June 16, 2006
 
PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Calling All English Majors: Today is Bloomsday!
 
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 

James Joyce

Hinton, WV (HNN) – For literature aficionados, today – June 16 – is the big Irish holiday. Much bigger by far than March 17, St. Patrick’s Day.
 
It’s Bloomsday, celebrated in Ireland, the U.S. and just about everywhere to honor Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941) and commemorate the events of his 1922 novel “Ulysses,” all of which take place in Dublin on June 16, 1904.
 
Bloomsday is named after the protagonist of the novel, advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, whose wanderings about the Irish capital city are meant to mirror the travels of Ulysses in Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey.” Joyce apparently picked the day because June 16 marks the first date he had with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the village of Ringsend on June 16, 1904.
 
A recent movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” may be a more familiar take on the Ulysses/Odyssey story to members of this post-literate generation. The 2000 Coen Brothers flick is an excellent introduction to the Odyssey.
 
According to Wikipedia: “The event is commemorated with a range of cultural activities including academic conferences, Ulysses readings and dramatisations, pub crawls and general merriment. Enthusiasts may often dress in Edwardian costume to celebrate the Bloomsday. The first celebration took place in 1954 and a major five-month-long festival (ReJoyce Dublin 2004) took place in Dublin between April 1 and August 31, 2004. On the Sunday prior to the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday in 2004, 10,000 people in Dublin were treated to a free open air breakfast on O'Connell Street consisting of sausages, rashers, and black and white puddings.”
 
Anticipating the Fox TV series “24” by 80 years, “Ulysses” consists of 18 chapters, each covering roughly one hour of the day, beginning around about 8 a.m. and ending sometime after 2 a.m. the following morning. Wikipedia: “Each of the 18 chapters of the novel employs its own literary style. Each chapter also refers to a specific episode in Homer's Odyssey and has a specific colour, art or science and bodily organ associated with it. This combination of kaleidoscopic writing with an extreme formal, schematic structure represents one of the book's major contributions to the development of 20th century modernist literature.”
 
On this day, I’d rather be in Phildelphia, as native son W.C. Fields once said: The Rosenbach Museum & Library, in Philadelphia is the home of the handwritten manuscript of Ulysses and celebrates Bloomsday with a street festival including readings, Irish music, and traditional Irish food provided by local Irish-themed pubs.
 
So get out your copy of “Ulysses” and start reading: “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan….Come on up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful Jesuit.” Now you see why I like it: Kinch is one of my old nicknames!
 
Here is a good site devoted to Joyce on the Web:
 
http://www.themodernword.com/joyce