We didn’t go into town today. That would have been madness. Instead, we headed in the opposite direction and, among other things, climbed up James Joyce’s tower to celebrate…well, a certain madness, I suppose.
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains.
I made a deal with my father-in-law. I will take yet another (I am embarrassingly into double digits, probably) stab at getting more than ten pages into Ulysses if he will give Harry Potter/Philosopher’s Stone a shot. The deal: I’ll read as far as he does.
I fear both books will go unread.