It’s that time of year again. Ulysses awakens from its slumber to be read out loud by millions of people around the world. Sometimes, they even get through the entire novel. Something by Joyce apropos of something: Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities…
It’s that time of the year again. Toast one or two or three for old Jimmy and Nora. Toast one or two or three for the streets of Dublin he saw with uncanny focus from Trieste. And toast one or two or three for Blind Homer, who inspired him and gave the world of fiction its great and everlasting journey. “As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to…
It’s that day again. Another year, another Guinness or two or three. I wonder sometimes what old Saint Patty would make of his holiday being used for fun and frivolity, and more than a little bit of liquid spirits. Did he drink in his monastery, or out and about in his walks across Ireland? Possibly so. He may have needed more than a little help, chasing away all of those snakes and demons. And it may have helped him explain…
Another year past, and we’re here again. June 16th. Bloomsday. The day to celebrate James Joyce’s book about a day in the life in 1904 that was kinda important to him. It points back in time to Homer, back in time to various modes of English, back in time to that day in 1904, and ahead in time for thousands of scholars who have labored to understand it and its myriad sources. Ulysses was meant to be read aloud, so…
One of my favorite novels of all time or any time is The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy. It’s the story of Sebastian Dangerfield and his wild days and ways in Dublin, taking classes at Trinity, whoring and drinking and pawning everything in sight to afford the drink and the whoring, avoiding his tenacious landlord and the authorities in general, in general putting the g in rogue and fighting all that is holy and stiflingly good. It’s easily…
It’s June 16th, 1904. James Joyce walks with Nora Barnacle, his future wife, out on their first date. They walk together in Dublin, Ireland. More specifically, to Ringsend. He would later immortalize this day in the book, Ulysses, perhaps the greatest novel in the English language. As he celebrated his first date by writing that book, we celebrate him every year on June 16th. In the novel, Molly Bloom is married to Leopold Bloom, the everyman of Ulysses. The Odysseus…
Some new works to peruse: Rick Diguette’s amusing display of evolutionary erudition, plus new Poetry from Tony Jones and Alessio Zanelli. Will be gearing up shortly for Bloom’s Day on the 16th, taking our readers as close as we can to Dublin, Ireland, without actually blogging from Dublin. James Joyce being one of the patron saints of this journal, whether he knows that or not . . . . As always, please feel free to comment on any or…