Amazon.com, a website I make some effort to avoid, has the most incredible feature. In some ways, it's a postmodern, computer-generated book review and synopsis. In another sense, it's chaos theory composing refrigerator magnet poetry. All in all, it's the most startling, apt, and incisive list of words that come in alphabetical order. Ladies and gentlemen: "concordance."

I will only briefly explain the concept before allowing the constructions to display their own majesty. "Concordance" is defined by Microsoft Word as "n. 1. similarity or agreement between two or more things 2) an index of words, for example, of all the words contained in a single work, or in the combined works of an author, or in any body or bank of text, arranged in alphabetical order." One draws the conclusion: of course. Concordance, it would seem, is the bottom principle of both physics and metaphysics; do not forget to mention that it is also arbitrary and neurotic.

A more lucid definition might also explain that a concordance is not meant to signify meaning—it's a statistical measure, a piece of neutral data. Yet the strangely human relevance a concordance bears to its host text is undeniable, once viewed. As James Marcus once said of Ulysses, "is also compulsively readable... as long as you’re willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed." His advice could not hold more true. I present for you now:

again    always    arms    asked    away    behind    bit    black    bloom     call    came     come     course     day     dedalus     door     down     ever     eyes     face     father     fellow     first     get     girl     give     go     god     going     good     got     hand     hat     head     heart     high     himself     house     joe     john     know     last     left     let     life     little     long     look     lord     love     man     men     might     mother     mr     mulligan     must     name     new     night     now     old     own     place     poor     put     right     round     saw     say     see     sir     something     stephen     still     street     take     tell     thing     think     though     thought     three     time     told     took     two     voice     want     water     went     white     wife     without     woman     words     world     years     yes     young

And the imposing, nuclear-white ending—a list of barely plausible finitude! The circularity of this concordance, embodied by the explosive "again"s and "yes"es, evokes not only Joyce's habitual, almost compulsive circularity, but a particular passage that in many ways has come to define the apocalyptic hilarity of Joyce's later and more important writing:

     (1st page, at the book's reemerging terminus)