The Most Dangerous Book

The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses

De: Kevin Birmingham

Narrado por: John Keating

"A great story--how modernism brought down the regime of censorship--told as a great story. Kevin Birmingham's imaginative scholarship brings Joyce and his world to life. There is a fresh detail on nearly every page."--Louis Menand, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Metaphysical Club

For more than a decade, the book that literary critics now consider the most important novel in the English language was illegal to own, sell, advertise or purchase in most of the English-speaking world. James Joyce’s big blue book, Ulysses, ushered in the modernist era and changed the novel for all time. But the genius of Ulysses was also its danger: it omitted absolutely nothing. All of the minutiae of Leopold Bloom’s day, including its unspeakable details, unfold with careful precision in its pages. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice immediately banned the novel as “obscene, lewd, and lascivious.” Joyce, along with some of the most important publishers and writers of his era, had to fight for years to win the freedom to publish it. The Most Dangerous Book tells the remarkable story surrounding Ulysses, from the first stirrings of Joyce’s inspiration in 1904 to its landmark federal obscenity trial in 1933.

Literary historian Kevin Birmingham follows Joyce’s years as a young writer, his feverish work on his literary masterpiece, and his ardent love affair with Nora Barnacle, the model for Molly Bloom. Joyce and Nora socialized with literary greats like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Beach. Their support helped Joyce fight an array of anti-vice crusaders while his book was disguised and smuggled, pirated and burned in the United States and Britain. The long struggle for publication added to the growing pressures of Joyce’s deteriorating eyesight, finances and home life.

Salvation finally came from the partnership of Bennett Cerf, the cofounder of Random House, and Morris Ernst, a dogged civil liberties lawyer. With their stewardship, the case ultimately rested on the literary merit of Joyce’s master work. The sixty-year-old judicial practices governing obscenity in the United States were overturned because a federal judge could get inside Molly Bloom’s head.

Birmingham’s archival work brings to light new information about both Joyce and the story surrounding Ulysses. Written for ardent Joyceans as well as novices who want to get to the heart of the greatest novel of the twentieth century, The Most Dangerous Book is a gripping examination of how the world came to say yes to Ulysses.

I now understand the origins of Modernism.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Incredibly researched, wonderful passages, terrific reading.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Most Dangerous Book?

The irony of learning that it was the pirated copy that was first legalized in the United States.

Which character – as performed by John Keating – was your favorite?

NA

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were a great many. I was particularly moved by Joyce's persistence-- and by the a-ha moment of understanding his focus on form.

Best prelude to Ulysses

So glad I read this book before attempting Ulysses. Not only do I appreciate what it took to write the masterpiece, it gave me a context to help get me through the whole work without being defeated as I might otherwise have been.

Fascinating combination of literature and history

You cannot fully appreciate Ulysses without first understanding the times in which it was written and published. The Most Dangerous Book does both extremely well. I have a much deeper understanding of the immense task it was to bring Ulysses to the world and the impact it had on all of us to this day. A great read.

Absolutely fantastic!

A wow! This is a must read book. Will this ever not be topical? I hope so, but that time is not now. The history around this novel is fascinating and worth the retell every few years, it's quite fresh.

a great book about a great book

What did you like best about this story?

this is about james joyce's struggle against censorship, being alone against a lot of troubles and enemies. he was in exile abroad, had few friends an no money at all most of the time. and the remarkable thing is: he did not give in. otherwise ulysses would never have seen the light of day.