Bloomsday: a rare chance to feel good about being Irish

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/16/bloomsday-ulysses-being-irish

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Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce's epic novel Ulysses, takes place today, with events in the author's hometown of Dublin, and elsewhere.

I used to be agnostic about it, regarding the event as a clatter of harmless eejits making themselves look ridiculous, with their Edwardian dress and pig-meat breakfasts, reading aloud in vaguely silly voices.

Being spiteful, I would brand them all vulgarians, chancers, attention-seekers and narcissists, riding the coat-tails of a great artistic work that they'd sooner eat than actually have to read. Perfect characters, I smugly imagined, for Joyce himself to excoriate.

I wasn't alone in this – most people in Ireland have always been quite bitchy and cynical about Bloomsday. The general population swung between monumental indifference and reflexive dislike of a book deemed too clever and arty for its own good.

Every year the press regurgitated the same articles: why must we endure this farce, can't we do something different, what relevance does Ulysses have for today's society, and so on ad infinitum. I know this because I wrote some of them.

We were all just too cool for school. To use a suitably Joycean bit of scatology, who gives a shit about Bloomsday?

Well, here's the thing: I think I do now. Maybe it's a fact of getting older, which softens some of the harder edges and drains you of the energy to be critical and annoyed all the time. But I take a more positive view of many things these days, and Bloomsday is one.What's wrong with celebrating something this amazing, immense and unique? Ulysses was voted best novel of the 20th century by Time magazine, Modern Library and many others. It's the classic text of modernism. It's brilliant, scintillating, literally awesome – almost a genre of itself. No, an entire art-form.

Michael Ondaatje said of Don DeLillo's great novel Underworld (himself strongly inspired by Joyce): "It's an aria and a wolf-whistle of our half century. It contains multitudes." The same could apply to Ulysses, that amalgam of transcendent artistry and dirty realism (though Joyce, you imagine, would amend "multitudes" to "absolutely everything").

So again, what's wrong with celebrating that? God knows we Irish feel miserable enough lately. We're constantly lambasted as feckless, spendthrift, idiots and gamblers by our European superiors.

We ballsed up our economy, we're repeatedly told. Worse, we dragged down the grade-curve and now must stand in the dunces' corner. The other kids might not be laughing at us, but it sure feels like they are.

So why not feel good about something positive? (It's not just Joyce, Ireland has a wonderful literary heritage that continues today.) Let's chuck the cynicism and coolness for once and say, "Yes, one of us did this and it is beyond compare. That's something to be proud of."

I realise, of course, someone could argue: "You didn't write Ulysses – what have you personally got to feel proud about?" Well, I didn't bankrupt the country either, but still feel like I'm responsible, and worse, am paying for it out of my taxes. So why shouldn't I, and my compatriots, bask in some reflected glory off Ulysses?

It was written by a man from my country, set in my capital city, using the Hiberno-English patois that I speak. The novel is obviously universal in theme and appeal, and draws on foreign cultural influences. But the details, the little flourishes, the quotidian touchstones, the things he mentions, the musical dialogue, the sway and pulse of the narrative: those are Irish.

As a vegetarian I'll skip the rashers and pudding, thanks – but for one day at least, let my country Bloom anew.

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