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June 05, 2005

Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes

June 16th BLOOMSDAY

It was with an open mind that I caught the 10.40am to Dublin to witness the Bloomsday festivities. True, in the past I have slain Joyce with the pen but today for the sake of the day that was in it, I withdrew my preconceptions. I would go up to Dublin and generally drink Guinness and eat liver and do the impossible – read Ulysses. Like most houses, mine bore a copy of the feared book. It’s more ornament that anything else. People buy it so that it makes their bookshelf more lit-hipster. In more households than one, I expect it sits uneasily between Lord of the Rings and PS I Love You. Aboard the Arrow, I pulled out my copy of Ulysses and began to read. I think it may have been somewhere in the second paragraph when I closed the book, put it back in my bag and swapped it for Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes.

The thing about the train is, it encourages reading. By being late all the time and stopping every now and then for no apparent reason, oh and course covering the actual journey, Iarnród Éireann are inadvertently introducing commuters to the pleasure of reading a book. Hundreds upon hundreds of dreary eyed people can be seen crouching down between carriages and standing up squashed in Arrow’s reading. It is a vice made for commuters. If like me, when you’re near someone who’s engrossed in a book, you’ll all most undoubtedly try and take a peek at the cover to see what they’re reading. We all do it, I’m sure. The title gives us a glimpse into that commuter’s personality. If, let’s say, they’re reading ‘US’ by Kildare based author Martin Malone, I’ll know that they like a story set in Kildare, as I do on occasions. If they’re reading Ulysses, I’ll note that they like a challenge. Either that or they’re trying to look intellectual. Or if they’re reading The Joy of Sex I’ll know that they like to [CENSORED]. Iarnród Éireann make all this possible but as I said, they do provide this service inadvertently so there’s no need to send them a card or anything.

Upon arriving in Hueston Station, there are no signs that it’s Bloomsday as of yet. The number 90 bus is no different apart from yours truly, making a second attempt on re-entry to Ulysses. This attempt is aborted in favour of looking out the window at the city in which the infamous novel is based. The sun is pouring through the city. Today Dublin smiles.

Hoping off the bus at O’Connell Bridge I see the first Joyce nuts of the day. Two men, mid-30’s I say, definitely should know better as they’re both wearing straw Edwardian hats. Oh let them have their day, you say but no. I shan’t. Especially when they’re hats are also advertising a particular brand of sausages that Joyce mentioned in Ulysses. Product placement isn’t a new thing you know. I ambled down O’Connell St. admiring the Spire in the sunlight. Yes, it is a big pointy waste of money but doesn’t its symbolism and gracefulness seize your heart when you see it? Me, neither. Just beneath the Spire, at the pedestrian crossing, two Gardaí pull up on huge motorbikes. They block the traffic off to let a convoy of the most heinous of Joyce nuts to come through. On bikes. In costume. Advertising sausages. There’s probably about fifty or sixty of them peddling down O’Connell St. To my amusement, the pedestrians standing around me, obviously not keen Joyce fans are starting to get impatient. Now I see why the ordinary Joe on the street doesn’t want to read Ulysses. To them it means “weirdoes in fancy dress.”

In the Ilac Centre I consider reading Ulysses for a third time. A clap of thunder rang through the blue sky and some cellos played a sinister D Minor. Obviously a sign. With the book closed and unlikely to be open again I shamefully thought what people who think they’re lives are hectic think – why read the book when you can watch the movie. More gratuitous thunder claps. So close to the UGC Cinema on Parnell St. how could I not? Several minutes later I was buying my ticket to see ‘Bloom’, the latest film adaptation of Ulysses. It was another five minutes before the movie started so I thought I’d sit outside in the sun.

So there I was outside the cinema, sitting on the kerb when I noticed a scrawled message on the black wall beside me. Written in chalk, it read, “Bloom is a cod.” No word of lie. Back inside, with only minutes to spare, armed with the largest tub of popcorn and an extra extra large coke, I entered the screen number two. Inside was not your regular looking moviegoers. They were academics. Cursed Ulysses reading, Joyce worshipping, UCD lecturing academics. Bugger! Why didn’t I just go and see the adaptation of that other much-discussed novel? What’s it called again? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Later that day, back aboard the humble train home, the ticket man asked would I be needing a ticket or not? Yes I said yes I will yes.

Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)

Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 09:28 PM