The Late Movies: Bloomsday

Erica Palan
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Tomorrow, people all over the world will be celebrating Bloomsday, a holiday named for Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce's Ulysses. In the book, Bloom spends an entire day—June 16, 1904—traveling across Dublin. Though Joyce himself never employed the term "Bloomsday," the holiday has taken on a life of its own with cities hosting all-day readings of Ulysses, concerts, street fairs and competitive runs. Here's a collection of clips related to Bloomsday. Perhaps it will inspire you (OK, me) to pick up Joyce's greatest work and read it from beginning to end.

The Syracuse James Joyce Club

Members of the Syracuse James Joyce Club explain the beauty of Bloomsday and why they keep reading James Joyce.

Frederick Chambliss Wemyss

The introduction of Ulysses, as read by one man in 2009.

Brendan Fitzgerald

The first time I started to read Ulysses, I told my high school English teacher that it was all a bunch of nonsense words strung together. This clip exemplifies why I thought that.

The MINDshift Institute

The MINDshift Institute in Northampton, Massachusetts, hosted a Bloomsday reading. Here's a snippet.

Davy Byrnes' Pub

A very engaging reading took place at this pub in Dublin.

Ulysses Bar

This bar in the Financial District of New York City hosts a Bloomsday event where authors read the book aloud.

Ulysses, One Word at a Time

Want to give it a shot, but don't want to buy the book? Try this video — which speeds the reading up to a little more than three minutes. Well, kind of.

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