Melting Pot Modernism by Sarah Wilson (review)
valorizations of the world in an archaic Ireland of prosperity, plenty, chivalry, [and] hospitality" (133). These "wishful visions" stand in implicit contrast to the harsh anti-Semitism of the burgeoning rumor about Bloom that develops in the episode in part because "the parodic interpolations are written, not heard, and—unlike the [narrator's] story—will never circulate in the knowledge-world of the fictional citizens of Ulysses or redeem the victim of the narration of 'Cyclops'" (134). This observation is perhaps Norris's most compelling claim, one she returns to in many of her readings. Ulysses's formal experimentation, she suggests, does not provide any relief from the ethical dilemmas of the narrative but instead seems to implicate the reader even further. Tracing the path of a hypothetical virgin reader through Ulysses, Norris reminds us of the importance of the experience of reading modernist fiction as fiction. Norris's virgin reader approaches Ulysses as if it were any other novel, asking basic questions like, "who is the narrator here?" and "when did that happen?" In doing so, she reminds us of the ways in which our virgin responses still inform our veteran readings. As modernist studies continues to rediscover forgotten, ignored, and undervalued texts, Norris's argument about one of modernism's least ignored novels will be a significant contribution to a developing discussion about the importance of the unfamiliar in reading modernist fiction. Indeed, the lasting legacy of Virgin and Veteran Reading of Ulysses may be the reminder that modernist texts never really lose this aura of narrative unfamiliarity, even as they accumulate libraries of annotations.