Happy Bloomsday!
Come celebrate with us tonight
June 16, 2011
(Len Small/Tablet Magazine)
—He’s a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He’s not one of your common or garden … you know … There’s a touch of the artist about old Bloom.
Today’s the day! 107 years ago, in James Joyce’s fictional universe, Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin, unwittingly acting out the hero’s path in the Odyssey. And—as, I promise, you are being reminded for the very last time—tonight, at Housing Works Bookstore in Manhattan, we will be celebrating Bloom, an Irishman of Hungarian Jewish ancestry, with readings, performances, and music. Do come!
Your suggested Bloomsday reading is frequent Tablet Magazine contributor Ron Rosenbaum’s recent paean to Ulysses‘s penultimate chapter (which is not, as he claims, the only chapter worth reading, but which is indeed one of the top three or five). Also, you can follow the whole novel on Twitter.
And, sure, a quiz: In the catechism chapter, two questions are answered with further questions. One of these answers is, “Who is M’intosh?” Well, who is M’intosh? First person to email me the correct (or an otherwise extremely persuasive) response gets a Nextbook Press volume of his or her choice.
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
