Ulysses outside of Dublin

June 8, 2020 7:25 PM

Hi, AskMe. :) I've recently rediscovered my liking for Ulysses, and wanted to find out what else is in a similar… Style isn't quite the word, but I'll use it anyway. Many details below the fold.

I really like Ulysses because it feels like I live in 1904 Dublin. There's so much detail on even the tiniest things, and it's easy to just kind of wander around the book and pick a few places at random because there's so much in it.

I don't need stream of consciousness, necessarily, but am more looking for the same sense of verisimilitude. Obviously non-fiction might scratch that itch in the sense that it's by definition true, but…

I'm not really sure how to express what I'm looking for other than more books which can transport me to a place and let me kind of wander around in it. Plot is secondary, though characters who are relatable, like Bloom and Stephen, would be wonderful.

Any recommendations along similar lines would be appreciated :)

posted by Alensin to Writing & Language (13 answers total)

Hopefully not misunderstanding your question but have you checked out Joyce’s other works? Especially Portrait of the artist...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 7:34 PM on June 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I haven't read Portrait but should really do so. :)
posted by Alensin at 7:57 PM on June 8, 2020

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy has a very strong sense of the material culture of the day.
posted by praemunire at 7:57 PM on June 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

Came here to recommend Wolf Hall.
Praemunire beat me to it.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 8:31 PM on June 8, 2020

All of Mantel's historical fiction. Wolf Hall and sequels are a small part of her oeuvre.
posted by sid at 8:38 PM on June 8, 2020

Also, I had to stop reading it when I hit the Black Death section, but Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Kept Them might work for you.
posted by praemunire at 8:51 PM on June 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

I haven't read much (any?) but I seem to remember a professor characterizing Flaubert as being high on the detail of place and setting.
posted by pykrete jungle at 1:07 AM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don’t normally casually suggest that people read Proust — I’m pretty sure I no longer have the attention span for Proust myself, these days — but he was certainly a man who obsessed about the details of time and place.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 1:25 AM on June 9, 2020

Two widely praised 20th century modernist novels both offering rich portraits of the cities they take place in are Carlos Fuentes' Where the Air is Clear (La región mas tránsparente) -- about Mexico City -- and Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz -- about Berlin.

(For the latter, be sure to take into account the remarks about available translations in the wikipedia article linked to.)

Another classic, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita does not center so fully on the Moscow of the 30's that is its scene, but I got a very fresh sense of that city from reading it, so it might work for you, too.
posted by bertran at 2:03 AM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
posted by mani at 3:54 AM on June 9, 2020

I suggest Les Miserables for the richness and detail - and since Ulysses is one of my brain's favourite places to go back to, I think I must suggest its others as well - Infinite Jest and A Suitable Boy.
posted by london explorer girl at 4:19 AM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Does it have to be a real place? Invisible Cities might do what you want, especially the “pick a random page and wander” aspect.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:30 AM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ooh, Pachinko.
posted by caoimhe at 7:42 AM on June 9, 2020