Molly Bloom's Soliloquy

from Ulysses

De: James Joyce

Narrado por: Marcella Riordan

Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, the remarkable climactic conclusion to Ulysses, remains, nearly a century after its first publication, one of the most remarkable chapters in world literature. It is night, the end of a long day (16 June 1904) for Leopold Bloom’s wife, Molly. She lies in bed, muses on the events of the day, her life with her husband, her affair with Blazes Boylan, and drifts towards sleep. Joyce tried to document a woman’s thoughts in an unexpurgated stream of consciousness: subjects, memories, fantasies interweave among the incomplete sentences.

Regarded as scandalous and brilliant in its intimacy, the soliloquy is captivating and engrossing, especially when read so convincingly by the Irish actress Marcella Riordan. For those who have found it difficult to get to the end of Ulysses, here, unabridged, is the soliloquy on its own - and curiously it works almost as an extended poem, with a rhythm and an intimate power that are unforgettable.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2012 Naxos AudioBooks

Seductive performance; Perfect complement to novel

Marcella Riordan's reading of Molly Bloom’s stream of consciousness is seductive and beautiful. For me, it was a revelation and insight into the female mind. Considering James Joyce, a male, wrote this, it's beyond my comprehension how he so accurately presents a woman's point of view and attention to detail to the world around her.

I knew little of what Ulysses was about prior to buying the unabridged John Lee narration; this specific audiobook is a portion of the final episode of the novel, and deserves a female voice to really bring it to life. Riordan's voice has that beautiful Irish inflection and accent; it's like she's both whispering in your ear and voicelessly placing her thoughts in your mind.

The sexual explicitness of Molly Bloom's thoughts and observations were really stunning; what an insight into the female mind.

This is a perfect complement to the full audiobook novel which are read by various male narrators.

stream of consciousness, rather a river

So, that's what little girls and grown ladies think n feel. My education is now complete.

Very poorly interpreted reading

Any additional comments?

I decided to give myself a year to tackle Ulysses properly and when I came to the last episode I bought this recording to help me.
After listening to it a couple of times I still found it somewhat confusing so I read along with it.
I found that a lot of the confusion was not with the writing but with the reading. To my annoyance, there are countless instances where the text was totally misinterpreted and misread. The reader clearly had no idea what certain parts of the book were about. I presume that the recording was proofed but whoever proofed it was also at fault.
This is one of the most iconic pieces of writing of all time and its lack of punctuation and writing style test the reader throughout. This recording does nothing to help and in fact adds to the difficulty.
I don’t recommend this recording and will continue reading from my paperback version.