It is quite symbolic that a House of Books (<a href="/blog/back-to-the-future">Marsh Library</a>) happens to be one of the most remarkable features of the Land of Storytellers (Ireland). It is even more fitting that this Land's arguably most famous object is a book. To be precise, I probably should call it The Book - because this version of the Bible (the actual content of the book is Four Gospels), known as the Book of Kells, has over centuries become synonymous with Ireland itself.The Book is traditionally described as an “illustrated manuscript” but this description seems to bely its uniqueness. There are millions of copies of the Bible, and many of them are manuscripts. At least some of those manuscripts are illustrated in one way or another but the illustrations are what in the world of movies is called the “supporting cast”. The main "protagonist" featured by the manuscripts in question is still the “Word of God”. The Book of Kells essentially reverses the roles as its emphasis isn't really on the Word as such but rather on the way it gets delivered. It's tempting to say that every word, if not every letter, in the Book is a miniature picture - an exaggeration as such a statement may be, it emphasizes one's intuitive perception that the Book's images somehow transformed themselves into words, thus acquiring distinct and unequivocal meanings while keeping all their external beauty.&nbsp;The key component of that beauty is the material the pages are made of - vellum. Combined with a lichen-based dye, it produces warm colours giving off soft golden light. Add to it meticulously drawn letters and intricate patterns so firmly associated with the Book that they became its trademark - and here is the recipe for the phenomenon the above picture gives some vague idea of. Unfortunately, in case of the Book of Kells, imagination has to be heavily relied upon, because the actual book is protected by a glass case, and glass is a perfect spoil sport when it comes to nuanced qualities of light…

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A Talking Painting

As time passes, many old practices fade into oblivion. Nowadays, nobody travels by horse, hardly anybody sends handwritten letters (unless they are Christmas cards), and those using cash are probably already in the minority. It's quite possible that home-phone owners are about to become a minority, too… As time passes, many old structures disappear - or undergo a significant facelift, including a change of function. Castles (and even some palaces) become museums, private businesses, such as stores, banks or even theatres, move to a different area, or open under a new name in a completely restored building. While quite a few private homes must have remained in possession of the same family for generations, stumbling upon a public building that hasn't changed either its location or its function for centuries, is about as likely as running into a dinosaur. When I found myself in front of the house in the above picture, I realized that the experience was about as hair-raising, too. Marsh Library turned out to be a welcoming, quiet, cozy place - a great one to spend an hour or so on a rainy afternoon. It could be called “inconspicuous”, too - but for the fact that it's the first public library in Ireland, and by far the oldest one, because it opened in 1707 and has functioned as a library ever since!Among many wonders covered by this blog, there are groundbreaking ideas, remarkable places, unique and…well, wonderful people. And yet, it's that elegant and quiet house in the heart of Dublin that, arguably, comes the closest to the visceral meaning of “wonder” - that Hogwarts- or the nine-and-three-quarters platform-like mystery when you look at something that just can't exist because it somehow contradicts every law of Nature we know about. However, it's right there, in front of you…Those who might expect to plunge into mystery the moment they cross the threshold, will be disappointed. There are no dragons inside, and the only dungeon looks suspiciously like a regular basement. The staff doesn't wear mantles, either - rather, the librarians are modern people well versed in modern technology (Marsh is quite active on social media). Even the furniture doesn't look that medieval - until you are told that Jonathan Swift was sitting in that very chair when he wrote his harsh, devastating comment about a particular book in the margins of that very book. It took some convincing before the librarian agreed to bring the book in question from the vaults for a brief inspection. Usually, such viewing is done by appointment, and the worst imaginable crime visitors might commit is to touch the book in front of them - or any book on the shelves. And there are quite a few of those books.<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476692/7kwonders/DSCF_0643_6974c59a94.jpg" alt="DSCF0643.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476691/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_0643_6974c59a94.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476692/7kwonders/small_DSCF_0643_6974c59a94.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476692/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_0643_6974c59a94.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476692/7kwonders/large_DSCF_0643_6974c59a94.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Medieval guests were allowed to touch books - it would be difficult to read them otherwise! - but not to take them away. Just to ensure everybody would comply, the readers were accommodated in a…cage<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476942/7kwonders/DSCF_0665_bc317e5dc1.jpg" alt="DSCF0665.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476942/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_0665_bc317e5dc1.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476942/7kwonders/small_DSCF_0665_bc317e5dc1.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476942/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_0665_bc317e5dc1.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1675476942/7kwonders/large_DSCF_0665_bc317e5dc1.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">It's frozen images like that medieval cage or Swift's 300+ years-old comment presented in the 21st century, that help to both emphasize Marsh's uniqueness, and to gradually reconcile one's mind with its mystery.

