{"id":245,"date":"2008-06-16T13:40:27","date_gmt":"2008-06-16T12:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/16\/happy-bloomsday-2008\/"},"modified":"2008-06-20T20:44:25","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T19:44:25","slug":"happy-bloomsday-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/16\/happy-bloomsday-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Bloomsday 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 16th of each year brings the worldwide celebration of James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses<\/em>: Bloomsday. Many Joycean scholars make a pilgrimage to Dublin on this date<\/a>, because the entirety of Ulysses<\/em> occurs on one day, 16 June 1904. Joyce’s friends used the word “Bloomsday” when Joyce was alive! <\/p>\n

The novel is set in Dublin<\/a>, and fans of Joyce sometimes retrace the steps<\/a> of its main character, Leopold Bloom, on Bloomsday. After all, Joyce himself said:<\/p>\n

I want to give a picture of Dublin<\/a> so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today was a gloriously sunny day for doing that. (If it’s a nice day where you are, consider your own Bloomsday walk<\/a>.) It was also a good day for the public events commemorating Ulysses<\/em>.<\/p>\n

bloomsdaysign.jpg<\/p>\n

I attended part of a series of readings of Ulysses<\/em> in the Meetinghouse Square of Temple Bar. The readings were wonderful, the sun was warm, and the atmosphere of the crowd was enchanting. I listened to a sequence of ambassadors from other nations all over the world, some reading in their native tongues.<\/p>\n

bloomsdayreading.jpg<\/p>\n

I was inspired to start reading Ulysses<\/em> where I’d left off this winter. It’s a difficult novel in every way, but always rewarding. On the way home across Stephen’s Green<\/a>, I saw two things that kept me in a Joycean frame of mind. First, a surprisingly lonely bust of Joyce on the southern side of the Green.<\/p>\n

bloomsdaybust.jpg<\/p>\n

Then, two businessmen talking on their mobiles. Surely one of the many besuited people in my neighbourhood is a Leopold Bloom in 2008?<\/p>\n

bloomsdayleopold.jpg<\/p>\n

Happy Bloomsday, friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 16th of each year brings the worldwide celebration of James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses: Bloomsday. Many Joycean scholars make a pilgrimage to Dublin on this date, because the entirety of Ulysses occurs on one day, 16 June 1904. Joyce’s friends used the word “Bloomsday” when Joyce was alive!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,8],"tags":[18,760,21,19,23,24,22,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}