Study the history of literature, and you end up with a lot of dates floating in your head -- author's birthdays, publication dates, theatrical premieres, perhaps the years of significant literary periods. However, one annual celebration is remembered more for fiction than history: June 16, 1904 -- "Bloomsday" -- was created by James Joyce in his 1922 novel,
Ulysses.
On that dreamed-up day, Joyce's marvelously mundane Leopold Bloom, wanders Dublin's streets. Joyce once said, "I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book." Yet his novel is more than a mere recollection.
Inspired by the legendary tales of a wandering Greek hero, Joyce ironically and inventively conjured a man of common appetites and uncommon insights who traveled and relished Dublin's teeming streets. Each chapter parallels a section of Homer's ancient classic, The Odyssey, and each has its own remarkable and unique literary style.
Reading the novel is the best way to celebrate Bloomsday, and many cities today have celebrations. Since it's 2004, it's time to mark Bloomsday's "centennial," and writer Nola Tully recently edited yes I said yes I will Yes (the passionate words of Bloom's wife, Molly, at the end of the day), a "celebration of James Joyce, Ulysses and 100 Years of Blooms-day," published by Vintage Books.
Tully's slim volume (only about 100 pages, considerably less than Joyce's lengthy novel) offers lots of insights -- amusing and historical -- into Joyce and celebrations of his work, deemed very controversial in it's day. His writing is challenging (who once said, "The only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works"), but the wordplay and wit are especially celebrated every June 16.
Pick up a copy of Tully's book -- or stop by your local library and check out Joyce's original -- and indulge in some literary wonder. It's a date to remember.
BLOOMSDAY is celebrated locally on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Jack Quinn's Irish Ale House & Pub (112 E. Fourth St., Covington). Call for reservations.