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Back To The Future

…is a difficult matter - if you trust T.S. Eliot, that is. Naming castles seems to be much easier, as most of them are named after the area (for instance, Blarney Castle is located in the village of Blarney). That principle produced a lot of alliteration in the Loire Valley, where quite a few town names start with “ch” - and all of them have a castle! Considering that the French word for “castle” is “chateau”, a rather unique “ch” song echoes throughout the area - Chateau de Chambord, Chateau de Chaumont, Chateau de Chenonceau, Chateau de Chantilly… Occasional castles bear the names of their hereditary owners or the architects who built them - Baynard's Castle in London would be one such prominent example. A castle named after someone who never lived there or even visited would be an oddity - Ireland, of all places, can boast such a wonderful oddity.King John ordered a castle to be built in Limerick because of the strategic importance of the Shannon river. Wikipedia advises that “…the castle…was built to protect the city from the Gaelic kingdoms to the West and from any rebellion by Norman lords to the East and South”. In other words, that particular castle served to command the area rather than provide safety for its inhabitants. It was a military outpost, not a home - there might have been some “captains' rooms” there but hardly any “young ladies'” ones! Almost five centuries later the castle played its part in the crucial War of Two Kings, as it became one of the main strongholds of Jacobite forces resisting the multinational army led by James' son-in-law William of Orange (among other things, the outcome of the war determined that Ireland would remain under firm English control for additional 200+ years). Fast forward several centuries, and King John's castle faced the same challenges as its counterparts in Blarney, Bunratty and other places: how to remain historical without becoming history. Built on an island, it could hardly find space for a <a href="/blog/a-walk-in-the-park">folk park</a> or an <a href="/blog/an-enchanted-forest">enchanted forest</a> - and modern technology combined with medieval authenticity came to rescue instead.The nature of warfare might have changed dramatically over time but medieval soldiers needed to practice, just like modern ones do. So, the castle had a large training area where soldiers would use swords, shields and helmets, bows and arrows. Human nature never changes, and every now and then medieval humans needed to unwind, just like their grand-grand-grand-sons do - and part of the training area would be temporarily converted into a playground where servicemen played hopscotch, tug-of-war or board games. Much of the equipment is still there waiting for the visitors to try their hand at.<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674887190/7kwonders/DSCF_9625_f16d8736f3.jpg" alt="DSCF9625.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674887190/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_9625_f16d8736f3.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674887190/7kwonders/small_DSCF_9625_f16d8736f3.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674887190/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_9625_f16d8736f3.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674887190/7kwonders/large_DSCF_9625_f16d8736f3.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Even before trying their hands at various medieval activities, castle visitors are encouraged to lay those hands on interactive touch-screens, quite literally. When they do, history comes… well, not exactly alive but very much animated, and in more ways than one. For instance, a very lively - and obviously proud of his status and skills - master-builder offers a three-minutes' lecture on how masons should claim their daily earnings by leaving their personal “signature” (usually, it would be a picture of the tool associated with that particular mason) on every stone they cut and placed during that day…&nbsp;

