You wait a century for a recording of every word of Ulysses and then 54 CDs of James Joyce’s masterpiece come along at once.
Rival versions — one on 22 CDs, the other on 32 — of the complete text are launched this month to mark the centenary of the book acknowledged as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century but also as one of the most started and least finished.
A day isn’t long enough for either CD set. The Naxos audiobooks version, read by two actors, runs for about 27 hours. The version by RTE, Irish state radio, which was originally recorded more than 20 years ago to mark the centenary of Joyce’s birth using half the actors in Ireland, lasts for more than 30 hours.
Nicholas Soames, the founder-publisher at Naxos audiobooks, and Anne Marie O’Callaghan, the producer for RTE’s version, discovered only a few months ago that they would be rivals.
Soames said: ”There are things you do to make money, and things you do to ensure your place in heaven. My hope is that when I arrive at the gate I’ll say ‘I got every word of Ulysses on to CD’ and they’ll wave me straight in.”
Bloomsday, on June 16, will be celebrated all over the world: in Dublin it will be the hungover highlight of a five-month celebration. — Â