Today is June 16, or Bloomsday as it’s known to fans of James Joyce’s intricate novel, Ulysses (It’s also a day for many to run races, but never mind about that.) Specifically, Bloomsday is the day in which Joyce’s character, Leopold Bloom, experiences the entire human experience as he goes about Dublin. A variety of narrators come and go. The prose moves from stark to lyrical.
The book was an eye opener for me as Joyce wrote about subjects more frankly than I was prepared for. I was young when a reading mentor first urged me to read it. I got something out of it, but over the years, as I matured, so did my understanding of the book. The main theme is an exploration of love in its infinite variety. Toward the end of the novel, Bloom returns home to his unfaithful wife, Molly. She engages is an internal monologue as she remembers the early days of their courtship. The book ends with her words, “I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” It was the most passionate description of lovemaking (not just sex) I’d ever read when I first discovered it, and I still believe it to be just that.
Joyce chose June 16,1904, because that was the day he met his future wife, Nora Barnacle. They were together some thirty years and produced two children before they actually married, but his choice of that date still strikes me as one of the world’s great romantic tributes.
Ulysses is a book for grownups, but it’s full of humor, playfulness, and the joy of life. Life isn’t always easy, but it’s here for the taking. The best thing about it is love.
Enjoy your day. The whole thing