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The Naming Of Cats

The word “castle” quickens the pulse of history buffs and hopeless romantics. For the former, it's where most of the medieval elite lived, where crucial battles were fought, important decisions and, eventually, history itself were made. For the latter, it's where knights (some of them in shining armor) were courting and occasionally saving damsels (many of them in distress); where young heroes kept their faith even in - and found their way out of - dungeons, as Sir Walter Scott would keep reminding everybody who was willing to listen/read… In reality, castles weren't built to provide writers with attractive settings, or to let architects exercise their creativity and sense of aesthetics - but rather to protect the inhabitants from belligerent neighbours and roaming gangs. In other words, castles started as regular abodes erected with safety in mind, first and foremost. Hence moats, narrow and winding staircases, dungeons for unwelcome guests, and similar features. While safety came first, comfort and privacy came fourth, firth and sixth - if at all. Consequently, castles could be cold (unless very close to an open fire) and rather gloomy (apart from those occasions when multiple torches would serve big gatherings) - not always much to write home about. That's why, as time passed, and safety gradually became less of an issue, many castle owners preferred to move to more comfortable homes - and try to turn their castles into tourist attractions. Since not every castle can claim a legendary <a href="/blog/the-gift-of-gab">stone</a>, attracting tourists proved to be not exactly a walk in the park. To meet the challenge, the owners of Bunratty Castle decided to create another magnet by building a…park. To be precise, a Folk Park.<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674269125/7kwonders/DSCF_9680_eff90ec2dd.jpg" alt="DSCF9680.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674269125/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_9680_eff90ec2dd.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674269125/7kwonders/small_DSCF_9680_eff90ec2dd.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674269125/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_9680_eff90ec2dd.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674269125/7kwonders/large_DSCF_9680_eff90ec2dd.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">“Folk Park” is another name for “<a href="/blog/sainte-marie-among-the-hurons">Open-Air Museum</a>”. This concept first appeared towards the end of the 19th century, and it quickly spread over Northern Europe, eventually reaching all over the continent and even across the Atlantic. The idea of such a museum is to preserve historical buildings from all over the country and transfer them to a particular location where they would recreate a village typical of a certain age - or to build exact copies of such buildings on an actual historical site. Bunratty Folk Park is of the former type, and it has an added value of being attached to an actual historical castle. It's the combination of the two that makes Bunratty unique. There are 32 structures scattered throughout the Park, 12 of them - a pub, a post-office, a grocery store, and such - forming the Village Street.&nbsp;<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674272270/7kwonders/DSCF_9817_8d0c1ba386.jpg" alt="DSCF9817.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674272270/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_9817_8d0c1ba386.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674272270/7kwonders/small_DSCF_9817_8d0c1ba386.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674272270/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_9817_8d0c1ba386.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1674272270/7kwonders/large_DSCF_9817_8d0c1ba386.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">All the street buildings are fully functional, and that helps to boost the Castle&amp;Park's revenue - as do Bunratty Medieval Banquets. For the merely exorbitant price of 165 Euro, visitors can sate their hunger and quench their thirst in the authentic banquet hall, while using authentic medieval cutlery and being served by waiters in authentic medieval attire. Kitschy as such an experience might feel, Bunratty's blend of business acumen and historicism is genuinely remarkable&nbsp;

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A Walk In The Park

Blarney is by far the most famous of about 30,000 Irish castles - and it owes its fame to the legendary stone, “legendary” being a matter of fact rather than a flattering description. Legends, discussing the origins of the Blarney Stone, range from “a stone used as a pillow by Jacob when he dreamt about the Ladder” to “a ”thank you" gift by a Scottish king to the then current owner of the castle who had allegedly sent his troops to assist the king in a crucial battle" - with all kind of mythology in-between. While <a href="/blog/rhyme-in-its-prime">no mere fact should stand in a way of a great story</a> (and legends ARE great stories, first and foremost), facts do exist, and it might be worth checking them every now and then, just in case. As it happens, mineralogical analysis indicated that the Blarney Stone must have come from just to the south of the castle, while some archive pictures and drawings suggested that the stone had been absent from its current location until, at least, 1888. Considering all that, as well as the inevitable presence of cleaners (touching something previously touched by thousands of other people is not exactly hygienic), and the much more annoying, while objectively much less inevitable, presence of commercial photographers right next to the stone, the stone-kissing adventure might not necessarily be the focal point of just about everybody's visit to Blarney, after all. &nbsp;Visitors to Blarney have quite a menu to choose from. The castle itself, partially rebuild, still looks and feels very medieval, with all its battlements, dungeons and even a Murder Hole - an opening in the floor meant to allow castle defenders to greet unwelcome guests with boiling liquids, arrows, stones (others than the Blarney One!), and similar presents. When more peaceful times came, the hole was covered with a grating - to prevent absent-minded tourists from falling through it, thus justifying its name in a creative new way. Some other names, such as “Earl's Bedroom” or “Young Ladies' Room” are more domestic-sounding but the rooms themselves still look way less cozy than their names imply<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/7_d39336f42d.webp" alt="7.webp" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/thumbnail_7_d39336f42d.webp 245w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/small_7_d39336f42d.webp 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/medium_7_d39336f42d.webp 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/large_7_d39336f42d.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Irish fascination with names (and Nature!) continues outside as the castle grounds are full with such "charming" names as “Carnivorous Courtyard” and "Poison Garden" (to be fair, the truly cute-sounding “Arboretum” should be mentioned, too). The latter, its grim aura notwithstanding, is an important educational project, as the Garden features a variety of poisonous plants, each of them carefully explained and classified… One might wander around the Blarney grounds for quite a while until stumbling upon their westmost part marked on the map as “Rock Close”, and passing through its invisible borders. Then time stops…On the map, Rock Close does seem to cover a significant part of the premises but it doesn't feel too sizeable - a small park, if not even a big garden. Meandering paths occasionally blocked by logs, humming brooks spanned by toy-like bridges, gnarled trees looking like sentries guarding a troll camp,<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg" alt="DSCF0050.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/small_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/large_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">and 14 story-telling stops - the heart and soul of the area turning a garden/park into an Enchanted Forest. &nbsp;The word “enchanted” implies fairy tales full of magical creatures - witches, druids, fairies themselves (or else WHO would tell the tale and grant the listeners' wishes?!) - and so there is Witches' Kitchen and Witches' Stone, Druids' Circle and Druids' Cave, and Fairy Glade to boot. Among other stops one would find the above-mentioned Sentry Post, as well as Waterfall, Sacrificial Altar and Forest Trail... So boosted by delightful sights and sounds, one's imagination runs rampant and turns a castle visit into an almost Disney-like adventure. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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An Enchanted Forest

