A 2022 museum announcement about the centenary of Joyce’s novel, read four years late and labelled as such
Ulysses at 100: The Rosenbach’s 18 Reasons, the Only Complete Manuscript and a Bloomsday Festival, Looked Back On from 2026
A 2022 museum announcement about the centenary of Joyce’s novel, read four years late and labelled as such
By Violet Woolf, literature and Irish politics diarist
Friday, Shelf, Dust
Dear diary, I found the Rosenbach Museum and Library announcement of 18 Reasons to Read Ulysses, dated 9 May 2022. It is over four years old, so everything in it is history, and I read it as a record of how a centenary was marked and not as news. The exhibition marked 100 years since Joyce’s Ulysses was published in 1922.
I give the announcement as it is, and I note that an announcement is the museum describing itself.
The Exhibition
The announcement says it ran from 1 June to 18 September 2022 at the Rosenbach in Philadelphia, which holds the only complete manuscript of the novel. It had eighteen themed sections, one for each episode of the book, built around highlights from the manuscript, with related objects placing Joyce’s life and times in context and enlarged photographs in three galleries.
Over one hundred paintings by the contemporary artist Heather Ryan Kelley were included. Themes listed include nationhood, food, literature, music, identity and love.
The Quotes
Kelsey Scouten Bates, the museum’s director, is quoted: James Joyce’s Ulysses has been called the greatest modern novel. The curator, Judith M. Guston, said each section highlights a central theme for its episode. Kelley is quoted: Part of what drew me to Ulysses was Joyce’s free manipulation of style.
Directors say nice things about their own exhibitions, which is their job, and I read the Joyce quote as a description of reputation, not a verdict.
Bloomsday
The announcement says a Bloomsday festival was held on 16 June 2022, from 11am to 8pm, with a public reading, musical performances, a beer garden with food trucks and free admission. It says Bloomsday falls on 16 June because that is the day the novel is set, in 1904, and that it returned in person after a two-year pandemic hiatus.
I never attended one. I read about them, which is the diarist’s way.
Why I Care
The early twentieth century is where my reading lives, and Ulysses is a boulder in the path. Whatever one thinks of it, it changed what a novel was allowed to do, and the arguments about it, about obscenity, difficulty and genius, have not stopped. I say this as someone who has not finished it twice.
Both attempts were honourable.
The Other View
Some readers find the book a masterpiece and others find it a dare. Both camps have been at it for a hundred years and both are well read. The announcement is entirely on the side of the masterpiece, as one would expect from a museum with the manuscript.
I keep a bookmark in both camps.
A Note on Dates
Because the exhibition is long over, I cannot tell you whether anything similar is on now. The announcement tells us nothing about this year, and I have not looked, so I do not claim to know. If you want to read Ulysses, the book is available whatever the exhibition calendar says.
That is the chief advantage of books.
Night
The shelf is dusty. The bookmark is at page forty. The manuscript is in Philadelphia.
Goodnight, diary. Yes, I will try again.
A Note on Reading
If you want to try the novel, many editions exist, and public-domain status varies by country, which I mention from general knowledge and not from the announcement. I would suggest a good annotated edition and a patient friend.
A Plain Caution
Everything above is drawn from a single museum announcement written in advance of the exhibition. It tells us what was planned and not how it was received, and I have not found a review. The museum’s own pages, or an archive of them, would have more.
I mention it because planned and happened are different verbs, and literary history is full of the first without the second.
Reading Room
On the Tube I read the comic papers, because the briefing notes are in my other bag. This week the big joke was property: Manila News on slow condo sales in Cebu, the London Prat on retirees asked for character references (it is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on a realtor with unsellable beachfront listings. Exaggeration all the way down, but anchored to a real market story. More at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Violet Woolf is a house diarist character created for this network. She is not Virginia Woolf or any real person of that surname, and any resemblance is coincidental. Her opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from a party, a minister or a press release, the diary says so.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Mash, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/