James Joyce in Zurich

James Joyce’s close relationship with Zurich – so the story goes – began with a misunderstanding. In 1904, the 22-year-old set off in self-imposed exile, his future wife Nora Barnacle at his side, to take a position as an English teacher in Zurich. Shortly after their arrival, though, it became clear that the teaching position didn’t exist. The family landed in Triest for the next few years, until the political situation there worsened: their British passports marked them as «enemy foreigners», and they departed in 1915. The intervening years had seen the birth of their two sons, as well as the start of the first World War. Back in Zurich, Joyce met supporters and kindred spirits, such as British author Harriet Shaw Weaver, who would go on to become his patron. She gave him the space he would need to concentrate on writing.

Zurich is proud of its shared history with Joyce; it was here, in the city on the Limmat, that he wrote a considerable portion of «Ulysses». The novel is Joyce’s opus magnum and has long since gone down in literary history as the modern novel par excellence. Today, you can stare in reverence at the façade of Universitätsstrasse 38 – that’s the address in Zurich where Joyce worked on his novel in the time between January and October 1918. «Ulysses» was published exactly 100 years ago in Paris, shortly after the self-imposed deadline Joyce gave himself to complete his novel (it was his 40th birthday).

A modern Odyssey

«Ulysses» updates Odysseus’ epic journey from its world of ancient mythology to that of 20th century Dublin – and does it in roughly 1000 pages. It’s a picture of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, an advertising agent, who make his home in the Irish capital. The reader accompanies Bloom on 16 June 1904 (in actuality, the date the author met his wife) as he moves through the day, from having his morning breakfast onward through to a nighttime visit to a brothel. Today, fans celebrate Bloomsday every 16 June.

The story’s structure is based on Homer’s telling of the Odyssey: 18 episodes strung together in a sometimes-dizzying ramble through Dublin. Each episode is stylistically different from the one before it, and we glean the figures’ unfiltered thoughts. As such, a reading of it is often described as going on a stroll through the book.

Many enthusiastic readers are overwhelmed by the abundance of thoughts, fantasies, and associations, but each Ulysses year offers plenty of opportunities to sidle up to Bloom’s errors and missteps …

The anniversary exhibit in Strauhof offers a very special stroll through the complex work: with the help of some 100 objects, the 18 chapters – and their origins – are made tangible.

Truth, fiction, past, and present are closer than one might think – and if you’re looking for a soft landing somewhere in Leopold Bloom’s world, there’s no better place to begin than this readers’ group, hosted by Fritz Senn, the director and founder of the Zurich James Joyce Stiftung. Those who dare to take on the challenge will be rewarded with a masterpiece of modernity.

Als Joyce während des 1. Weltkriegs in Zürich an «Ulysses» schrieb, machten hier die Dadaist:innen Furore, die das Cabaret Voltaire bespielten und die Zürcher Bourgeoisie aufschreckten. Joyce war zwar kein Dadaist, war nie Anhänger von -Ismen, obschin man voneinander wusste. Er hielt sich davon fern, indem er gleich alle umfasste – und so blieben auch die Wort­revoluzzer von der Spiegel­gasse nicht ohne Wirkung auf «Ulysses»: In Joyces fröhlicher Vielfalt hat Dada ein deutliches Echo. Die eine Seite seines Humors hat eine Zürcher Note.

Viennese illustrator and artist Nicolas Mahler reimagined Joyce’s sprawling «Ulysses» universe in his own minimalistic style of comic in 2020. The plot was starkly reduced, and in place of Dublin, his «Ulysses» is set in Vienna. Instead of Bloom, we get «Wurmb». But somehow, Mahler still hews closely to Joyce’s novel: His technique of cutting, editing, and mounting the original like film footage is in keeping with Joyce’s aesthetic process.

The interior of the bar at the stylish James Joyce pub is from the bar at the Jury's Hotel in Dame Street, in Dublin’s old town. The Jury’s Hotel was torn down in the 1970s as it made way for a new build, and the Victorian interior from the Jury's Antique Bar was brought to Zurich in 1978. Long before Joyce knew what was going to eventually happen to the bar, it appeared in its original location in «Ulysses». Bloom is making his way to a funeral, and his thoughts wander touch upon a fellow mourner’s mistress: «What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury's…?»
To the pub’s website​​​​​​​