Bloomsday Canada

Bloomsday is being celebrated around the world today. From Shanghai to San Francisco, the literary festival honours the day, June 16th, that James Joyce immortalized in his novel, ‘Ulysses’,

It was also a tribute to Joyce’s wife Nora, as June 16th was the day they met in 1904. In the novel, the main character, Leopold Bloom, takes his walk around Dublin and Joyce records his ‘Odyssey’.

David Schurman, is one of the main organizers of Bloomsday Montreal. In an interview with CBC radio this morning, he said he started reading Ulysses in 1964. He has since read it about 6 or 7 times.

“When you get into it, it’s a wonderful read; it’s a beautiful, happy, fun read as well.”  Now he says he just opens the cover and begins: “It’s become a friend, a friend of mine, and a friend of many other people who’ve read and loved it.”

In 2011 Schurman organized a study group on Ulysses, at the McGill Community for Life Long Learning. Along with the 17 or 18 people in the group, it was decided they’d organize a ‘Bloomsday’ event.  In just four years it has grown to a series of events over five days.

Montreal actor Kathleen Fee has brought Molly Bloom to life each year in Montreal.  In the famous soliloquy  that ends the 768 page tome, Leopold’s wife, Molly, reflects on the good times and the bad, recounts her lists, her lovers and that very first embrace with ‘Poldy’. The one that begins with the wonderful consent, “yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Kathleen Fee says she read somewhere recently that “desire makes you shameless’, and that’s what Joyce captures so well with Molly. Fee says, “she’s gutsy, she’s raunchy and what she does is communicate the innermost thoughts of most people, most women I think,”

In Toronto, on the 30th anniversary their motto is ‘ReJoyce’, In Montreal, as it grows, it’s ‘Everyone’s Joyce’.  This evening at Montreal’s Jewish Public Library, writer Kevin Birmingham will deliver a talk on his award-winning work, ‘The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses.