The Legacy of a Handjob

[Dillinger]

June 16, 1904 is the date immortalized in James Joyce's epoch-making psychological novel, "Ulysses". The long-suppressed erotic letters Joyce wrote to Nora Barnacle when they were separated in 1909 reveal exactly why Joyce chose this date.

On June 16, 1904 Joyce and Nora had sex, of a sort, for the first time. A 20-year-old virgin from Galway, Nora had been afraid to "go all the way" to coitus, but she masturbated him ("...with the eyes of a saint," he says in the letter recalling this.)

Ireland remains Catholic, and very, very puritanical. It is Joyce's last and funniest joke that he has, by the sheer force of his genius and international reputation, tricked them into commemorating a Hand Job every year on June 16 (Bloomsday).

Even if the truth ever gets published in the Irish press -- which still prefers to say evasively that June 16, 1904 was the day Jim and Nora "first walked out together" -- they couldn't stop Bloomsday now. The Joyce Industry is a large part of the tourist business and Ireland lives largely on tourism. Which means, bedad, that they're all living partly on the legacy of a Hand Job!

I so want to visit Dublin and attend the Bloomsday celebrations sometime in my life (and, who knows, maybe I'll get a handjob too!)

 

[sunstruck]

Where did that story come from?

 

[Dillinger]

It was researched by Robert Anton Wilson who also happens to be a Joyce scholar and spent quite a bit of time living in Dublin himself. The actual documentation can be found in the letters he refers to.

 

[Guest]

I so want to visit Dublin and attend the Bloomsday celebrations sometime in my life (and, who knows, maybe I'll get a handjob too!)

Dilly, give us a call. We'll have a crack and pints of Guinness.

I might get drunk enough to give you a hand job.