Topic: ART - on July 16, 2016 at 6:25:00 PM CEST
Ulysses and the Lie of Technological Progress
How a broken Twitter adaption of James Joyce’s novel reveals the secret of Bloomsday. Today is Bloomsday, a folk holiday adopted to celebrate the life and work of the Irish writer James Joyce, in particular his 1922 novel Ulysses. The name derives from the book’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom, one of the Dubliners the book follows through the day of June 16, 1904. First celebrated mere years after the novel’s publication, Bloomsday festivities have been enjoyed for decades. Today, Bloomsday is marked globally in various ways, but especially in Dublin, where it has taken on the character of a citywide festival and as a pilgrimage for aspiring high modernists worldwide. In our age of fast-obsolescing smartphones and apps, it’s hard to find fault in a makeshift holiday that celebrates a book nearly a century old. But nevertheless, it’s also troublesome to observe Bloomsday as a rote paean to Joyce and Ulysses.
... Comment
