Vladimir Nabokov Creates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses

UllysesMap

Click the image above for a larg­er ver­sion

Just above you’ll find a sketched-out map of the paths Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom took through Dublin on June 16, 1904. If you’ve ever read James Joyce’s Ulysses (find it in our lists of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books), you may well have tried draw­ing one of these your­self, con­nect­ing the loca­tions as each chap­ter finds one of the pro­tag­o­nists some­where else in Ire­land’s cap­i­tal on that “ordi­nary” day. Maybe you want­ed to test the plau­si­bil­i­ty of the com­mon asser­tion that, giv­en accu­ra­cy and detail with which Joyce wrote about the city, one could, in case of the apoc­a­lypse, build the city all over again using the nov­el as a plan. This par­tic­u­lar Ulysses fan map, how­ev­er, comes from the hand of a very spe­cial read­er indeed: Vladimir Nabokov, author of a few much-dis­cussed works of twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture him­self, includ­ing Loli­taPale Fire, and Speak, Mem­o­ry.

For those who teach Ulysses, Nabokov has a sug­ges­tion: “Instead of per­pet­u­at­ing the pre­ten­tious non­sense of Home­r­ic, chro­mat­ic, and vis­cer­al chap­ter head­ings, instruc­tors should pre­pare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s inter­twin­ing itin­er­aries clear­ly traced.” A post from Raynor Ganan quotes him as say­ing that, adding, “Would you not have donat­ed a litre of your own spinal flu­id to audit this lec­ture?” Indeed, Nabokov speaks from expe­ri­ence, hav­ing not only pro­duced well-respect­ed lit­er­a­ture but taught it, too. The fruits of his time at the front of the class­room appear in his col­lec­tion Lec­tures on Lit­er­a­ture, though if you want to get as close as pos­si­ble to the expe­ri­ence of sit­ting in on one of Nabokov’s class­es, go back into our archives and watch the WQED drama­ti­za­tion, star­ring Christo­pher Plum­mer, of his talk on Kaf­ka at Cor­nell. It won’t give you any insight into Joyce’s Dublin, grant­ed, but some Yale grad stu­dents’ more recent project to dig­i­tal­ly, inter­ac­tive­ly map Ulysses just might.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov (Chan­nelled by Christo­pher Plum­mer) Teach­es Kaf­ka at Cor­nell

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

Read Joyce’s Ulysses Line by Line, for the Next 22 Years, with Frank Delaney’s Pod­cast

James Joyce’s Ulysses: Down­load the Free Audio Book

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­lesA Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.


by | Permalink | Comments (6) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (6)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • A. MOAZZEN says:

