Wednesday, June 16th, will mark the 106th anniversary of Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce first met his lifelong partner, and future wife, Nora Barnacle, and the day on which all the action of "Ulysses" took place.
Every year for nearly ten, since I completed the draft of "Shakespeare & Company" the story of Sylvia Beach's struggle to stand up to censors and be the first to publish Joyce's great "Ulysses," I promised myself and the indomitable JJ spirit, his story would soon come to the screen. Taking a deep breath here; well, it hasn't happened yet.
Leopold Bloom was a late bloomer, too, as was Joyce himself, so in that spirit, here are some memorable JJ quotes which will, one hopes, whet your appetite to discover the Dublin between your own ears.
From James Joyce:
"When I die Dublin will be written in my heart."
"A man's errors are his portals of discovery."
"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to escape."
"Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job."
"I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy."
"Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past."
"Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America."
And, one last one from Bloom himself:
"A nation is the same people living in the same place."
