This past
week, Bloomsday was celebrated by James Joyce enthusiasts across the world. The
celebration is held annually on June 16, the day on which Joyce’s Ulysses takes place. While fond of
Joyce, and currently reading Ulysses,
I will admit that the holiday completely escaped my notice. I had even planned
to write a blog about Bloomsday, only to see the day move right past me. The
reason, quite simply was the World Cup.
Still, I
wanted to write something about Joyce, and this got me thinking. Is there
perhaps some connection to be made between my obsession with football (more on
that word later) and Ulysses? The answer
(quite fittingly if you’re one of the dozens of people who have actually finished
the book) is Yes!
People come
to Ulysses for a number of reasons.
There are, astoundingly, some professors who actually require it, but we’ll
deal here exclusively with those who choose to take on this behemoth of their
own accord. The first reason why many at least consider reading Joyce’s
masterpiece is their desire to read a book which routinely finishes at the top
of any ranking of the top books of the twentieth century. The second reason some
choose to read it is that, well, you haven’t. There is–no one should even try
to deny it–a certain (massive) amount of snob value to tackling Ulysses. For those of you not aware of
the details, I offer this simple list:
- Ulysses is written from multiple writing perspectives–with Joyce often changing technique completely from chapter to chapter.
- Its final chapter (or “episode”) is made up of a 4,391 word SENTENCE.
- It is a book considered so difficult that the author himself wrote two different study guides which instruct the reader what colors, bodily organs, art forms and symbols to consider while reading each chapter.
- And then there are the prereqs. We all remember prereqs from college, I’m sure. Well, Ulysses has its own impressive list.
Before I even
unwrapped my copy of Ulysses, I journeyed
from a thorough rereading of Hamlet
through Joyce’s two previous novels (Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners)
and finally, of course, to Homer’s Odyssey.
The reading of these books ahead of time is not merely a suggestion. The
outline of Ulysses, a book populated
by characters from Portrait and Dubliners, one of whom very much resembles
Hamlet, mirrors the Odyssey
itself. I cannot fathom reading Ulysses
without this background and, honestly, it wouldn’t be as much fun. The prereqs
are where all of the AH HAH comes from and Ulysses
is filled with such moments.
So how does
one compare Ulysses to the World Cup?
For me, it starts all the way back at the top of this post. People watch the
World Cup for one of two reasons: because they are curious what everyone else
is talking about or because of the dedication required to schedule the time to
watch each and every match. The World Cup is similar to the Super Bowl, Daytona
500, Olympics and, fascinatingly, Wrestlemania in that one feels compelled to
watch it whether one loves football or not.
And then
there is that word, football. If you’re like me, an American that is, even insisting
on the use of the word football carries with it a certain degree of arrogance.
I watch football and find myself tweeting and discussing in the lingua franca
of my fellow supporters (whatever language this is, for it is certainly not
American English). I speak of pitches,
kits and of being gutted. I’ve never watched a football
game but I wake up at 4am KST to watch matches
once or twice a week. For me, my ability to converse in football is as much a
badge of honor as someone might feel when standing on a subway while reading Ulysses (which is terrifyingly almost a
children’s book compared to Joyce’s Finnegan’s
Wake–if ever you see someone reading Wake
in public, call the authorities and walk away slowly).
So we have the
recurring celebration. We have the reasons one attends casually or maniacally. What
does that leave? Ah yes, the prereqs.
There are
two main times that I smile while watching football. One is when I see
something that I’ve never seen before. The other is when I see something which
I have seen before at a specific, notable time. The latter of these represents
the AH HAH of football–and these moments can come not only from other football
memories, but also from any other notable experience. Passes can remind you of both
symphony and geometry and sportsmanship, especially at the international level,
can cause one to reflect on world politics. (The World Cup stadium which hosted
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first ever World Cup match last week would not have
held all of the people who died during the war which led to the formation of
that country… Let that set in for a moment.)
These AH HAH
moments are everything that I love about football, but they are also why no
football movie will ever hit me the way Field
of Dreams did. I don’t have the same long term relationship with football
that I do with baseball. A United States match will never mean as much to me as
watching the Yankees after 9/11 did. These pieces of nostalgia are so deeply
rooted within us that even we know little about them until they come back around
for seconds.
That’s why baseball
will always be my native language. I am, however, delighted to consider myself
bilingual with regards to sports, and enjoy speaking football a whole lot more
than my native tongue these days.
