Ulysses by James Joyce (1922). Filled with convoluted plotting, scrambled syntax, puns, neologisms, and arcane mythological allusions, Ulysses recounts the misadventures of schlubby Dublin advertising salesman Leopold Bloom on a single day, June 16, 1904. As Everyman Bloom and a host of other characters act out, on a banal and quotidian scale, the major episodes of Homer’s Odyssey—including encounters with modern-day sirens and a Cyclops—Joyce’s bawdy mock-epic suggests the improbability, perhaps even the pointlessness, of heroism in the modern age.
Total Points: 127 (PA 5) (JB 8) (TBiss 9) (CB 9) (BEE 4) (MGait 10) (LG 6) (JH 6) (KK 7) (TLeClair 7) (DLod 7) (DMe 2) (RM 3) (JCO 9) (RPow 1) (RP 6) (IR 6) (RRash 4) (LDR 9) (IWelsh 10) EWhite 3)