    The nov­el is pri­mar­i­ly an activ­i­ty of the imag­i­na­tion is a great writer. Your imag­i­na­tion is root­ed in the author’s feel­ings and emo­tions. The author wants the bridge between dreams and real­i­ty. Life on the one hand and on the oth­er hand has its own lim­i­ta­tions and prob­lems with B. Jhanb dreams and fan­tasies. Real­i­ty and dreams are often not com­pat­i­ble with each oth­er. Is asso­ci­at­ed with imag­i­na­tion and inspi­ra­tion lit­er­ary life of a writer, he calls upon request by call­ing imag­i­na­tion to ask — it’s a way to chew, the way in which the facts are in front of it. Any­one who reads or writes actu­al­ly men­tioned there is so lit­tle to give mean­ing to their lives liv­ing pas­sion, enthu­si­asm and moti­va­tion is giv­en. Ben­e­fit of soci­ety Lit­er­a­ture and soci­ety that can not see their ugly and their beau­ty to see and rec­og­nize. Such a soci­ety can not be self-crit­i­cal approach. The nov­el is not only active imag­i­na­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing is one of the effects of social con­flicts and con­tra­dic­tions unyield­ing. Ages for the appear­ance of nov­el, full of ten­sion and con­flict are fer­tile ages. Per ani­mal and per Lhzhash Qdmsh cer­tain­ty of a chal­lenge to the old war­rior. The chal­lenge in Nkyshvt between imag­i­na­tion and real­i­ty by his ser­vant, San­cho does, because he sees the real­i­ty that exist with­in the mas­ter will, how­ev­er, inter­fere in dreams, grand mas­ter of peti­tions Elder can bare­ly bring forth .
    The truth must be dis­cov­ered and under­stood and to under­stand the truth about Nkyshvt nov­el. But the real­i­ty is frag­ment­ed and the world has lost its integri­ty. Milan Kun­der­a’s nov­el was born when the facts were rel­a­tive inte­grat­ed itself into real­i­ty. Flour­ish­ing his nov­el is an his­tor­i­cal fact. The onto­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the nov­el comes from where? Best Lit­er­ary nov­els of our times.
    In “Ulysses” Per­haps no word as “coin­ci­dence” is a won­der­ful and mys­te­ri­ous. Aside from the fact that both the char­ac­ters and events of the nov­el occur in Home­r’s Odyssey, a book on the expe­ri­ence and the con­tacts are vis­i­ble. Joyce avoids the fixed mean­ings, but the nov­el is not hermeneu­tic Dghdgh­hash or inter­pretabil­i­ty. He is the bear­er of polit­i­cal the­o­ry. The author does not col­o­nized cul­tures to bring up with your work or grant writ­ing tran­scen­den­tal Shani. In 18 of Ulysses, syn­chro­niza­tion word is repeat­ed about 17 times. If we con­sid­er the last part of the expres­sion of per­fect simul­tane­ity and we will make excep­tions, Joyce every­where so the word is repeat­ed. The peak con­cur­ren­cy is the last part. Finan­cial Bloom eight or bet­ter to say I think Part Eight runs togeth­er. Sec­tion VIII — Las­trygvn­ha or can­ni­bal giants — a scene that bloom dur­ing walk­ing in the streets of Dublin to the thou­sand and one things, but sud­den­ly remem­bered that Charles Parnl, Irish polit­i­cal leader of the inde­pen­dence move­ment, escapes. Bloom’s opin­ion, there is no cause of action, except that his face is Parnl John Howard:
    “Here it is. Broth­ers. Fig­ure Tskhyrkn­ndh., This is a coin­ci­dence. Cer­tain­ly repeat­ed­ly with­out any­body Kurds have seen him.”
     At this stage, a few steps ahead — Bloom, George Rus­sell sees. Anoth­er is that the syn­chro­niza­tion has its own log­ic:
    “He’s here., This is one of the co-Haq. Again. Moments that are about to hap­pen, Sayhshan send in advance.”
    Joyce is try­ing to be abstract and the simul­ta­ne­ous lib­er­a­tion. Until the date that the nov­el scene, Although it is not yet occurred — but it has already sent to us their shad­ows.

  • Roger Cummiskey says:

    This may give you the same infor­ma­tion.

    http://vimeo.com/12641768

    Enjoy.

    Slan

    Roger

  • Abbas.Moazzen says:

    124/5000
    Hel­lo
    I thank you for pub­lish­ing my arti­cle
    Can you print this arti­cle in your spe­cial­ized news­pa­per?

    Thank you

  • Abbas.Moazzen says:

    Hel­loI thank you for pub­lish­ing my arti­cle
    Can you print this arti­cle in its spe­cial­ized news­pa­pers?

    Thank you

  • Abbas.Moazzen says:

    Short sto­ry: «The man»

    AUTHOR: ABBAS MOAZZEN. FROM: TEHRAN/IRAN

    .….….….….….….

    Seems like it has been washed and paint­ed, with mild and light col­ors, it’s like every­thing has hap­pened for the first time and I’m look­ing at it!
    Fall in love was easy, very easy, easy like eat­ing lunch that is pre­pared for you after a hard work day. But no this is not a good exam­ple. They will crit­i­cize me. I mean they may laugh at me, the ones who are more expe­ri­enced and under­stand­ing than me.
    Love begins with com­ing of puber­ty. Like the first time that my eyes saw, I mean real­ly saw. [like] The first time I saw myself in the mir­ror, more than before, and i had this obses­sion to style my hair to stand bet­ter upwards, like an archi­tect that is build­ing a wall and in order for it to be in lev­el after cre­at­ing each row he uses his align and swathe tools. A lit­tle spot on my shirt was seemed so big for me that I would­n’t dare to leave the house before I cleaned it up. For a crooked Iron­ing line on my pants I would beat up my lit­tle sis­ter. And final­ly Bahareh who was Mojh­gan’s friend gave me her first smile. I rec­og­nized shame when I was see­ing the fade trace of my mus­tache on my upper lip for the first time, but my mom still insults my father for home expens­es, but he only laughed! His first laughed hap­pened for me when I was feel­ing that I was became a man.
    Being a man is bet­ter than puber­ty. When I’m a man fear and dread does­n’t mean that much that it did before, I’m more com­fort­able. For my fam­i­ly i will eas­i­ly bow my head to my boss or oth­ers, although it’s very hard, but it has good jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. I’m telling Bahareh:
    I’m your shield in this world
    Maybe for this is, that my pride has been lim­it­ed [and shrunk] from street to the house. My daugh­ter says:
    Dad­dy, are you the man of the house?
    I said:
    yes my child, only I’m the man of the house.
    She sat on my lap, rest­ed her head on my chest took a deep breathe and said:
    Dad­dy, are you the strongest one of all?
    Bahareh says:
    Yes my child, dad­dy is the stronger than any one.
    I laugh inside, now I know how my father felt when he laughed [at me].

  • Abbas.Moazzen says:

    Short sto­ry: «Pre­dic­tion of a goat»

    author: ABBAS MOAZZEN. FROM: TEHRAN/IRAN

    I’m a tiger! I eat well, drink well and I wear well. I leave with pow­er, my wife always com­plains, she is sad because of not own­ing a house and she tired of being ten­ant all the time, so she nags: Our life don’t lack any­thing, the only thing that is lack­ing and bur­den­ing us is a house, even a house the size of a palm of a hand that is just for us. I say: You’re leav­ing with a tiger, you have my pro­tec­tion. She felt a lit­tle bit relieved. Although I’m not very unhap­py that every year I have to took my fam­i­ly in my mouth and change my habi­tat, but my fam­i­ly spe­cial­ly my daugh­ter that is a female tiger, com­plain a lot. My wife says: Man you have a daugh­ter for cry­ing out load! You must think about her future to. Peo­ple with daugh­ters have more prob­lems than oth­ers. What can I do? I born in the first night of a win­ter, the sec­ond half of the Yal­da night. My for­tune is writ­ten as if that I should not become a home­own­er. God didn’t gave my father a house till he died as well. Some­times stars whis­per in my ears that: In the house of tigers, there will be no dis­as­ters, not even thieves dares to get close to their den. Maybe they are right, because when I go on a trip I don’t see the need to lock my door, I just close it, a feel­ing inside me says there is no need to lock it! I have nev­er been rubbed in my whole life. I feel a big phan­tom cov­er all sur­round­ings of my house and sat on top of me, that only thieves can see and they don’t fol­ly to Steal­ing from me. I’m a tiger, with instinct like feed­ing well, drink­ing well and like my wife say, I have the pride of a tiger to. For instance I like soli­tude, the ants say: You eat too much and you work less. They think I’m lazy. But this is my nature. I like big preys, its maybe because of that, which I get tired fast. But these ants know, the ener­gy I use just for one meal is equiv­a­lent of dou­ble the ener­gy they use for a whole day. They don’t under­stand that I can­not eat how much they eat. If I con­sume like an ant or a cock­roach I won’t last two days. My wife eats less than me and our daugh­ter. Maybe it’s because she is a goat. She says: I suf­fer from your indif­fer­ences, it make me mad. I say: You must walk beside me, to see from my per­spec­tive to your sur­round­ings and oth­er leav­ing things, to see how small they are. Some of them are rats, they only have the urge to col­lect, and they like it more than any­thing. They can’t spend well on them­selves. They have sadism to col­lect. They col­lect any scrap. Their eyes won’t see depth. They fear some­day they won’t get any food so they go hun­gry. They fear death. But an instinct feel­ing tells me that I nev­er go hun­gry. Some of these crea­tures are vultures,they fly with wide and firm wings, but they feast on corpses. They could nev­er fly eas­i­ly like but­ter­flies. So many times I wish that I could fly even for just some meters, but I can’t. Maybe because my body is too heavy. But I will do it some­day, from the tallest pick of the uni­verse, I will jump. It’s dan­ger­ous but it will worth it. I feel close to the eagles. I like them. Most of the times I sat and watch them, espe­cial­ly when they catch their pray in midair. That’s the time I feel lighter. My daugh­ter is still very young. She needs to be at my side and be pro­tect­ed by me so she won’t go hun­gry. Her spir­it and instincts is like me. Against small­est deci­sions
    that I make for her, she resists. She even likes that I don’t men­tion her faults. Even though she is still suck­ing her thumb she embraced to make a mis­take. She always have a Roar against any advice that I tell her. When she fail to change my deci­sion she run away and stay behind her moth­er and ask her to fight me. My wife whine and say: God, what I did wrong that I’m stuck between two tigers?! One big male tiger and a whiny lit­tle female one. Some­times I feel sad for her, and will keep silent. Even though her body is small, but when she get mad she scares me a lit­tle. I sacred for me being a tiger; because her con­tin­ues anger will dis­turbs my pow­er and my ter­ri­to­ry at home. At that moment I will try to not say any­thing and keep it in. I have to admit I real­ly love her. Her pres­ence will pro­vide the bal­ance of pow­er in the house. This bal­ance is crit­i­cal to our sur­vival! These small and dis­gust­ing crea­tures that I have to bare them every day, if they find out there some­thing wrong in my fam­i­ly, they attack in nights and will tore me apart. These crea­tures can’t be under­es­ti­mat­ed. Espe­cial­ly now that they have lit­tle edu­ca­tion and with ‘one minute busi­ness’ or ‘one minute man­age­ment’ they learnt the scape routs. They brain cells are pro­gramed only for one thing, liv­ing in one minute! But my wife got this prob­lem, and won’t use my weak­ness against me. When she get mad, she is very sharp, but she knows well when to get mad. She tries to do it at the right moment. This is one of those days that she knows not to both­er me, because our rental con­tract has been expired and my nerves are break­ing to find a new place to live in. For find­ing a new place I won’t ask for her opin­ion, I should decide. Her vision comes from a goat eyes and can­not see the dan­gers in this jun­gle we live in, like I see. My last land lord was a cat, she talked to me in cute­ness way. She liked that I stayed there and extend my con­tract, but tru­ly, I was tired to be under a cat debt. My land lord two years before that was a Hog, his and her wife nois­es when they roll over on their sleep, trou­bled my peace­ful sleep. Always a bad smell came from above, smell of trash and garbage’s that they didn’t both­er to take out even once a week. Before that my land lord was a rhi­no, I real­ized he was home from his snor­ing. He said: I’m used to look only in front of me, oth­ers must pay atten­tion to won’t get crush under my feet. I mean only I need to know what is in front of me, it’s not my busi­ness what is sur­rounds me. He didn’t even have the cau­tious of an ele­phant, at least ele­phants can see small crea­tures, one of those ele­phants say: Small crea­tures are very dan­ger­ous for us, maybe one of the rea­sons that we learn to think is this even with our big bod­ies, we are cau­tious of even small­est ones that are hard to see. For exam­ple one of this rats! It’s pos­si­ble that acci­dent­ly one of them get under our feet, then we col­lapse to the ground with face first, and when we col­lapse, even if there was not an injury, stand­ing up is real­ly hard. Some­times I thought if I became a house own­er, who will be my ten­ant? It can be a lion or a drag­on­fly, I don’t know. The thing that is impor­tant is that I’m tempt­ed even for once expe­ri­ence to being a land lord. But it’s not one my instinct, but it may be pleas­ant, maybe that’s because I live with a goat! I feel that my palms has been shrunk for few days. I have night­mares. I dream that every small or big crea­ture sur­rounds me bought a house and mak­ing fun of me. Every­where I go they shot doors at my face and lock it. They fear my for­tune to con­t­a­m­i­nate them as well. I dream my lit­tle tiger has been grown and mar­ried to a whale, the thing that is always a night­mare for me. Because of that I tell my will to my wife that nev­er allow my daugh­ter to mar­ry a whale. Unlike their looks they are small­er than pests and more dan­ger­ous than rats. I tell my girl: You must mar­ry a drag­on, liv­ing in the shad­ow of a drag­on give you safe­ty that is even bet­ter than a tiger. Recent­ly stars pre­dict a hard death for tigers, they will die with a big col­lide that has been writ­ten in their for­tune. My eyes are milky, my shoul­ders are not hard as it was before. I’m scared of the event that is not hap­pened or I don’t know what it is! My wife say: You are chang­ing, a change is dif­fer from your nature. I look at the stars, they at my for­tune, they draw for me two ears of a rab­bit, head of an ele­phant and two legs of an ant, is it pos­si­ble that a goat pre­dic­tion come true?

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.