“Hades” is the underworld episode of Ulysses, the one that takes us with Bloom to Paddy Dignam’s funeral. It raises ghosts from Bloom’s past, including his father (dead by his own hand) and his son (dead at 11 days, 11 years ago). It’s not all gloom, though; Joyce intersperses humour in some unlikely places and links the Odyssean journey to the underworld with issues of anti-Semitism, colonialism, and venality all while letting us follow Bloom’s often-startling thoughts. First timers: watch for the sleek fat rat and its overt parallels with both Stephen’s vision of his corpse-chewing mother’s ghost and the dogs on the beach in “Proteus” and still to come in “Nausicaa.”

Read “Hades” now.