I AM JUST short of halfway through with this--am on p. 480--but feel like registering my surprise at the quotation from the Book Prize Jury citation to be found on the front cover of my edition of the book: "like nothing you've ever read before." Can it actually be the case that no one on a Booker Prize Jury had read Ulysses?
Lucy Ellmann I imagine has, being Richard's daughter, and I daresay anyone who has read Joyce's novel will, shortly after commencing Ducks, Newburyport, have at least a passing thought about Molly Bloom. A long, unspooling sentence in a female consciousness, reflecting on anything and everything but continually reverting to family, the home, the intimately personal...how can that not put you in mind of Molly Bloom?
Yes, there are plenty of differences between Molly and Ellmann's narrator, plenty of differences between early 20th century Dublin and early 21st century Ohio, and yes, it does make a difference that Joyce was male and Ellmann is female . I am only saying that we may as well acknowledge that Ellmann's novel has a crucial predecessor text.
I would never say that takes anything away from Ellmann's accomplishment, though. This is an excellent book. It will take me a while to finish--I need a few days between deep dives, I am finding--but it is worthy of its lineage, and you can't say that of every text influenced by Joyce.
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