as “a masterful, unprecedented, complete transfiguration of that most famous work into plain English, making the heart and soul of it, for the first time, accessible to the general reader. That this is accomplished without any pabulum is truly praiseworthy.”

In addition to throwing away a technique that kneels at the altar of obscurity in favor of a lucid one, The Second Coming . . . embeds within the story and the parodies a comprehensive literary and personal biography of Joyce, giving to the readers everything they would want to know about the most celebrated writer of the 20th century.

The story takes place in Dublin, Ireland, in 1904. A time there when indoor plumbing, except for the kitchen, was a luxury available to the well-to-do. Each neighborhood at the time had it own music hall. They were not yet replaced by the cinema. The story has been described as an epic story of the Irish people under brutish rule for 800 years by a foreign nation. The story, as told, is heavy with those symbols that point to the ineffable, the eternal, and the courageous nature of the human spirit. These symbols are placed adjacent to man’s darker side – the crude, the vulgar, the profane, and the contemptible.

According to one reviewer, “Joyce’s non-Euclidian prose has been sitting on the bank of the novelist’s tradition for over 80 years. The Second Coming . . . gave it the good boot it needed to kick it right into the middle of the stream. If given proper exposure, it will become a must read for all students of Joyce. It will be a trenchant read for all those Irish buff readers out there, puzzled by Joyce’s opaque technique, and for any reader who can see the Irish struggle as a model instance of the universal struggle of the individual with his usurpation prone institutions – now Holy Mother State.”

About the Author

The author is a native of Philadelphia area, born in the shadow of the city's majestic Art Museum and Boathouse Row. He is now living in the shadow of that historic encampment, Valley Forge. He has been writing all his adult life. This is his fourth full-length novel in ten years. The spread of the author's interest is vast, ranging from ancient thought to modern astronomy. Lighter but, he thinks, healthier avocations include swimming, tennis, hometown football, and dropping a fly in a trout stream.