UlyssesIn80-Reading James Joyce Masterpiece in 80 Days
Jul 21, 2026 · 51 min · 9 segments
This week on *Ulysses in 80*, we're joined by Patrick Hastings, creator of **The Ulysses Guide**, one of today's most trusted companions for readers making their way through James Joyce's *Ulysses*…
Patrick HastingsGuest
Mark Sanford GrossHost
Cliona O'FarrellyHost
Mark talks about his beginning as a first-time reader and not knowing what he was up to.
Clearly, This episode in particular, the Oxen of the Sun episode, makes us all very aware of how little we know is going on.
But with a little bit of work and a little bit of diligence and careful reading, we get to where Mark is now, where he's co-leading this wonderful group.
who was Joyce's great benefactor, one of his first readers of every episode as he was working his way through the episodes that he composed after publishing in The Little Review.
When she received the draft of the Oxen of the Sun episode, wrote him a letter and said, I think this episode might also have been called Hades for the reading of it is like being taken the rounds of hell.
That might resonate with some of your experience over the last week or so reading Oxen along your journey.
Well, I was thinking the nine months of gestation in embryonic development.
She was just saying that this is a demonic, hellish read and very difficult to get through.
Joyce himself called it the most difficult episode in the novel to interpret and to execute on his own part.
So we'll kind of acknowledge that it is a dense and difficult part of the book, but has lots of treasures to be found.
So I went ahead and pulled the traffic from UlyssesGuide.com, which was the website that I built between 2016 and 2022.
It's still out there being used by readers, which makes me feel really gratified.
It was just kind of a fun summer side project that I would chip away at during those years and was delighted to find a readership with it.
Mark talks about his beginning as a first-time reader and not knowing what he was up to.
Clearly, This episode in particular, the Oxen of the Sun episode, makes us all very aware of how little we know is going on.
But with a little bit of work and a little bit of diligence and careful reading, we get to where Mark is now, where he's co-leading this wonderful group.
who was Joyce's great benefactor, one of his first readers of every episode as he was working his way through the episodes that he composed after publishing in The Little Review.
When she received the draft of the Oxen of the Sun episode, wrote him a letter and said, I think this episode might also have been called Hades for the reading of it is like being taken the rounds of hell.
That might resonate with some of your experience over the last week or so reading Oxen along your journey.
Well, I was thinking the nine months of gestation in embryonic development.
She was just saying that this is a demonic, hellish read and very difficult to get through.
Joyce himself called it the most difficult episode in the novel to interpret and to execute on his own part.
So we'll kind of acknowledge that it is a dense and difficult part of the book, but has lots of treasures to be found.
So I went ahead and pulled the traffic from UlyssesGuide.com, which was the website that I built between 2016 and 2022.
It's still out there being used by readers, which makes me feel really gratified.
It was just kind of a fun summer side project that I would chip away at during those years and was delighted to find a readership with it.
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