The Meaning of Ulysses

"The meaning of Ulysses, for it has a meaning and is not a mere photographic "slice of life"--far from it--is not to be sought in any analysis of the acts of the protagonist or the mental make-up of the characters; it is, rather, implicit in the technique of the various episodes, in nuances of language, in the thousand and one correspondences and allusions with which the book is studded...Ulysses achieves a coherent and integral interpretation of life, a static beauty according to the definition of Aquinas (as abridged by Joyce): ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur: integras, consonantia, claritas."

--Stuart Gilbert, James Joyce's Ulysses, 8-9.

Which is to say, it means in Qur'anic fashion.