Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Bloomsday!


Thanks to Bianca Castafiore for the reminder. One hundred and five years ago today, Stephen Daedalus and Leo Bloom wandered the streets and alleys of Dublin (fictionally speaking, of course) in the epic James Joyce novel Ulysses. It's one of my top three favorite books. If you haven't read it yet--- take three months, suck it up, fight through it, gnash your teeth, get frustrated, don't give up, enjoy it, and just read the damn thing.
"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So which are your other top two favourites? Enquiring minds would like to know....

Jeffrey Parks MD FACS said...

Anne-
I'd have to go with Brothers Karamazov and Catcher in the Rye. Also under consideration: Sun Also Rises, Farewell to Arms (opening chapter best chunk of prose ever written), Beckett's Trilogy, and because it's fresh in my mind, I really enjoyed Infinite Jest by DFW.