Leopold Bloom navigates a single day in Dublin, mirroring the structure of Homer's Odyssey through a series of mundane and profound encounters. The protagonist, a middle-aged advertising canvasser, moves through the city while his wife, Molly, engages in an affair and Stephen Dedalus grapples with his own intellectual and spiritual crises. The narrative employs a non-linear, stream-of-consciousness framework that shifts perspective between characters, capturing the internal monologue of the human mind. These characters face the constraints of social expectations, personal grief, and the physical geography of early 20th-century Ireland.

Readers and critics frequently highlight the density of the prose and the complexity of the narrative structure as defining features of the work. Discussion often centers on the effectiveness of the stream-of-consciousness technique in portraying the interior lives of the characters. Many observers note that the book requires significant patience due to its experimental style and frequent allusions to classical literature. The balance between the mundane activities of the characters and the grand scale of the thematic exploration remains a primary focus for scholars. Readers often emphasize that the atmosphere of Dublin serves as a character in its own right, grounding the abstract stylistic choices in a tangible setting.