A country that knows how to appreciate good stories, can't possibly fail to produce great word-crafters - and Ireland is the best proof of that. Through the ages, Dublin alone can boast more than 50 writers, some of them - such as James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett - are world-renowned. The latter three, along with Seamus Heaney, are also among the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Not too bad for a half-a-million city - and neither is Irish love affair with words limited to several major literary genres (novels, stories, poems and plays) and <a href="/blog/rhyme-in-its-prime">witty, salty rhymes</a>. It turns out that, at least, some Irish can coin words and use them as duel weapons - as did one Cormac Ladhrach MacCarthy when informed that Queen Elizabeth I showed undue interest in his hereditary castle of Blarney.&nbsp;MacCarthy must have been fond of his castle because he clearly didn't feel like parting with it. That said, he was careful not to insult the Queen's special envoy, the Earl of Leicester, either. So, he talked - and talked some more; and wrote letters “filled with excuses and diversions”. The Earl forwarded the letters to the Queen and asked for instructions. She offered none because, resolute and smart as she was, she couldn't match MacCarthy's eloquence and intricate logic. Extremely frustrated, Elizabeth I gave up on her attempts to take over the castle, not wanting to resort to brute force when confronted with elegance and inventiveness. She vented her frustration by exclaiming: "That's nothing but a load of Blarney - or so the legend goes - and a new English word was brought into the world, inspired by a man who just used a little help from a family friend.To be precise, pagan goddess Cliodhna was not exactly a friend but rather a patroness of Ladhrach's ancestor, Laidir. It was she who advised Laidir to kiss the first stone he would see in the fields, on his way to the court where he was about to defend his case. He did - and his eloquent speech completely carried the day. Subsequently, the stone was transferred to the castle and incorporated into its walls. Initially, kissing the stone must have been but a family tradition but then it spread. A certain Winston Churchill is said to travel to Blarney to test the stone's qualities in 1911 or 1912 - who knows if that trip resulted in his famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech more than quarter-a-century later…

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The Gift Of Gab

Dublin Free Walking Tour Southside started right in front of the GPO (General Post Office) building that still sports scars caused by bullets that had been shot during the 1916 Easter Uprising. The guide mentioned the fact and…never said another word about any hostilities for the duration of the tour, the rest of it being devoted to Life and Fun. The very first stop clearly indicated what the Irish idea of Life and Fun (renowned in Ireland as “craic”) was.The guide stopped in the middle of O'Connell bridge, next to a plaque (on the picture above). It turned out that the plaque, commemorating a previously unknown war hero, had been installed upon request/suggestion of two brothers from Dublin who allegedly produced a proof of that person participating in the War of Independence. After a while some people began to find the “suspicious circumstances” the text referred to, a bit too suspicious. The hero's name, Pat Noise, struck them as possibly being just that, noise! One of the doubters happened to be an investigative journalist…Long story short, Pat Noise was proven to be an absolute fake. He never existed. The name chosen by the brothers was an alliteration of “Pater Noster”, Latin for “Our Father” - and the man depicted, in fact, was their father! In other words, all the plaque-related hype was nothing more than a practical joke. The whole situation bordered on an outrage: a city-approved fake in the very heart of Dublin. Citizens demanded to end the embarrassment by removing the plaque right away, the City Council convened and decided…to keep the plaque where it was. Explanation? “No mere fact should stand in a way of a good story!” &nbsp;It's good stories that are the heart and soul of Ireland. Some of them are complex and philosophical (like “Ulysses”), others are short and poignant or sympathetic (like “Dubliners”). Some - when it comes to people and events many Irish view as ridiculous - are even shorter, and salty rather than sweet. That's why the man who objectively deserves to be called “The Irish Homer” is known as “<a href="/blog/the-irish-homer">A Prick With A Stick</a>”. Quite often, statues on public display would be rhymed in multiple ways - to cover every aspect of the ridicule. For instance, the following harmless saleswoman<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg" alt="DSCF9382.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/small_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/large_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">has to live with such names as “A Dolly With A Trolley”, “A Flirt In A Skirt”, and “A Tart With A Cart”. Not very friendly but not really hostile, either - not if compared with the abuse suffered by the newest addition to Dublin, a substitute of a blown-up statue of Admiral Nelson.<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441816/7kwonders/download_5101bfe7ce.jpg" alt="download.jpg" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441816/7kwonders/thumbnail_download_5101bfe7ce.jpg 121w," sizes="100vw">Officially, the unfortunate object is known as “The Spire” but its unofficial definitions are way less neutral - “A Stiletto In A Ghetto”, “A Stiffey By The Liffey”, and “An Erection At The Intersection”!&nbsp;Practical jokers with sharp tongues, the Irish know how to appreciate a good pun, too. Dublin's most popular entertainment area is called Temple Bar - an obvious oxymoron, isn't it? Not if you know that “Temple” is the family name of the biggest landlord in that area, and “Bar” has nothing to do with an establishment selling drinks but is rather a tribute to a sandbar located nearby for centuries.The variety of Irish stories doesn't end here, and the best is yet to come as the following story left its mark not only on a particular statue or city area but on the English language as a whole. It started with a tax, the window tax imposed by the City on business owners. Most paid but the Bank of Ireland - seemingly the most destitute of all of them - decided it couldn't afford to. So, the bank management ordered all of their windows cemented over - and kept working by candle light. That fiscal summersault became known as a “Daylight Robbery”, and - as a New Year's Eve entertainment - I'll leave it to my readers to parse it in as many ways as they can come up with!&nbsp;

