Letters: Reading Ulysses

I was bowled over by Nilanjana S Roy’s piece “The happiest Bloomsday ever” (Speaking Volumes, June 19). Much has been written about Bloomsday but I have never read a piece that does not gratuitously stress on what a tough read Ulysses is. Roy’s love for the book shines through in her piece. Her writing, as always, is a delight; for example: “The first school spawned a rash of writers who turned out passages of the ‘Thrash, kick, bite. Thrash, kick, slap’ sort under the impression that they were being Joycean. Which is a little dangerous, like assuming you bought madeleines at the bakery and can now write like Proust.” I think it’s time I shed my ill-founded fears of the book and dipped myself in the ne plus ultra of one of modernism’s finest practitioners.

Vikram Johri Mumbai

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