Today is Bloomsday, a world-wide literary festival held on the 16th June each year.
It commemorates James Joyce's novel Ulysses, the entire action of which takes place during a single day, the 16th June 1904.
In many parts of the world people dress in contemporary costume, hold readings, and enact scenes from the book, often walking along a route that imitates the one followed in the book by its main character Leopold Bloom.
This is the third year we have celebrated Bloomsday in our village. It is a small affair compared with the festivals held in places like Dublin and some cities in the US, but we are proud of it, and it is heartening to see that it has grown, and this year included events on the surrounding days as well as Bloomsday itself.
I have the honour to appear in the first event of the day. I don't have to say anything, or even move, just be in a tableau illustrating the book's opening pages. Somebody else does the reading:
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He
held the bowl aloft and intoned:
– INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
– Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
My part is as Stephen Dedalus, who Mulligan calls 'Kinch' and who is a sort of avatar of Joyce himself.
The action takes place in a Martello tower near Dublin (the tower really exists and is now a James Joyce museum). Our local tower is just a piece of stage scenery in the best tradition, consisting of a painted sheet wrapped around a step ladder, but naturally it doesn't have to be a convincing representation of a real tower. It only has to suggest one and our imaginations take over and do the rest.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about
and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the
awaking mountains.
