James Joyce's Dublin
Barbara Jefford as Molly Bloom in Joseph Strick's 1967 production of Ulysses
Ulysses, by James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was first published in its entirety in 1922, in Paris.
Today it is one of the most lauded books in the literary canon, a work against which all other literature, from Tolstoy to Cervantes, is measured.
A 1949 illustration for Ulyssses by Richard Hamilton
Bloomsday, named after the hero of Ulysses, marks the day in 1904 when Leopold Bloom went walking through Dublin.
It's celebrated annually in Dublin as an occasion rather than a festival; Bloomsday has no ‘official’ programme or organising committee. Events are arranged by different bodies and occur at venues in and around the city. Expect to take a dip in "scrotumtightening" waters, eat "with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls", or just wander about in straw boater, handlebar moustache and insouciant air. Visit the locations of the book, take part in readings, walks, re-enactments and convivial activities of all sorts which in some way connect with Ulysses, its author and his world.
The James Joyce Centre hosts Bloomsday breakfasts and related events in the run up to June 16 as well as on the day itself.
For a full programme of events go to www.jamesjoyce.ie
A guide to Ulysses
Storyline
'Stout' Buck Mulligan illustration 1949, by Richard Hamilton © Estate of Richard Hamilton
Although Ulysses is pleasingly devoid of a plot in the accepted sense of the word, the basic story focuses on Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus who wander round Dublin on June 16, 1904, capturing a day in the life of Dublin’s more marginalised citizens.
Style
Bewilderingly comprehensive. The book segues through parody, puns, allusions, fantasy, realism.
But its main contribution to literature is stream of consciousness.
examples at randon:
‘jejune jesuits’
‘snotgreen sea’
‘scrotumtightening sea’
There’s even an occasional, oddly knockabout joke:
“When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water … Begob, ma'am, says Mrs. Cahill, God send you don't make them in the one pot.”
Protagonists
(1) Leopold Bloom: the hero, a Jewish salesman
“Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely he mutely craved to adore.” (i.e., Bloom fancies lunch)
He is introduced to the reader as something of a trencherman: “Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked their giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crust crumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of scented urine.”
'Going to a dark bed' — illustration by Richard Hamilton 1949 by Richard Hamilton © Estate of Richard Hamilton
“Going to a dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc's auk's egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the Brightdayler.”
(2) Molly Bloom: Leopold’s wife
Molly is is the main mover in the marriage. She is also what might have been called 'vivacious' back then: she waits for Leopold to finish dining so she can entertain her lover.
(3) Stephen Dedalus: the anti-hero
He shares a disused watchtower in Sandycove, South Dublin with “stately, plump Buck Mulligan”.
The meeting of hero and anti-hero
Continuing the culinary theme, Leopold dines on a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy at Davy Byrne’s pub, before meeting Dedalus in a maternity hospital — obliquely symbolising the birth of the English language. Straightforward stuff.
Why Leopold Bloom, a Jewish gentlemen, as hero?
It seems that in the Bailey pub in 1904 after a night’s drinking and carousing, Joyce approached a young woman, thinking she was alone. His misapprehension was corrected by a swift punch from her companion. Fate at this point produced a Jewish bystander who, it is said, in the simple act of offering the bespectacled writer a handkerchief to wipe the blood off his nose, wrote himself into immortality as Leopold Bloom.
Bloomsday — acting out Hades in Glasnevin Cemetery
——And it’s as good as people say?
Certainly is — try this:
“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
Or this:
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
and undoubtedly this:
". . .S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth College Refectory, Curley's Hole, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave—all these scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow that have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time."
"—Shove us over the drink, says I. Which is which?"
—— Molly's finest hour?
She has the last word (or several) in probably the best known outro of any book in the English language:
“I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
In Horne's House — illustration 1949, by Richard Hamilton © Estate of Richard Hamilton
——Time required for reading of Ulysses?
At just shy of 265,000 words (and some of them very long), the best part of a week if you don’t do anything else.
265,000 words. Wow. Anything Joyce probably wouldn’t have said?
“What I always strive for is clarity.”
——Would a knowledge of Dublin be helpful?
A Molly Blooming yes to that one. Plus a smattering of Greek and Latin might be handy, as well as a familiarity with a whole raft of literature from Homer to Shakespeare, and from Dante to Carlyle.
——Verdict on Ulysses:
Virginia Woolf said, “Never have I read such tosh....the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.” Joyce’s wife Nora was not an admirer either. “Why don’t you write books people can read?” she said. On the other hand T.S. Eliot and Arnold Bennett both considered it a work of genius, as indeed does Stephen Fry: “Ignore all childish, fear-filled criticism; Ulysses will be read when everything you see and touch around you has crumbled into dust.”
More Joyce
Dublin has many places dedicated wholly, or in part, to the writer
Dublin Writers’ Museum
18 North Parnell Square, Dublin 1
01 872 2077
James Joyce (Image: C. Ruf, Zurich)
"Someone just bought me a pint because of a poem I wrote. Pretty sure this puts me in the top one percent of poets in terms of earnings." John Moynes (poet)
For further formal appreciation of Ireland’s conveyor belt of literary talent, head for the Writers’ Museum on North Parnell Square.
Manuscripts and memorabilia from Joyce, as well as Goldsmith, Stoker and Swift, plus Ireland’s four Nobel Literary prize-winners – Yeats, Shaw, Beckett and Seamus Heaney are all neatly filed there.
Ireland’s two British poet laureates also make an appearance, namely Cecil Day Lewis (father of Daniel), and Dublin man Nahum Tate, whose biggest hit While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night first made an appearance in the 17th century.
He might also be commended for rewriting King Lear with a happy ending. In all fairness the Bard's original is a tad bleak.
James Joyce Centre
35 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1
01 878 854
It’s not clear if the cafe in the Centre will be able to rustle up the “inner organs of beasts and fowls . . .. . grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of scented urine” but you could give it a try.
The centre, located in a restored Georgian townhouse, will definitely give you the lowdown on the writer — including facts such as
— He helped found Ireland's first cinema, the Volta
— He was once rejected by publishers Mills and Boon.
— Sean O’Casey wasn't snubbing Queen Elizabeth when he declined the offer of a CBE. It was in honour of Joyce; O'Casey also opposed, more than once, a nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature, always on the grounds that as Joyce had never been thus recognised, he, O'Casey, could never accept such recogntion. O’Casey, to his everlasting credit, spoke up for Joyce at every opportunity
Palace Bar — one of Dublin's great literary pubs
Dublin Literary Pub Crawl
starts Duke Pub, 9 Duke Street, Dublin 2
01 670 5602 / 01 87 263 0270
In this city of over-achievers in the literary field several museums are dedicated to writing; the ghosts of Joyce, Shaw, Wilde, O'Casey, Beckett and Goldsmith haunt every time-darkened pub.
The Literary Pub Crawl revisits much of Joyce’s day out in 1904, as well as focusing on the inspiration for some of the gems of the English language.
In Davy Byrne’s, the Duke or the Bailey you’ll be told about Joyce, Brendan Behan, the philosophy of Flann O’Brien, ‘a pint of plain is your only man’, and of course several Oscar-winning lines. Oscar O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, born in Dublin, was educated in Trinity College.
Appropriately enough the Literary Walk begins at George Bernard Shaw’s birthplace in Synge Street, named after JM Synge, author of The Playboy of the Western World. If you don’t go too far along the street, in fact a bridge too far, you’ll come to the birthplace of Cornelius Ryan. He wrote the books from which the films, yes, A Bridge Too Far as well as The Longest Day and The Last Battle were adapted.