A brilliant Bloomsday to ye!
The 442 pages of James Joyce's Ulysses takes place over one day... June 16th. Therefore, every year we celebrate "Bloomsday", named after one of the main characters in the story, Leopold Bloom. This is a day to celebrate the life and writing of one Mr. Joyce and events occur on this day in Dublin and all throughout the world to commemorate the beloved author.
Joyce selected June 16th for Ulysses as it was the date of his first date with his (eventual) wife, Nora Barnacle. The first documented mention of Bloomsday was in 1929. To acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, a group of people decided to make a daylong pilgrimage along the route referenced in Ulysses. In the true fashion of my ancestors, the participants fell victim to the drink about halfway through the route and the pilgrimage was abandoned. However, their attempt set into motion a tradition that continues today.
And in honor of this auspicious day, I hereby proclaim my renewed commitment to finishing Ulysses. I'm so close to the finish line of season one, I can taste it. And then James Joyce garroted me as I made my way to that ribbon. I want to start assigning myself a certain number of pages a day (much like I did with War and Peace... although that was like reading a Babysitter's Club book compared to this) instead of getting bogged down in the enormity of finishing this particular book.