Missed Bloomsday this year? There’s still time to celebrate. In fact, if your whole weekend is free, you can download a new audio version of Ulysses, listen to the entire book, and still have a few hours left for eating and sleeping.
The folks at LibriVox, a group that dedicates itself to “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain,” have completed an ambitious reading of James Joyce’s masterpiece and posted it online in a couple of different formats. They’ve done a nice job of tweaking the often-staid audiobook medium: Scenes taking place in pubs are accompanied by real ambient cross-chatter, for example. And Molly Bloom’s legendary internal monologue, which closes the book, is multitracked — an effect that might offend purists, but one which actually works surprisingly well.
The complete reading runs more than 32 hours, so it’s a significant time investment. But LibriVox has broken the book up into 39 audio chapters for listeners who’d prefer to digest the book in somewhat manageable chunks. (Thanks to Open Culture for the link.) —Brock Read
