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Bloomsday At 100

The fictional Irish Jewish protagonist ofJames
Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses" celebrates his centenary.

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Jewish personality
gets special attention
this month by the
Gaelic League in Detroit.
The occasion is the 100th
anniversary of the man often
considered the most notable
character in modern fiction.
A first edition o
Leopold Bloom, the sub-
"Ulysses"
ject of famed Irish author
James Joyce, pictured,
James Joyce in his novel
based his main character
Ulysses, is being recalled in
in "Ulysses" on an ethnic
parties radiating from Dublin
but non practicing Jew.
to many parts of the world.
"Bloom Jewish?" he once
Literati designated June 16 as
said. "Yes, because only a
Bloomsday, the annual time
foreigner would do."
for taking note of a character
depicted in the book through
one day in his life, June 16,
characterization. There was contro-
1904.
versy surrounding Ulysses, which was
The Gaelic League, with a long
banned in Ireland and elsewhere for
history of celebrating Bloomsday,
a
time due to its sexually explicit
scheduled readings from Ulysses and
language.
The book also is notewor-
other Joyce writings as well as Irish
thy because it employs an early use
music for an event held Thursday,
of stream-of-consciousness writing.
June 17, at league headquarters.
"Bloom represents a common
"We see a lot of Joyce groupies at
energy,"
she says. "He's an ordinary
our parties," says Julie Demery, a
human
being
with a rich inner life.
league officer whose family reaches
Judaism
is
important
to the charac-
back to Ireland. "I read the book a
ter
because
it's
the
reality
on which
long time ago and enjoy the presen-
he is grounded."
tation of passages from the novel."
Mary Durkan, festival director of
Demery, who has visited Ireland
Bloomsday Toronto, planned activi-
five times, once attended a lecture at
a Michigan synagogue where she met ties for June 12-16 in the Canadian
city whose celebration dates back to
Ben Briscoe, a former Jewish Dublin
lord mayor who served in the post in 1986 and this year coincides with
the release in some cities of Bloom, a
1988; he is the son of another for-
new film based on Joyce's novel and
mer Jewish Dublin lord mayor,
starring Stephen Rea and Angeline
Robert Briscoe, who presided in
Ball.
1956 and 1961. She recalls that Ben
"I grew up in Dublin as a
Briscoe wore a Star of David on one
Catholic,
and I was fascinated by
lapel and a shamrock on the other.
Jews,"
says
Durkan, an actress, direc-
"I like the Bloom character
tor
and
.teacher.
"When I was young,
because he just did his own thing
there was little contact between the
and went his own way," Demery
Catholics and Jews. I remember
says. "He could be self-contained,
sneaking into a synagogue to see
and I like that attitude." Joyce's
what it was like.
Leopold Bloom was inspired by,
"I think Ulysses is a fabulous read
among other influences, the Ulysses
because
of the music of the lan-
character in Homer's Greek epic
guage. I also think that Leopold
poem The Odyssey.
Bloom is a man we can identify with
JoAnne Isbey, associate professor
as he reveals every thought."
of English at the University of
Shalom Ireland, a documentary
Detroit Mercy, says the attention to
that
chronicles the history of Irish
Bloom is not simply because of the

