happy bloomsday, folks.

buck mulligan's tower
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Today’s the day, of course, that Stephen Daedalus and Leopold Bloom meander through Dublin to arrive finally at “yes I said yes I will yes”.

But that last scene is in part why Ulysses was hit with obscenity charges when it was first released, so we’ll keep it clean and instead dredge up the moment when Stephen’s remembering his mother on her deathbed from the tower at Sandycove (see pic up above – yep, that’s the one).

Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay behind him a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’ chords. Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery.

Where now?

— James Joyce, Ulysses

All I know is: If Joyce were writing today, Microsoft Word spell- and grammar-check might well drive him to distraction. (It objected to about half of the words and grammatical constructions in this passage -- and this is one of the straightforward ones.)

Wanna see more of what Joyce saw from his parapet at Sandycove? Here's a brief slideshow »