June 16th, 1904 was probably a day like everyone else in the lives of those who did not have their first born child seeing its first light on that day, or did not lose a beloved one or got married to their love of their life. It was probably a day like everyone else in the lives of a lot of people. Fortunately for us, it was not an ordinary day in the life of James Joyce, who had his first date with Nora Barnacle, on that same afternoon. As Nora was to become his wife and lifetime companion, that 16th of June, 1904 assumed a special role in Joyce's life and this is how it ended being probably the most famous, ordinary day in the history of literature. Joyce's "Ulysses", acclaimed by many as the greatest novel of all time, takes place in Dublin during that day.
June 16th of June is nowadays celebrated by Joyce's fans all over the world and his Irish compatriots in particular. And since one of "Ulysses"' main characters is called Leopold Bloom, the term "Bloomsday" has been coined for this literary anniversary. The "real" Bloomsday, inside the novel, is a full day from dawn until early the following morning, a single 24-hour trip through the early 20th century Dublin, but is at the same time a long journey in the lives of many people evolving in parallel. An "Odyssey", as the title of the book suggests.
I still haven't manage to read "Ulysses", although I once started it. I hope I do it one day, but until then I happen to think about how one's day can turn into a full "Oddysey" in the way it happened to Leopold Bloom's on June 16th, 1904.
Last Tuesday, June 17th 2008, one day and 104 years after Bloomsday, I thought I had one of my own. The complete recollection of its events seems somewhat impossible right now, mostly because I feel more tired than what I felt a week ago. In any case, none of the occurrences of last Tuesday really deserves to be mentioned. It is mostly their unstoppable flow that makes me think back to it as my own "Bloomsday" and although there is no correspondence of any of the incidents with an episode from the Homeric epic, my whole 24 hour day could qualify as a minor ordeal. It more or less involved an early waking up, after having spent the previous night reading a PhD thesis, judging that exact same thesis as a member of a committee, socializing with unknown people after the thesis defense was over -probably the hardest part-, rushing back to the flat under the rain (on June 17th!), packing for a short trip that sounded nothing like fun, then straight to the lab only to spend 30 minutes looking for a lost package (a story whose weird literary connotations deserve a post of their own, soon to follow) and the rest couple of frenetic hours organizing work with Sonja to be done during my absence. Run to the train station, then to the airport, check-in, have a snack while watching Italy beat France on some big screen, board the plane, fly to Greece, arrive there in the middle of the night, bus, taxi, get to my parents' house around 4 a.m. and to bed around 5.30.
I know it doesn't sound a bit like an Odyssey and I can reassure you it wasn't. But neither would "Bloomsday" feel like one had it not been for the genious of Joyce. And in fact, it would have been one of "those ordinary days" for me as well had it not been on June 17th, one day after the "real" Bloomsday. Funny how a seemingly insignificant date of a young promising writer at the turn of the 20th century, ends up affecting my life 104 years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment