Thanks, Katie and Jesse. (Though, glancing at melymbrosia's list, she's almost as historical-exclusive as I am.)

Some Bloomsday humor.

I love this part:

that virus - called Bloomsday - appears to have been developed by an international group specialising in creating literary viruses that try to "show illiterate technophiles the power of the written word."

Some Bloomsday humor.

Ha! I love it.

"I was really freaked out when I turned on my phone and found this convoluted narrative mess crawling across my screen," said Jack Clemson, a University of Washington student who owns one of the first known infected phones. ""Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed…" I was pretty sure that wasn't my girlfriend texting me about lunch."

I haven't read Ulysses, but I love Portrait of the Artist. And I don't get "Araby."

I avoid the Joyce hoopla, but I loved Ulysses, and I loved the short stories. This is an old, old conversation for me; I wasn't aware that American students were made to read him in school. I picked him up on my own while young - 14 or thereabouts - didn't understand a word of it the first time through, but got utterly and completely fucking stoned off the language. I was literally reeling around and giggling. I think I got trhe James Joyce chromosome in place of the Tolkein chromosome.

beth, isn't Hecht great? Masks is next on my list.

I like this:

"Ulysses may be the zenith of modernist writing in the novel form, but it's barely recognizable as a novel or as any other kind of writing," said Francis Harrod, of the anti-virus software developer F-Secure. "Of course the same can be said of text messaging"

That was hilarious, Maysa.

There is a whole new set of romances out there where there are no tricks. There are misunderstanding - even lies, but everything is understood - as in oh, you thought I was only in your life for three hours so when I missunderstood you you just sort of left it alone - and them it snowballed. In other words the characters invovled have enough brains to understand , without being dramatic - talking things out, briefly, leads to understanding ( and a good story for the grandkids) Also - there are heroines that are - 30 or even 40.

Jane heller- Princess Charming and Crystal Clear.-- both take our heroine to another place.

Jennifer Cruisie start With Welcome to temptation.

I'll comback with more tonight.

If there were a throwdown to determine the reigning monarch of Modernism, Virginia Woolf would whup James Joyce's ass so badly he'd be crying for his mommy all the way home to Dublin.

The hardest (in terms of non-linear plot and of adventurism with language) thing I've ever read is the "Illuminatus!" trilogy. Sometimes the characters are stoned, sometimes they're flashing to multiple time streams, sometimes they appear out of nowhere and disappear never to be seen again, sometimes the character speaking changes to someone else who is somewhere else mid-stream. Plus you've got a millennia-spanning, multi-cultural conspiracy tracking through the whole thing.

I adore it.

If there were a throwdown to determine the reigning monarch of Modernism, Virginia Woolf would whup James Joyce's ass so badly he'd be crying for his mommy all the way home to Dublin.

Ooh. I see summer movie potential. Ballistic: Woolf vs. Joyce.