Ulyssean blog post of the week award goes to blogger David Nice who reports on a trip to Trieste. A thoroughly interesting jaunt it sounds too (with many photos included as evidence) – despite the article not being exclusively about Joyce. We’ll have to share with Italo Svevo, but on further investigation that doesn’t appear to be so bad! I’d never heard of him, but my ignorance is legendary! The picture above is by Luigi Tolotti borrowed from the aforementioned blog. Read on for more irrelevant stuff and interesting nonsense from the interweb world of Ulysses …
This piece of travel blogging strikes a similar chord. Though faintly less reverent! From Croatia with love.
Last week an article in the Guardian sought to find out where the sex had gone from the great British novel. Had the last taboo been long broken? I suppose there are other taboos, but I really doubt that any of them are worth the effort. The Guardian also reviews the collected letters of Sylvia Beach – the midwife of Ulysses. It begins with a cracking photo I’ve not seen before (though I admit I’ve hardly been looking).
And while we’re on that subject I managed to see the 1967 film version of Ulysses this past week and I too was shocked by the frankness of the sexual content! In context you understand – it would hardly raise eyebrows now. But for 1967 I can imagine a few cardiac arrests among the audience – if indeed it found an audience. As you might remember I only managed to get through half the book so the film was me cheating my way through the rest. The end was worth waiting for certainly – though the waiting was at times almost as painful as the book!
Since Ulysses is THE modern novel I’ll link also to this discussion about what has happened to that genre in general. Have all the good writers sold out the the haunted fishtank? Two Telegraph bloggers, Harry Mount and Michael Deacon ask what the Noughties’ output might mean to future generations of readers.
The Rosenbach Museum and Library comments on the Rosenblog about their favourite precious blue things. Blue is the colour of the cover – and notoriously hard to reproduce. I hadn’t made that Greek connection myself unsurprisingly!
By the GODS!?! I’ll never cease to be amazed at the way Ulysses gets a regular mention across such a broad spectrum of apparently unrelated subjects. Check out the fashionistas as they arrange a big fat Greek catwalk show for Molly Bloom and Nana Mouskouri. It all makes perfect sense!
Even my own specialist subject gets drawn into the great Greek epic adventure. This news from the front line of design shows how history moves relentlessly on. Olhausen’s meat products must have made an impression back in 1904 because they are still around now! Another stop on the tour of Dublin takes you to this location. It’s all still there! Well, most of it!
For those of you able to access the BBC’s iPlayer, Dervla Kirwan is the latest celebrity to be asked Who Do You Think You Are? The Irish actress traces her ancestry back to her great-great-uncle, Michael Collins, the revolutionary who changed the course of Irish history as he fought to establish the Irish Free State. She also learns that the family on her father’s side was Jewish, and is baffled when she uncovers an act of anti-semitism which inspired an episode in Joyce’s Ulysses. I missed it first time around so I’m off to watch it now!
Just for fun – the last word on that writing analyser website that no-one, myself included, failed to blog upon. This takes the whole episode to its natural conclusion.
Finally it’s nice to be able to link to something you can actually listen too – giving your eyes a much needed break from all those words swimming about the screen. The Sonic Labyrinth gives us a burst of ‘M’appari tutto amor’ with a little explanation.
See you next week!
