THE BRITISH ARMY REFERENCE FOR ULYSSES SCHOLARS

A dizzyingly thorough account of the military references in James Joyce’s 1922 modernist classic Ulysses.

Retired civil servant and debut author Fishback rightly, if cautiously, observes that Ulysses is “arguably the most important novel of the twentieth century.” It’s also one of the most intractably resistant to secure interpretation. The author, who served in the Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force, aims to provide a measure of targeted disambiguation by explaining, in granular detail, the slew of military references throughout the novel. The British army loomed large in Dublin during the decade that Joyce composed his work as well as during his youth and university years. In order to make Joyce’s invocations of military life clear, as well as the ways in which his personal experience with the British military might have influenced his outlook, the author furnishes a history of the British army from its creation in the mid-17th century to 1904, the year in which Ulysses is set. This includes an account of part-time, amateur military forces in Ireland, the official military departments of Ireland and Scotland, the armies of the British East India Company, and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers—the regiment with which Brian Tweedy, Molly Bloom’s father, is associated. Fishback’s research is breathtakingly rigorous and comprehensive. However, that singular virtue doubles as the book’s chief vice. He reaches far beyond what’s necessary for explication of the novel, with accounts of military libraries, officer mess halls, and the kinds of technical courses that were available to offices. He even provides a chart detailing the pensions of combatant officers and the annual pay of Queen Alexandria’s nursing staff. At the same time, Fishback never even attempts to explain why any of this detail sheds new light on the infamously cryptic work. Indeed, it’s never clear for whom this work is intended, but it certainly won’t grab the attention of the “general readership” he’s aiming for. Even the most devoted students of Ulysses will find this military study to be only tangentially of interest.

An ultimately exhausting history of the British army that does little to help readers better understand Joyce’s work.