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Boundless Joyce (in Plain Words!)
Terence Killeen.
Ulysses Unbound: A Reader’s
Companion to James Joyce’s Ulysses,
Third Edition.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press,
2018.
$28.00
Reviewed by
TIFFANY L. FAJARDO
A N INDISPENSABLE VOLUME for the
Joyce novice and veteran alike,
Terence Killeen’s Ulysses Unbound is
that rare work of scholarship which
makes a text more lucid without diminish-
ing its difficulty. Whereas recent books
marketed to a general audience have
sought to “simplify” Joyce, Killeen makes
no such claims—this reader’s companion
strives to articulate problems rather than
solve them, the hallmark of any durable
criticism. From a pedagogical perspec-
tive, this approach serves to shepherd new
readers through the densely
allusive prose without purporting to
demystify a work whose allure is
precisely its indeterminacy.
Eschewing a lengthy
introduction, Killeen’s “Preface”
asserts that “An unhelpful way to
approach Ulysses is, I believe, to
start with a word, be it ‘paternity’,
‘androgyny’, ‘differance’, or
‘colonialism’, or many another,
and to use this as a master key to
unlock the entire book” (vii).
While the more theoretically-
minded among us may balk and
read this as a clear signaling of
allegiances—and certainly not in
favor of the much maligned
Derrida, though one wonders what
havoc these diehard Derrideans
continue to wreak and in what
literature department, given the
precipitous decline of decon-
struction since the eighties—
Killeen is right in dismissing
theoretical and academic metho-
dologies to, as Molly demands of
Bloom, “tell us in plain words.”
Whereas theory may provide
further enrichment for those well-
advanced in their study of Joyce,
Killeen has set himself the task of
making the text as accessible as
possible by offering a true
“reader’s companion” for those
lacking the literary and historical
background; arguably, not only new
scholars, but also a lay readership. It is
Killeen’s singular achievement that he
has produced a work that holds genuine
appeal for both audiences, as well as the
seasoned critic aware of Killeen’s
reputation for nuanced and historically-
informed readings.
Killeen organizes the companion
effectively in a fashion similar to Stuart
Gilbert’s seminal, though notoriously
problematic, James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: A
Study (1930). While Killeen refers to
Gilbert’s foundational work throughout
and acknowledges its import as the “first
JAMES JOYCE LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
substantial critical work devoted to Ulys-
ses,” he also cautions readers that the
schema contained therein “was drawn up
after the event, when the book was
already written” (viii). While Joyce
scholars quickly become acquainted with
this fact, it is worth noting that many
readers who consult the Gilbert first
assume quite the opposite and take his
authority, particularly given Joyce’s
involvement, for granted. Nevertheless,
while “the Gilbert schema is not ‘the key’
to Ulysses, it does provide a structure
which clarifies some important aspects of
the book” (ix), and Killeen follows the
now standard eighteen-episode outline in
his “Commentary on episodes of Ulys-
ses,” which comprises the bulk of the
book.
In its third edition, Killeen’s insights
seem as fresh and provocative as ever. He
begins with a brief biographical sketch of
the “Life of James Joyce” and back-
ground on the “Writing and Publication of
Ulysses.” While Joyceans will appreciate
Killeen’s deft retelling of a familiar narra-
tive, this is also an excellent introduction
for first-time readers who know nothing
of Joyce’s life nor the circumstances of
“the myth of enforced exile that Joyce
was always to cherish” (2), and which
would deeply influence his creative
output. Though Killeen is unabashed in
his praise of Joyce’s work, such irrev-
erence regarding his life is a welcome
change from the laudatory tone adopted
by other Joyceans. The “Writing and
Publication” section further context-
ualizes the difficulties Joyce encountered
and the problems presented by “the
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intricacies of magazine publication, prob-
lems of censorship, the need to produce a
fair copy for a patron, and Joyce’s own
unstoppable urge to revise and add” (10)
without overwhelming the reader with
genetic details. However, specialists need
not skip this section as they will find
Killeen’s skepticism toward the Gabler
edition, an attitude discussed later in this
review, a rare treat.
