This was more helpful than Gilbert, inmh.

If you're going to read Ulysses, unless you're either a literary genius or very determined, you are probably going to need a bit of help. Blamires can help.

I still used Shmoop and SparkNotes in addition to this, though, because it didn't always do a good job of explaining what exactly happened. While the interpretations and arguments offered in Blamires were useful and interesting, I would have appreciated a bit more of straightforward plot explanation since Ulysses can be so hard to understand on a fundamental level.

While it could stand to be more concise, the guide does effectively explain what the everloving fuck is happening in Ulysses. It also references the three most popular editions’ page numbers and line numbers, which is extraordinarily helpful, but I do wish it strove to make the content more interesting. Obviously, it will be a bit dry; however, I think there could have been more of Joyce’s humor interspliced into here rather than a blunt this is what happens, you know? Ulysses can be downright hysterical at times, and it’d’ve been nice for that humor to be translated into this explanation.

Indispensable.

I would definitely not have gotten through Ulysses without this book!

Really helps understand and enjoy Ulysses.

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DNF @ 30%

This man really did the lords work with making sense of Ulysses. The original text can be understood for the most part but sometimes Joyce just goes off on a tangent that completely lost me. Blamires provides structure where Joyce gave me chaos; and I really appreciated that. Honestly almost finished reading this instead of the book itself. ☕️