Bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday. Sadly the tribute event I went to this year seemed to be a bit tired and lacked some of the joy and popularity of earlier years. The organisers and readers were in top form, but the audience was a letdown; participants were more notable for their wrinkles than their youth.
Bloomsday has been celebrated for decades on July 16, in Dublin, London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne, and hundreds of smaller cities and towns.
In other years Bloomsday started in Sydney with a kidney breakfast in an Irish pub, and became a moveable feast, calling in at different venues during the day. I’ve been to readings in Government House, hospitals and cemeteries, because all these institutions appear in Ulysses.
Bloomsday is traditionally a day for enthusiasts to get together and read the James Joyce book Ulysses, for fun. And for others to come along and see what all the fun is about.
Described by some as the greatest novel written in the English language, and by others, as impossible to read or understand, Ulysses is simply a yarn about a single day in Dublin in 1904.
Many people know a few facts about the book, but haven’t felt a need to do heavy research on the tricky bits in the tale. For example, we mostly know James Joyce’s story is supposed to make references to the version of Ulysses written by the ancient Greek story teller Homer, but how does the chapter called Telemachus in one relate to Telemachus in the other.
Well, there’s no need to go into these mechanics of literature. Joyce’s Ulysses can be read and enjoyed by the same sort of people you’d bump into in a tour of Dublin, normal people who don’t need a Master’s degree to have a bet on the horses.
The opening chapters start with breakfast for three main characters – Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly, and a student, and finish at 1.00am the next morning. During their voyage around the city, Joyce records what they do, what they think, and how they mix with each other in the city.
I’ve read Ulysses three times, more if you count the times I didn’t finish, and the times I I only opened a passage or two.
Ulysses is mainly an aural work. The story is best told when read aloud, and when I hear others read, I catch ideas and shades that I totally missed on my own.
When I can listen to someone with an Irish brogue read a chapter, it makes ten times more sense again,
I’ve learned that I will fail to see most of the sense, and fun if I just read it alone and quietly. Each chapter adopts a different style of English. Some of the chapters, especially when Joyce writes what the characters are thinking, sound quite different to our normal ways of reading a novel.
Hence – Bloomsday. People gather on July 16 to listen, and enjoy listening, to professional readers tell the story, or even have a go at something quite foreign, reading aloud to themselves or a friendly group, in public. Normally, if you try to read a book aloud in the train, or in the library, security guards are called.
But Bloomsday is a day for sharing the story, You listen while others read, and others listen if you want to have a go at reading aloud, and then its quite a jolt when they laugh at one of Joyce’s jokes that you hadn’t realised was there, until you sounded the words.
Along with the story being told, a good Bloomsday works best with Irish music, heaps of food, some drink, and a sense of shared fun with others.
This year it was hard to find out where the Bloomsday meetings were. After much web surfing, I found there was one to be held in a library, and another in a pub. I went to the library one. The organisers had done Ulysses proud. They had one of the top Irish groups in the town play before and after readings. They had a table stuffed with sandwiches and cakes, fruit and savouries. All free. Leopold Bloom would have been impressed.
What I missed was a cross section in the crowd. Where were the civic leaders, and other poobahs? More importantly, where were the kids, who might have got up and danced while the oldies hugged their cups of tea. Perhaps the kids went to the pub event. Maybe next year.