Journalists usually wait until December to write their end-of-year reviews. They needn’t bother this time around. Even if the next six months prove blissfully uneventful, 2026 will be remembered as a tumultuous one for the world. Frustrated by domestic divisions and global disorder, surveys suggest people’s faith in politics is rapidly receding.

Those looking for a way through this turmoil could do worse than dive into James Joyce’s Ulysses. Few other works of modern literature provide greater sustenance in times of political strife. Although Joyce didn’t trade in false hope, he reminds us that political optimism, even if it appears foolish, is never wasted. Unless we believe that things can change for the better, they rarely will.

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, Joyce’s novel tells the story of Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged Dubliner who struggles to find his way in a stagnant society. Set on a single day – June 16th, 1904 – 18 years before the establishment of the Irish Free State, Ulysses depicts a country in which progressives are mired in past defeats while imperial power is visibly decaying.

The lord lieutenant, the British monarch’s representative in Ireland, circles the city in an ornate carriage, but locals neither know nor care who the viceroy is. Bar-stool nationalists dream of a “new Ireland”, but are still mourning the death of Charles Stewart Parnell after 13 years. An advertising man who once dabbled in politics, Bloom is no Homeric hero. Yet his political optimism permeates the book.

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