He began, the old 78 recording begins: “Mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by my learned friend.” And for just under four minutes—deliberately, solemnly, even with pride—James Joyce reads from Ulysses.1
It is a curious selection. Why not any of a hundred more likely and more welcome passages of comparable length? Why only this, a reconstruction by a minor character of a speech that someone named John F. Taylor gave in 1901 at a meeting of the Law Students’ Debating Society (Ellmann 91)?
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