Ulysses: A Novel for Geologists

James Joyce's "Ulysses," which I'm re-reading this month, has lately struck me as a fine book for geologists. Just as the best geologist is the one who has seen the most rocks, the best reader of "Ulysses" is the one who has read it the most times. When Stephen Dedalus mused on the beach, "These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here," he spoke the geologist's central insight. Joyce's great task, unhiding the full range of human experience and history in one day's sample of Dublin life, is an analog of the geologist's great task of uncovering the nature and behavior of our planet in the tiny fraction we are allowed to see. Just as in "Ulysses" the present is a vista to a deep and intricate past, illuminated by timeless truths of human nature and human spirit, so does the Earth's surface testify to a geologic history with no trace of a beginning, no prospect of an end—an effective eternity of great geophysical cycles.

I can also testify that "Ulysses" is a great read in the field, whether as a nightcap after an exhausting day or as a way to pass a stretch of bad weather. The detection of clues and correspondences, the key to enjoying the book, is the same activity as fieldwork. Pound for pound, "Ulysses" may be the geologist's best entertainment value.