… UD, as always, treats you to a series of posts about James Joyce and his novel, Ulysses.

Here’s something from an article in Thursday’s Guardian:

If you’re going to read any of Ulysses then it might as well be the racy bits at the end. And so it was with a fabulously rare first edition of the James Joyce novel which today sold for £275,000, the highest price recorded for a 20th-century first edition.

The astonishingly well-preserved and previously lost edition of the book, bought surreptitiously in a Manhattan bookshop despite it being banned in the US, was sold to a private buyer in London on the opening day of one of the world’s biggest antiquarian book fairs.

… The more salacious bits are in the last episode, where Molly Bloom’s long stream-of-consciousness soliloquy ends in her orgasmic “yes I said yes I will Yes”.

This first edition is unopened – apart from that last episode. The copy is number 45 of the first 100 and is printed on fine Dutch handmade paper.

The dealer who made the sale, Pom Harrington, said the book was one of only four copies of that first edition print run, all signed by Joyce, which had been unaccounted for. “In terms of collectability, Ulysses is considered to be the number one 20th-century book. This is such a find and it is in such fabulous, pristine condition.”

Throughout the 1920s the book was banned in the UK and the US and any import or sale involved a degree of subterfuge.

This copy was sold at the subversive Manhattan bookshop Sunwise Turn, an eclectic shop where patrons could also pick up Peruvian fabrics or the mystic teachings of Gurdjieff. It was bought by a Mrs Hewitt Morgan and then passed down the family, stored in its original box, unopened and away from the light.

“The colour is amazing – this lovely Aegean Sea, Greek flag blue which would normally have darkened into a more dirty blue but because it has been in a box it is a complete thing of beauty,” said Harrington….

Here’s a bit from the racy, salacious, orgasmic section. We’re inside the head of Molly Bloom, an attractive Irish woman in her thirties who’s in bed at night, lying beside her sleeping husband. She’s had rough sex a few hours earlier with one of her lovers, her singing partner — she’s a performer — Blazes Boylan, and she’s thinking back to that.

yes when I lit the lamp yes because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull it out and do it on me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure

Ulysses is notorious for its difficulty, but really, how – er – hard is this? No punctuation, true, but Joyce is capturing the endless stream of her half-asleep consciousness as she drifts off, so punctuation wouldn’t be realistic. As you read, though, ain’t it pretty clear where the periods, commas, and question marks go? Let’s paraphrase, with punctuation.

When I lit the lamp I was amazed to realize that he must have had three or four orgasms with me. What an enormous penis he has! Erect, it was so enormous I thought it would explode. Since I believe the size of men’s noses indicates the size of their penises, I’m surprised his nose is so small.

I’d gone to a lot of trouble to perfume and dress myself for him, but he just threw me down and did me.

And really – his penis was so hard and big. Like iron, like a crowbar. He must have eaten a dozen oysters — oyster being an aphrodisiac — to get that sexually aroused.

He sang during some of this. And he sang well.

But back to his penis. It was so big it totally filled me up. Afterwards, he must have eaten a whole sheep.

As for my anatomy: Why did God make women with a big hole in the middle of them? Men are so determined to get in there and drive it up in you – they’re like horses panting away. It’s quite bestial, not human at all, and the vicious look in his eyes as he was at it so disconcerted me that I half-shut mine.

Considering how big his penis is, he doesn’t produce that much come. Which is just as well, since I don’t want to get pregnant.

It’s quite annoying to me that men get all the pleasure.