These days, nearly everybody is thinking about going somewhere exciting or interesting for their next holiday. What about you? Well, I can't even think about it. However, what I can do is to travel from the comfort of my sofa with the help of Leopold Bloom. Do you know who he is? Let me tell you. He is the main character in a famous literary work, James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses.
You should know by now that today people in Ireland celebrate Bloomsday, a celebration which has been named after the main character in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. The action takes places in Dublin, on June 16th, 1904 (It is said that James Joyce chose this date because he had his first date with Nora Barnacle, his later wife, on this day).
| James Joyce |
It narrates a day in the life of this man, who stops at different places and makes us think about what life is and the things that can happen on a single day. Today people in Ireland even dress as Leopold Bloom and other characters in the book and they stroll along the places Leopold Bloom visits on June, 16th. They stop and read some passages from the novel. They visit the house where Leopold and his wife, Molly lived, the pub where he used to hoist some pints of beer, ... There are a lot of activities to commemorate this. You can check them on the official website.
| Leopold and Molly's house |
Unfortunately, Ulysses is not a book I would recommend you to read at this stage since it is a thick book, about one thousand pages, narrated using the so-called interior monologue. That means, that the author narrates the events as they happen in the mind of the main character, without stops and using a complex network of symbolic parallels taken from the mythology, history and literature. James Joyce even created a unique language, he invented words and puns.
Despite being very difficult to follow, Ulysses is an outstanding worth-knowing story. So, if one day, you find it on top of a market stall in Dublin, on a shelf of a library or in a bookshop and you feel like spending some good hours reading it, don't hesitate to do it. You probably won't be deceived.
I have read this book a lot of years ago. It´s the most difficult book I have never read. But it´s a very very interesting book, of course.
ResponderEliminarAntonio.
I do not have read this book, neither in english nor in spanish, maybe in future, so my opinion is only based on this article.
ResponderEliminarI will do as this character say, so I will turn on my Internet radio and I will connect with radio one vancouver and while I do that I will go to google maps site and I will afford myself to travel through its streets.
Have a gorgeous day!
Luismi