The analysis of each episode is then
subdivided into separate sections for
“Summary,” “Correspondences,” “Style,”
“Commentary,” “Biographical/historical”
information, and a “Select glossary.” This
pragmatic approach provides new readers
with an overview of events and context,
while allowing more seasoned readers to
easily find and target their areas of
interest. Each episode is framed with a
corresponding image, such as a beachside
view of Martello Tower for “Tele-
machus,” with its “Time” and “Location”
identified below the picture. For Joyce
initiates, the summaries that follow offer
unparalleled clarity and discernment in
navigating the smorgasbord of characters
and events that occur on Thursday, June
16th, 1904. Particularly for those without
the requisite knowledge of Dublin or Irish
politics, Killeen’s summaries distill the
most significant cultural, symbolic, and
historical registers needed to grasp the
conflicts at the heart of the novel, those
between self and nation, parents and
children, monogamy and adultery, art and
life. While Joyce is infamous for the
challenges of his linguistic puzzles, for
first-time readers, it is no less a challenge
to produce a terse summary of plot points;
it is thus a testament to Killeen’s journal-
istic concision that he manages to offer
episode synopses which contain all
relevant details within the span of a few
pages. However, Killeen is also flexible
enough to modify the structure as needed,
such as in the “Cyclops” episode which is
mercifully divided into sections of
“Parody,” and the “Circe” episode which
is split into nine “entirely artificial” (176)
parts. Here Killeen assuredly has ease of
use in mind and renders the convoluted,
multifaceted narrative with conversational
expertise.
Following each “Summary,” Killeen
includes a “Correspondence” section that
describes not only Homeric parallels, but
also Shakespearean and other literary
allusions. Although Killeen makes fre-
quent reference to the Gilbert schema, he
is also careful to note that “these analo-
gies can refer to a person who is merely
mentioned in the text, not necessarily a
character in it” (25). Perhaps the most
thought-provoking observations occur
when these correspondences fail,
such as when Killeen remarks that
“Milly, interestingly enough, does
not seem to have a parallel in the
Homeric story” (41). He further notes
in “Hades” that “Odysseus’ en-
counter with his mother is omitted;
indeed, Bloom’s mother is hardly
ever referred to in the course of the
book” (63), providing additional
insight that reference to Gilbert’s
work, and subsequent companions,
does not. As such, Killeen engages
the correspondences from a per-
spective that neither treats them as
“master keys” nor dismisses their
significance. Whereas many new
readers are inclined to view these
correspondences as ironic reversals,
such as in the case of Mr. Deasy,
Killeen is sensitive to the intricacies
of Joyce’s portraits and reminds us
“Joyce’s complicating of the issue is
part of the book’s burden of
modernity: the signals are always
mixed, and can be read in different
ways” (27).
While the “Summary” and
“Correspondences” sections provide
a firm narrative framework and
display Killeen’s skill as a reader, the
“Style” and “Commentary” sections
bring Killeen’s astute scholarship and
interpretive skill to the fore. The tacit
challenge to theory resounds in
Killeen’s analysis, which avoids interpre-
tive formulas for how each episode may
be read through such-and-such critical
lens (deconstruction, et al.). Yet, despite
his disavowal of theory-based approach-
es, Killeen offers several points of entry
into the fields of postcolonial, gender, and
psychoanalytic studies, to name only a
few. Moreover, he does so without
burdening the reader with the abstruse
jargon which deters newcomers and, as
some with an antipathy to theory feel,
obscures the issues in the novel, with
recondite and anachronistic concepts that
Joyce would have no familiarity with or

interest in. Rather, Killeen demonstrates
exactly how theory should function, not
as an infinite citational regress that proves
the theorist’s acumen, but as an opening
onto uncharted vistas of inquiry, such as
the emerging fields of animal and
ecocritical studies. He is especially adept
at handling what Joyceans consider some
of the “trickier” episodes in the novel
including “Scylla and Charybdis” and
“Circe.”
Hailed as one of Ulysses’ most
difficult chapters, “Scylla and Charybdis”
tests even the most stalwart of Joyceans
with its esoteric mystical and Eliza-
bethean references. In the hands of
Killeen, however, the episode seems far
more transparent, as do Stephen’s other-
wise lofty ruminations on Shakespeare.
Stephen’s theory is a really a medi-
tation on paternity. It is animated by an
intense misogyny: The hapless Anne
Hathway is seen as the author of all of
Shakespeare’s woes. The underlying wish
is to remove the process of paternity from
all natural contingencies: “What links
them [father/son] in nature? An instant of
blind rut.” This means that the role of
begetting, and even more of the mother,
are being set at naught—father/son rela-
tions are a mystical state, an apostolic
succession that has nothing to do with the
mere natural relationship so denominated.
