READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 1 included contributions by Frances Devlin Glass, Paul Grabowsky, Trevor McClaughlin, Margaret Newman, Elle Rasink, Ted Reilly, and Christopher Reynolds, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. I am caught from the first word. Intrigued as to which path we are being taken. Lead on! (ER)I am enjoying this! Ulysses is meant to be read aloud and gleefully. (TR) Welcome to the world of Ulysses, in which people who read books talk a lot, everything from ‘getting back to the point’ to ‘now we’re off the planet’. The opening warns in advance that this story could go anywhere, that behind all the high and gleeful talk there may be meanings here that are worth revisit...

  The opening part of a seminar paper written by Philip Harvey for the ‘Wilde about Joyce’ Bloomsday in Melbourne, 16 th June 2009, and read in the Brian Boru Room of the old Celtic Club, corner La Trobe and Queen Street, Melbourne. The numbered quotes were read by Bill Johnston. 1. Vae autem homini illi per quem Filius hominis tradetur … Et manducantibus illis, acceptit Iesus panem: et benedicens fregit, et dedit eis These lines from the Latin version of Mark’s Gospel were universally heard during the lives of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce. They were heard in their English form in the prayer of consecration in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. 2. Who on the same night that he was betrayed, took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it For centuries the gospel and the prayer at the communion remind those in attendance of the reality of betrayal. Indeed, at the very moment when the act of sharing is taking place, ultimate giving, we are made to remem...

The concluding part of a seminar paper written by Philip Harvey for the ‘Wilde about Joyce’ Bloomsday in Melbourne, 16 th June 2009, and read in the Brian Boru Room of the old Celtic Club, corner La Trobe and Queen Streets, Melbourne. The numbered quotes were read by Bill Johnston. When readers want to argue for the main theme of Ulysses, or for the major catalyst to its original big bang, the answer is often the infidelity of Molly Bloom. We know that Joyce chose the 16 th of June in order to commemorate his first stepping into the Dublin streets with Nora Barnacle, on that same day in 1904. In other words, Ulysses is an anniversary book. The paradoxical irony of Joyce’s choice of date is not lost on anyone. The book itself is an obsessional account of the Othello problem – jealous paranoia on the part of Bloom. Richard Ellmann links this to Joyce’s discovery, after eloping with Nora and leaving Ireland, that she may have been with another man before Joyce. This unleashed...