For the Joy of Joyce
When I look at my copy of Ulysses, a Vintage paperback published in 1961, the title makes me smile. This is not something that has happened before. But I realize now that the comedy, the joy of the book—its sense of adventure—begins with the title. I gaze at the cover with the sense of lightness and excitement associated with a graphic novel or even a certain kind of comic book. Just as Mighty Mouse ascending the air delights us, there’s something incredible about Leopold Bloom’s earthbound travails.
The cover is black except for the names. The gray-white and the faintly beige-colored are very large and slightly art deco. The rest of the letters, including the ones in the author’s name, are pale orange and beige, resembling an illuminated sign you might have seen at night at some point in the 20th century. The font, too, and the giant of the opening line—“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan”—give joy. The visual aesthetic of what appears on the page, and how it appears, is not fundamentally different from that of a
