July, 2004 - Nr. 7
Germany celebrates Bloomsday
TWIG - Scores of houses around Germany devoted to upholding the art of literature celebrated Bloomsday on Wednesday (June 16), marking the day when troubled flaneur Leopold Bloom strolled the streets of Dublin in what is considered the greatest novel of the 20th century, James Joyce’s "Ullysses."
But it wasn’t any old Bloomsday. This year marked the 100th anniversary of the walk that Bloom took through Dublin from eight in the morning until three the next morning, meeting characters and having experiences along a stumbling path that roughly corresponded to the one taken by Homer’s Odysseus, the greatest of classical wanderers.
In Germany, many of the events celebrating Bloom’s meanderings are taking place in the country’s unique foundations for literature, the Literaturhaeuser. Found in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart, they are public-private partnerships between German publishing houses and the cities themselves that play host to major literary figures from around the world.
While author readings are their specialty and their main service to the community, the Literaturhaueser also plan a number of events that examine the literary influences in other art forms. At the Munich Literaturhaus, for example, Joyce specialist Frank T. Zumbach put together a show of approximately 350 musical works that are alluded to in "Ulysses" to celebrate the aspect music plays in the work.
Many of the Literaturhaeuser will feature the premier of the new documentary film "Ulysses in Dublin" by Charlotte Szlovak, while the German television station 3sat will show the film "Who’s Afraid of James Joyce?" as well as the film adaptation of "Ulysses" from 1967.
Berlin’s daily "Tageszeitung" is adding to the celebration
with a special edition "New Ulysses," a 24-page condensed, edited, and in
some cases completely rewritten version of the novel whose mammoth,
unabridged edition, first published in 1922, encompasses 1,100 pages. The
editorial team - familiar with the novel’s place not only as the greatest
modern novel, but also as the most harrowing read in modern history - wanted
to make it "able to be read in one day."
Republished with permission from "The Week in Germany"
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