In Bloom

I have been reminded that today is Bloomsday. I have also been informed by Danwei that James Joyce's Ulysses was translated into Chinese in 1994. Amazingly, it was a bestseller.

I read Ulysses in English during the second half of my Modernism class in grad school. It was rather difficult to understand then--and most of the class had an annotated version to help along. I don't think even if my Chinese was up to par that I would ever attempt this epic. I never really planned on reading it again in English.

I am curious as to how accurate the translation of Ulysses might be. How did they handle the absinthe trip through the brothel? I'm reminded of walking through Book City with Jia and coming across some books I didn't expect to be translated (original post). The translation of Kerouac's Desolation Angels may have been well done, but it still doesn't mean that people can understand it.

For anyone interested, Peking University has the Chinese version online.