“Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are.”
[Ulysses – Cyclops episode]
[Ulysses – Cyclops episode]
The sixteenth of
June is Bloomsday, the day on
which James Joyce’s Ulysses is set. The novel follows Stephen Dedalus and
Leopold Bloom around the streets of Dublin so Bloomsday is usually celebrated
by tours of Joyce’s Dublin among other events.
Copyright
restrictions on Joyce’s work were in place up to the end of last year. Joyce’s
heir, his grandson Stephen James Joyce, guarded the copyright fiercely,
refusing permission to stage events as innocuous as public readings of Joyce’s
work. Joyce afficionados are therefore not mourning the passing of copyright,
however much a wake for the copyright last January in Oslo might suggest
otherwise.
This year, then,
the celebrations are set to be bigger and better than ever. Anybody who wants
can get up and read a passage from Joyce or stage a production. The downside is that the Joyce memorabilia
industry has also been unleashed, though Joycean tat might be viewed as a small price to pay for copyright freedom. What do you think? Before answering that you should read your free
copy of Ulysses online courtesy of the Gutenberg project...
