Happy Bloomsday!

It is with a heavy heart that I face Bloomsday today. Over the past year I have participated in an ongoing discussion group of Joyce's famous novel Ulysses. The Evanston Public Library led Mission Impossible: Ulysses, which met over the course of the year, reading the lengthy, intimidating novel in pieces. I attended the meetings and struggled my way through most of the book, but I admit: I didn't finish it. They had great mugs made up, but I felt I didn't deserve one. Not only did I not finish, but I didn't love it. From the first page I struggled with the book. I used annotations, cliff notes, and other books about the book, yet it was impenetrable. It was like reading something in a foreign language. The cliff notes basically translated enough so that I could get the gist of the story and could follow along with the discussions, but I'm left still wondering why this is considered such a great novel. One of the best novels of the 20th century? I don't know. I did re-read Joyce's Dubliners, which I read in college and remembered loving. I was worried that I wouldn't like it this time around, considering the terrible time I was having with Ulysses, but I loved it just as much, and perhaps more, the second time. I guess what gets me the most is that despite the fact that I spent the last year with this book, I don't feel like I can actually cross it off my bucket list of books.