On June 16 1904, Joyce was 22, jobless, penniless and homeless. Nonetheless, he was looking forwards to his first date with a Galway chambermaid named Nora Barnacle. "With a name like that she'll stick to him," observed Joyce's father when the couple later eloped, and Ulysses' date is tribute to her loyalty.
On June 16 2004, enthusiasts, academics and cynical citizens alike will sit down together at the Bloomsday centenary breakfast. The Dublin street party will serve Bloom's favourite "grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine", with Guinness to take that tang away. Later, museums, art exhibitions, concerts, an academic conference, and street theatre will turn Dublin into a Joyce theme park.
Why should we read Ulysses in 2004? A book more talked about than read, its reputation for "difficulty" deters many. Roddy Doyle has claimed it could do with a good editor. Yet the qualities that make Ulysses so loved are often overlooked. It is a deeply humane, compassionate novel.
Joyce's account of the small joys and quiet sadnesses of Bloom's life is unsurpassed in its intimacy. Its political generosity seems surprising in both 1904 and 2004. "What is your nation if I may ask," sneers an anti-semitic pub bore. Bloom, a Jew of Hungarian descent, answers "Ireland, I was born here. Ireland."
Above all, Joyce's ear for the comic in the everyday has never been bettered. Troubled by the unexpected abstemiousness of his drinking companions, Paddy Leonard turns to the barman: "Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg." You may not feel like swapping your muesli for kidneys this morning, but make Ulysses your book of the year.
