Five Irish writers each take a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses and, through a close reading, explore its meaning and significance within the wider work, as well as what it means to them. Reading Ulysses is a famously challenging experience for most readers, so can our Essayists help?

In the second essay of the series, young Irish writer John Patrick McHugh selects the fourth episode of the novel: Calypso. In it we encounter the novel's main character: Leopold Bloom. John gives us a close reading of its opening which sees Mr Bloom make breakfast for his wife and feed his cat. John says it's a chapter that "smells both of melted butter and defecation" and explores Joyce's unique description of a cat's miaow. He tells us about feeling light-headed when he first encountered Ulysses and how his experience of the book has changed on re-reading it.

First broadcast in February 2022 to mark the centenary of the novel's publication.

Presenter: John Patrick McHugh