Consuming Joyce

<p><b>This book was crying out to be written. <i>The Irish Times</i></b><br><b>Scandalously readable.<i> Literary Review<br></i></b><br>James Joyce's relationship with his homeland was a complicated and often vexed one. The publication of his masterwork <i>Ulysses</i> - referred to by <i>The Quarterly Review </i>as an Odyssey of the sewer - in 1922 was initially met with indifference and hostility within Ireland. This book tells the full story of the reception of Joyce and his best-known book in the country of his birth for the first time; a reception that evolved over the next hundred years elevating Joyce from a writer reviled to one revered. <p/>Part reception study part social history this book uses the changing interpretations of <i>Ulysses</i> to explore the concurrent religious social and political changes sweeping Ireland. From initially being a threat to the status quo <i>Ulysses</i> became a way to market Ireland abroad and a manifesto for a better more modern open and tolerant multi-ethnic country.</p>