Book Club - Bloomsday

 


Released fully in 1922, James Joyce's Ulysses takes place in a single day - June 16, 1904.

It is considered one of the greatest and most influential books in the English language, and it is especially celebrated in Dublin.

I have a cousin Molly Bloom, her mother's a big fan, and a few years ago they were in Ireland for this day.  They attended a reading and had lunch at the Davy Byrnes pub.

In the book, Leopold Bloom has a Gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy there.

Ulysses has been on banned lists for being "obscene."  In fact, there was a trial in the United States when a literary magazine, The Little Review, published a chapter in April 1920.  The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice filed charges against the editors under the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it illegal to send obscene materials through the US Mail.

The episode did include Leopold masturbating on the beach.  Sexual inner monologues are throughout the book, as well as descriptions of natural bodily processes.  All very taboo for the time.

The ban was lifted in 1933.

Joyce also wrote Finnegan's Wake, a collection of short stories called Dubliners, some books of poetry, and a play titled Exiles.  

He was a pioneer of the stream-of-consciousness technique, immersing readers directly into his character's minds.


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