Kevin's Watch

Yes, Yes, I know its TOMORROW! But I thought I'd create a thread. Anyone else celebrate it. I love Bloomsday. The past few years I go to Toronto during the day and make an appearance at the festival. There are usually some readings, and then people go out and eat some "grilled mutton kidneys, extra bloody." Haha, its gross as h*ll but I LOVE IT!

Oh I'm excited for tomorrow, I have my copy of Ulysses with me, have my favorite passages highlighted and read to be recited. They have a public forum where people can go on stage and read their favorite passages outloud. Wahoo! Happy Bloomsday to All. Yes, its tomorrow but I am starting the celebration today!

I anticpate some shaking of heads and lack of enthusiasm on this holiday. I know that I'm probably in the minority of loving and enjoying every bit of James Joyces epic work Ulysses. It's something you either really love or you never know about and just don't care to understand.

My passion of this book came out of the fact that there is so much history attached to it. The book was temporarily banned at one point all across Europe and the States for being "dirty, blasphemous and unreadable."

I will admit it is a difficult book to get through. 700+ pages and it encompasses one single day in the life of 4 or 5 major characters. But I love all the intracicies that are apart of the book and its mystique. Each chapter represents a part of the body symbolically, eahc chapter is one hour of the day, each chapter parallels the 18 episodic chapters of Homer's Oddeyseus. There are puns and logic puzzles that are just thrown into the story, references from the Bible to the Bhagvat Gita.

I just love the fact that its celebrated around the world by fans galore, an entire day devoted to a man and his literature. It's become this huge event, larger than life, where people in Dublin will walk around dressed like Joyce and randomly stop and read out passages. People will eat meals that were cited in the story. It's just a fun thing if you're a literature nerd like myself.

I attended the 100 Year Centenial last year in Toronto and that was a blast, this year I'll go again for 101. Cheers though.

Well, with a review like that I'm going to check this book out.
Sounds interesting.
Thanks!

Be forewarned as a first time reader that it is very difficult to get going. It is slow and sluggish at times, but you have to work at it. It took me about 2 tries to really get past chapter 3. The first chapter is difficult, and so is the second but when you get to Leopold Bloom, a hero of the story, thats when it gets good and you really start to enjoy the book.

It's a fun book to puzzle over for years, and its taken me years to appreciate how beautiful this book is and the legacy this man has left behind. I suggest if you can find it, get a companion book guide to help you read Ulysses. I mean the regular penguin edition that is sold in most stores has an introduction that is 74 pages, and evne that is harsh at times. There are annotated editions as well as guides that go chapter by chapter breakodwn for your reading pleasure, cheers and enjoy. Glad I can share the wealth and influence another Joycean Fan, cheers.



Here is some advice on reading Ulysses for the first time:

I think the ordinary person, non-academic phd, etc, is intimidated by the sheer amount of material that people have seen fit to print about it, and they get the impression then that you must understand all these books that other people read before you can even approach ‘Ulysses.

There are sections of the book which are incredibly funny, very moving, very accessible and I regularly recommend people to skip bits… On one level, ‘Ulysses’ is accessible all the way through. What gets interesting is that when you’ve read most of it once, then you get the rest of it. And then you can start seeing the different levels and layers."

Forget the critical texts, Robert Nicholson adds. Look at a single chapter in detail, establish the modus operandi and develop a sense of the task ahead. "You don’t take it at a sprint, you take it as a long distance run and pace yourself accordingly."

You know what?
I'm "inbetween books" at the moment so I'll pick this one up this weekend.

Lets see if my going in "blind" with no preconceived ideas about it makes a difference.

I'll let you know.

(though sometimes it takes me a month or so to actually act on my ideas ) )

Yay, Fiz, thanks for reminding us about Bloomsday!

Ulysses is a wonderful book. I found it easier to understand when I read it using some commentary books. The first one I used, which explained a lot of the references and jokes, is James Joyce's Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert.
Ulysses Annotated by Gifford, which I discovered relatively recently, also provides some useful background information.

The book which precedes Ulysses chronologically is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I loved this book, also, and it provides background to the events which occur on "Bloomsday" as recounted in Ulysses.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY!!

Joyce was an egomaniacal madman. No wonder I love his books.

--A