BLOOM'S DAY 2022

Shortly after getting settled into my "cozy" digs on a mountain top in Germany, I was discovered reading a book, not usual for my fellow barrack's mates.  The discoverer was a recent engineering school graduate assigned to this "supposedly" top secret radar site. 

It was a temporary assignment, so I didn't have time to really get to know him well. Besides, he got to stay in the officers' billet and even got to sleep in a bed that was not a jumble of metal springs like mine.

But he would sit with me on my jingly bed and discuss literature.  He opened my mind to the Irish author, James Joyce and his works, especially "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." This is the story of Stephen Dedalus, a "sun-seeking" Hamlet type student and teacher. 

Here is Stephen's morning prayer: "Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience, and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."

He told me about two other works by Joyce that I hadn't heard of before.  "Dubliners" and "Ulysses."

I devoured "Dubliners" and "Portrait."  I wanted more, but "Ulysses" was banned in the United States.

It took me years to get a copy, from a U.S. book club no less, and I have read it and excerpts from it many times since. 

If you have read it, you will have noticed that each chapter is meant to remind you of each of Odysseus' adventures in "The Odyssey." 

Unforgettable characters in "Ulysses" and "Portrait" besides Stephen D. are:

Buck Mulligan

Molly Bloom

Leopold Bloom

Ulysses relates all of one day's adventures of Mr. Bloom as his settings and actions resemble Odysseus' adventures as he made his way through years of difficulties to once again be united with his faithful wife Penelope. (Bloom's wife was not quite that faithful.) The day was June 16, 1904.

Ulysses was published in 1922 and Ireland honored that centenary by holding a "Bloom's Day Celebration" from June 12th to June 18th (today) as follows:

The Irish government distributed 3,500 copies of Ulysses, Dubliners, and Portrait, in several languages, to be presented to citizens who interact with Ireland around the world. 

Dublin "hyped" some of the novel's locations, such as:

The Martello Tower rooms where Stephen and Buck Milligan lived.

Sandymount Strand, where Leopold did something that got the book banned in the U.S.

Princes Street

Barney Kiernan's Pub

By the way, a soliloquy by Molly Bloom was something never attempted before. We learned, through "stream of consciousness" her inmost thoughts and feelings.  It is eye-opening.  How did Joyce know what to write about this middle-aged soprano and her emotions?

Finally, here are a couple more of Stephen's quotes:

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to escape."

"I fear those big words that make us so unhappy."

Heavy stuff, mes amis. 

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