Notes for a presentation at Clareville Centre on 3 February 2022
My name, as you all know. is James Joyce, and yesterday was my birthday and, also, the centenary of the day my most famous book, Ulysses, was launched - that is, on my 40th birthday. Yes, I am now 140 years old!
As proof of identity, I tender this picture of me on the cover:
In this book Leopold Bloom spends the day travelling around Dublin City, in exile from his home in Eccles Street, where his wife, Molly Bloom, a professional singer, is presumably entertaining her manager and presumed lover, the unscrupulous Blazes Boylan. Bloom, though born and bred in Dublin, is nevertheless somewhat of a stranger in his own city, since he is a Jew in an inward-focused Catholic community. His journey is modelled on that of the Homeric character, Ulysses, who, having razed the city of Troy to the ground, for his king, Agamemnon, is nevertheless estranged from his king and meanders around the Mediterranean world for many years before returning home to Mycenae.
Bloom's journey, like that of Ulysses, is divided into eight adventures, and the day ends when he arrives home and makes love to his wife. Altogether, the story gives a rather complete view of Dublin and its culture in the year of 1904, I would suggest.
The sixth adventure begins at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when Bloom joins 3 other characters to hire a horse-drawn carriage in Monkstown, to make a journey all the way from the South Side, through Dublin City, to Prospect Cemetery up here in Glasnevin, on the North Side, for the funeral of Paddy Dignam, with a commentary in conversation and in Bloom's head on the features and people passed along the way.
Finally, they arrive in Glasnevin and are about to enter the mortuary chapel, which excites the internal observations of Bloom, who, remember, is a Jew.
extract from Chapter 6 of Ulysses:
They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleek-combed hair and at the slender furrowed neck inside his brand-new collar. Poor boy! Was he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings to O’Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head? After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt here and there in praying-desks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a door. The white-smocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad’s belly.
Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook.
They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with a fluent croak. Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Domine-namine. Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways.
— Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine.
Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin.