Ulysses Annotated: An In-Depth Commentary by Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman

Carla Campos: heramienta única para entender el texto

Spain on Mar 01, 2023

Robert S. Price Jr: Essential for a deeper understanding of many references to Dublin history and geography, Shakespeare, classical philosophy, and more. Can't imagine reading Joyce's Ulysses with this excellent and thorough annotation.

United States on Dec 22, 2022

T. Kepler: The authors created a fine work of reference for Joyce's Ulysses.

United States on Nov 30, 2022

Cliente de Amazon: Es un muy buen libro para adentrarse en la lectura de este gran clásico del siglo XX. Van desde definiciones de palabras hasta contexto histórico.

Mexico on May 13, 2022

Ralfino: Content is extremely full, almost too full. Essentially derived from teaching to an American student audience so some topics included that are probably well known to British readers. However, the quality of the print could be much sharper and clearer and the binding is already parting slightly. Overpriced and slightly disappointing.

United Kingdom on Feb 05, 2022

Razonador: This book is really useful if you want to understand and sometimes "decode" Joyce's novel. Warning: the title is somehow misleading; this is not Joyce's novel but a formidable tool to enjoy one of the most difficult novels in the history of English literature. The notes are truly detailed and they hep you to track down the countless allusions, puns, songs, classical references, etc. you will find in the novel. Add a very nice introduction and detailed maps of Dublin for each chapter and you will find this revised and expanded version of the original essay is really worth reading.

Spain on Oct 22, 2020

Timmyc: Joyce was a typical Modernist writer and liked to border on the unintelligible. Beyond that he also had an extreme gift for using provincial and archaic idioms and slang, and general colloquial language. This makes understanding some bits difficult unless you happen to be a young working class Irishmen from the 19th century. Get out your old vintage map of Dublin and this book, and follow along.

Canada on Jun 23, 2019

David O'Reilly: Gifford's book is quite good in an scholarly sort of way. He has scrupulously researched the people, streets, shops, songs, literary allusions and other topographical features of both Dublin and Joyce's novel. But he falls short in providing the kind of "here's what's going on" explication and context this notoriously cryptic text cries out for. Ulysses Annotated cruises 50 feet above the ground, rather than taking the reader on the kinds of 500- and 5,000-foot swooping overviews to which Frank Delaney, of blessed memory, treated us in his erudite and thoroughly engaging "Re:Joyce" podcasts.
Someone really needs to pick up where Delaney left off and produce a study of Ulysses that contextualizes the events of Bloomsday within the struggles of Irish history, Homer's epic, Joyce's ontology, his rebellion against religious faith, his literary theories, and the any other vast ideas that populate this masterpiece.

United States on Oct 12, 2017

SeekingTraveler: I highly recommend “Ulysses Annotated” to anyone who is reading James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses.” I would encourage you to first read Joyce’s novel without looking at these annotations. Afterwards, these annotations will help you discover much that you may have missed: literature; plays; songs; period events; allusions; allegory, mythology; languages; religions; politics; puzzles; Dublin streets and structures; Irish culture in 1904; etc. Reading “Ulysses” with these annotations could easily become a college course in and of itself.

Facts of Life:
- While the scope, depth, breadth, and contents of “Ulysses Annotated” are outstanding, the font size is quite too small. Please, please, please release a Kindle edition of this book so I can use larger (eye-saving) font.
- The title of the book is deliberately misleading: This is not “Ulysses Annotated.” The title implies that a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses is included with annotations. In fact, the book is all annotations. “Ulysses Annotated” was written to specifically be used with “Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition.” You can find other editions for Kindle for free or a small fee. The...

United States on Aug 16, 2016

Kathryn Pon: The internet is not enough. Use this book. Gifford is a trustable guide. These notes will help you avoid fantasy dead-ends not intended by Joyce. Knowing that a “costdrawer” is an appraiser, you can speed past internet posted essays on Daedalus family debts. Hippopotami do not wade the Irish coast waves. Nor do seahorses. Gifford's work was published in 1988 and from him you may imagine Bloom has a potato as talisman in his pocket (instead of a hole in his pocket). So the internet, more current, can be valuable as backup, used with discernment. Fundamentally, Gifford's notes aggregate in one place and simplify so you can enjoy Ulysses.
He helps with backstory, referring you to characters appearing in The Dubliners, to events from Portrait. He is comprehensive in music lyrics with cast, playbill, and venue. He provides enough political history, Greek and Latin, Roman Catholic and Jewish explications. With Gifford in hand, puns and characterizations pop. If to Gifford's notes you add the Univ of Montana's excellent photo illustrated site, Ulysses will become very alive and make you happy in appreciation of each and every page.

United States on Jul 02, 2015