(94)
While other commentators have
focused on the allegorical implications for
Stephen and Bloom, Killeen cuts through
Stephen’s dazzling rhetorical display to
expose the latent misogyny concealed by
it. Provocatively, Killeen goes further in
linking this misogyny to Stephen’s re-
pressed resentment of his mother who
“has abandoned him for another
lover—death” (95). Although this reading
may seem intuitive to those with feminist
inclinations, it is worth considering that
few reader’s guides explore this angle and
tend to view Stephen as more sinned
against than sinning (an attitude likewise
applied to Joyce himself). Thankfully,
Killeen is not a Stephen apologist and
characteristic of his humor, he adds
parenthetically, “The fact that she hadn’t
much choice in the matter is neither here
nor there” (95). He is also perceptive in
his analysis of “Circe,” “A particularly
striking aspect of “Circe” is its curious
mechanical quality. Homer’s Circe
changed men into animals; Joyce’s equi-
valent seems to be the changing of men
into machines” (187). Whereas other
critics have taken a decidedly anthro-
pocentric view of the transformations,
Bloom is alternately liberated by or re-
duced to an animal state, Killeen de-
stabilizes the human/animal paradigm,
offering a novel reading in which “the
dance that leads to Stephen’s vision of his
mother, complete with mechanical
pianola, turns all those involved into
automatons” (187).
Following the “Commentary,” the
“Biographical/historical” and “Select
Glossary” sections offered at the end of
each episode are a boon for first-time
readers who have not ventured quite so
far as Gifford and Seidman’s Annotations.
JAMES JOYCE LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
These readers are afforded a sampling of
Joyce’s erudition without the onerous task
of struggling through arcane dictionary
entries or, even with the ubiquitous aid of
Google, fruitless internet searches. As
Killeen notes, “many readers might
welcome help with some of [Stephen’s]
very recondite locutions” (vii), to say
nothing of the highly-specialized scien-
tific language of “Ithaca” or the Dublin
colloquialisms of “Cyclops.” It is this
attentiveness to a new readership, one
possibly unfamiliar with the conventions
of modernism let alone Joyce’s own
anarchic methods, that separates Killeen’s
work as a truly elucidating companion
which aims to make Joyce accessible,
rather than simply paying lip service to
this idea for the sake of generating ano-
ther “Joyce for Dummies” publication.
If any criticism can be leveled at
Ulysses Unbound, the fault is certainly
not with Killeen’s prose but with a lack of
visual material. While this is by no means
required of a reader’s companion, Killeen
does include a historical picture pertinent
to the episode at the start of each
summary. Although this visual touch con-
textualizes Dublin by setting the scene via
old photographs and postcards, for the
purposes of following the trajectory of the
novel, a map may be more useful. Gifford
and Siedman’s Annotations do include a
map of the streets wherein each episode
takes place and Killeen himself avers of
“Wandering Rocks,” “This is the episode
where a good map of Dublin is
indispensable” (112). Nevertheless, such
maps are readily found online and, given
the ease with which they can be viewed,
should make little difference in whether
one utilizes this book as a guide. Argu-
ably, for the attentive reader, Killeen’s
summaries accomplish the mapping of
Dublin so efficiently as to make these
visual aids redundant.
Most notably, Killeen is unobtrusive
in his readings; although his “Aeolus”
analysis argues for the “fundamental
importance of the newspaper model for
this book” (73), he does not insist on this
model as definitive. Killeen’s acknow-
ledgements of his limitations as a reader
are tremendously refreshing. All too fre-
quently literary critics avoid such phrases
as “if I read it correctly” or other quali-
fications, but Killeen does not shy away
from admitting that these interpretations
are, however informed and well-re-
searched, his own and readers likewise
may come to entirely different conclu-
sions. For example, while he lavishes
praise on “Penelope,” he is sensitive to
less favorable readings, “One of the great
merits of the ‘Penelope’ episode of
Ulysses is that it produces very personal
responses from readers. For quite a
number (I am happy to include myself in
their ranks) it is the most inspired, the
greatest, of Joyce’s achievements; for
others, however, the episode is proble-
matical on several levels” (237). Killeen’s
exploration of the misreadings of Molly’s
purported promiscuity are some of his
finest work. While it is now widely
accepted that Molly’s “hypersexuality” is
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exaggerated for allegorical and symbolic
purposes—that to read Molly as “hyper-
sexual” at all is to draw from fallible
assumptions about “normal” sexual be-
havior—this ostensive nymphomania con-
tinues to condition responses to her.
According to Killeen, however, the fault
is not with Molly’s “obscene” desire but
with our own obsessive focus on and
inability to see past it: “Her attitude
toward men, and her social attitudes
generally are nuanced, refined, discrimi-
nating. If these are not words we normally
associate with Molly, perhaps the reason
is that we are so fixated on her sexual
dimension that other aspects of her
character are rendered obscure to us”
(238). Readers seeking an effusive cele-
bration of Molly as feminine ideal or a
paean to the virtues of her backside will
be sorely disappointed as Killeen has the
audacity to go beyond these tired clichés.