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Rhyme In Its Prime

Around 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. In the next 582 years or so, Gutenberg's invention helped to produce more than 156 million books. Most of them went unnoticed, many drew some interest, and still quite a few books became popular. Precious few of those managed to squeeze into the coveted “extremely popular” category. A book can be considered extremely popular if thousands around the world choose to spend a night in front of bookstores where that book is about to become available, starting from next morning - just to be among its very first owners. Upon purchasing and reading the book, its devotees join fan clubs, create websites focusing on that book and/or its author, engage in cosplays, and write fanfics including even Encyclopedias. For instance, an Encyclopedia of Tolkien is a “comprehensive illustrated guide to the history, lands and inhabitants of Middle-Earth”. Similarly, “The Encyclopedia of Potterworld” is an “authoritative directory of all the creatures, characters, places and other elements that comprise the Harry Potter universe”. In other words, these guides provide information about the world of the book thus helping its readers to better familiarize themselves with that world and adding to their enjoyment of exploring it. However, almost no guide aims at helping anybody to actually read a book. I say “almost” because there is one book, James Joyce's “Ulysses”, that does require such a guide.It is beyond belief that a literate person with no reading comprehension problems might struggle to read a book of fiction (specialized scientific books or arcane religious texts is an altogether different matter). Yet, one of the most repetitive sentences in the guide in question is “…here you will be tempted to give up. Don't!” It might sound less surprising if we recall that “Ulysses” is the ultimate example of “stream of consciousness” - a literary style that quite simply has no analogues. Even so, one has to actually try to read from the book, word by word and sentence by sentence, to fully understand the meaning of: “a character's thoughts and feelings are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue”. As the author of the guide put it, "reading “Ulysses” is not something you would do on a Saturday morning, with a cup of coffee in your hand". It's hard work, not a pastime; academic studies rather than fun and enjoyment. Unsurprisingly, these studies are undertaken in groups (in person or online), and they are supported by ten or so reference books the guide in question is a streamlined version of. What is not only surprising but outright bewildering is why many people decide to undertake those studies.“Many” might, in fact, be misleading as “multitudes” seems to be a better word. <a href="https://www.ulyssesguide.com/">UlyssesGuide.com</a> is visited by hundreds of thousands a month, and they come from all over the world. Even more stunning, thousands actually come every year from all over the world - to a particular place (Dublin) on a particular day (June 16) - to celebrate “Ulysses” and participate in readings and other activities related to the novel. That tradition alone turns “why” into an even more pressing question- why a novel featuring no knights in shining armor and no damsels in distress; no precocious wizards and no indomitable warriors inspiring their comrades with their own version of the Gettysburg Address? The last thing that can be found in “Ulysses” is “there will be a day…but it's not this day!” - because “Ulysses” as such is all about “this day” - June 16, 1904. &nbsp;On the surface, the whole book is about ordinary people running ordinary errands, while engaged in idle conversations or petty squabbles - hardly a recipe for a bestseller. Deeper down, “Ulysses” - though deliberately limited to a particular time and place - reveals itself as timeless and omnipresent, as it's intrinsically connected to the world at large. Its very title (and the titles of all its chapters) and structure echo antiquity and its greatest poet, Homer; its characters coming from <a href="/blog/gods-work">“Dubliners”</a> and <a href="/blog/james-of-all-genres">“A Portrait…”</a> are a tribute to Balzac and the whole French school of social realism; its two protagonists, granting access to their unfiltered thoughts, could serve as a perfect case study for Freud and his school of thought… Equally important, the way the story is told blurs the distinction between past and present, myth and reality, because quite often it's impossible to determine if the narrated events actually happen(ed) - and if so, when. &nbsp;The ultimate secret of “Ulysses”' appeal to so many people might be its multifaceted nature resulting in a chameleon ability to offer everyone exactly what that particular person seeks. That ability came at a cost as Joyce had to combine his extensive knowledge and unbridled imagination with ultimate ruthlessness allowing him to depict his characters (essentially all of them had prototypes) exactly as they were. That's why the man on the picture who fully deserved to be referred to as “the Irish Homer” is rather known among his fellow countrymen as “A Prick with a Stick”! &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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The Irish Homer

Reinventing a city by populating it with an array of larger-than-life - yet utterly realistic - characters is a remarkable literary feat but not a unique one. Nor was Joyce the first to accomplish that feat as Honore de Balzac's “The Human Comedy” had beaten the “Dubliners” by a little bit more than half-a-century. The French writer produced a massive bulk of 91 works, many of them novels - as opposed to Joyce's 15 stories (to be fair to Joyce, it took him three years to complete those stories, while Balzac spent 19 years to create his most important legacy).“The Human Comedy” is a collection of interconnected novels featuring mostly the same set of characters, each character epitomizing hir social segment and/or psychological type. The events described in the novels are happening in the same city (Paris) and within roughly the same period of time, and the narrator/author shifts the focus from one character (or even a whole family) to another, depending on the title of a given novel. This almost cinematic technique results in a character, briefly introduced or even casually mentioned in one novel, becoming the main protagonist of another. Taken together, those characters provide for a comprehensive picture of the French society in the first quarter of the 19th century. In terms of painting the big picture of his contemporary Irish society. Joyce's approach to “Dubliners” was quite similar, but his characters wouldn't migrate between the stories. “Dubliners” were about to set the stage for bigger literary forms, and an autobiographical novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” marked the next breakthrough in Joyce's literary exploration.&nbsp;While “Dubliners” is a wide panorama focusing on the society, the “Portrait…” is…well, just that - a portrait, and its focus is almost solely on the individual whose inner life by far dominates everything that is going on around him. &nbsp;The rest of the characters looks almost like “the king's retinue” in comparison - yet, those characters both contribute to the above-mentioned social panorama and represent the two most important issues Joyce's alter-ego Stephen Dedalus (and Ireland as a whole) is struggling with - God and Parnell. In other words, Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. As the title of Joyce's novel indicates, Dedalus, torn between the two, chooses neither - and so did his creator. It was the third path, that of an Artist, that ultimately led Joyce towards one of the most inexplicable literary pinnacles of all time. &nbsp; &nbsp;

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