The multiplicity of Ulysses as a text
that yields new insights with each re-
reading is an ever-present theme. Setting
the tone in his “Preface,” Killeen is
unequivocal in his assessment of the
utility of contrasting perspectives, “Al-
though I deliberately do not refer much to
Joyce criticism in the course of this work,
I am indebted to all the works listed in the
bibliography, even, or maybe especially,
the ones I disagree with” (ix). In a similar
vein, “The Writing and Publication of
Ulysses” section tacitly calls into question
the monolithic status of the Gabler
edition. While admitting that it is “prefer-
able to any of the other editions currently
available,” he expresses reservations that
“the Gabler edition is not perfect” (11).
Although measured in his criticism, he
goes on to say that “A large publicity
machine gathered behind this edition,
which appeared in 1984, and rather
exaggerated claims were made ... an
assumption of infallibility seemed to
invest the project. Such hubris was almost
certainly going to be undermined” (10-
11). As Killeen relates, this “hubris” was
undermined by John Kidd, who has
become something of a cautionary tale
and was recently featured in the New York
Times article, “The Strange Case of the
Missing Joyce Scholar.” 1 It is significant
that Killeen continues to include this
anecdote since many dismiss Kidd’s
attempts at a rival edition; rather than
compromise Killeen’s credibility,
however, the mention of Kidd reminds
critics in the Joyce community that such
attempts can, have, and should continue
to be made. Although Kidd’s reputation
as an academic outcast may have
hindered these efforts, as the New York
Times article avers, “Of the 5,000 or so
corrections Gabler claimed to have made
to Ulysses, there is not one of them Kidd
cannot discuss, in rich detail, 30 years
later ... And indeed, it’s possible to
dismiss Kidd as a man who found a
handful of serious errors and then used
his fussy mastery of minutiae to inflate a
few hundred other flecks into a raging
scandal. But it’s also true Ulysses is a
book whose every detail matters.” By
raising the specter of Kidd, Killeen causes
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one to reassess his disappearance and the
textual controversies that have largely
disappeared with him, as well as the
motives for claiming editorial ownership
of a text.
With respect to the primary concern of
Ulysses Unbound, the substance of the
novel itself, Killeen reserves his most
provocative remarks for the last section,
“Ulysses: An Afterword.” In a series of
short ruminations beginning with “The
‘first’ Ulysses,” an exploration of the ori-
gins of the novel as an abortive Dubliners
story, and ending in the enigmatic
“Ulysses in Progress,” Killeen contests
several presuppositions about Joyce and
his work. Significantly, he complicates
the dominant view of Joyce as modernist
par excellence, “Modernism was identi-
fied with a belief in hierarchy and order,
in large-scale assertions of will to power,
in a return to mythical roots for a renewal
of a degenerate society ... In so far as
modernism is identified with such
attitudes, then Joyce is not a Modernist at
all” (250). Killeen’s distinction between
modernism as a set of techniques and as a
set of attitudes is quite useful, not only to
new readers, but to those of us who
reflexively associate Joyce and modern-
ism on the basis of experimentation or
zeitgeist alone. Notably, this is one of few
instances where Killeen insists on his
reading, “[Joyce’s] book is emphatically
not about ‘the immense panorama of
futility and anarchy which is con-
temporary history’, to cite Eliot’s attempt
to describe Ulysses” (250). Apart from
the obvious humor of showing up the
grandiose claims of T.S. Eliot, Killeen’s
correction also demonstrates how the
novel’s ambiguities have allowed for a
proliferation of misreadings by even the
most astute of literary critics.
Shored up against these ruins,
Killeen’s Ulysses Unbound is an out-
standing entry in guides to Joyce and a
genuine pleasure to read. As Michael
Patrick Gillespie wrote nearly ten years
ago in “Past Its Sell-by Date: When to
Stop Reading Joyce Criticism,” “One of
the most dependable areas of Joyce
criticism is the category of non-perishable
goods. These are works, generally of the
reference variety, that remain impervious
to time.” In a saturated market starved for
intellectual rigor without pretension,
Killeen’s reader’s companion offers just
such non-perishable sustenance and
stands as a crucial addition to any
Joycean’s library.2
—University of Miami
NOTES
1. J. Hitt. “The Strange Case of the
Missing Joyce Scholar.” New York Times
Magazine, 12 June 2018.
https://www.poynter.org/news/how-
new-york-times-tried-spoil-its-own-
dramatic-narrative.
2. M. Gillespie. “Past Its Sell-by Date:
When to Stop Reading Joyce Criticism.”
Bloomsday 100: Essays on Ulysses. Eds.
M. Beja and A. Fogarty. Gainesville:
University of Florida Press, 2009. pp.
212-227.