This weekend, graduate students in the English Department gave new meaning to the phrase, "I couldn't put the book down!" For 30 hours Friday and Saturday, these devoted students plowed through over 900 pages of James Joyce's "Ulysses" during a reading marathon.
Along with the English graduate students, a crowd of University students, faculty and Charlottesville residents thronged to the amphitheater in honor of this very special event: the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday. What is Bloomsday, you might ask?
Bloomsday is a celebration honoring "Ulysses" by James Joyce that occurs around the world. According to the Official Bloomsday Centenary Festival Web site, on April 16, "1904, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom [the novel's main characters] each took their epic journeys through Dublin in James Joyce's 'Ulysses,' the world's most highly acclaimed modern novel."
Today, this day of remembrance is fondly referred to as Bloomsday. People celebrate this day with games, staged reenactments of the book and numerous readings of "Ulysses" internationally and especially in Dublin.
The University's English Department decided that, in honor of this day, they would put on a reading marathon of the book and invited everyone from the Charlottesville community and the University to attend.
"This is the first time the English Department has ever held a reading marathon before," said third-year English graduate student Maggie Simon, one of the event's key organizers.
The event was complimented by pleasant weather, adding to its success, according to participants.
"The wonderful weather brought the event into the amphitheater, which seemed the perfect stage for an epic event," said second-year English graduate student Paul Fyfe.
The idea for the marathon came from Paul Jost, a University professor of rhetoric and philosophy.
"I attended one of these marathons in college, and I always remembered it as a great communal experience," Jost said. "People forget how important it is to read a book aloud, and I believe this is a lost art that needs to be revived as much as possible."
Jost initially brought up the idea with his fellow colleagues, before mentioning it to his graduate students, who coordinated the event from there.
"I'm basically just the master of ceremonies," Jost said with a smile. "This event was almost entirely student run, with faculty support."
The event, scheduled to last 24 hours, centered on volunteers reading "Ulysses" for 10 minute intervals, and then switching off to let another person try his or her luck reading the challenging book.
"Many of Joyce's passages contain several different languages," said fourth-year English graduate student Mont Welch. "It makes the book even more challenging to read when you have to be concerned with the pronunciation of these words."
First-year English graduate student Sean Borton said he believed in the importance of the marathon.
"I feel like I'm taking part in a significant and earnest cultural event," Borton said. "It is wonderful to bring Joyce alive today. This event just shows that this book is just as relevant today as it was 100 years ago."
First-year English graduate student Bethany Mabee agreed.
"It's a great event that I couldn't wait to come out and support," Mabee said.
Other students, such as fourth-year College student Provi Spina, said they were simply interested in attending because of the curiosity generated by the event's widespread publicity.
"I saw blurbs about this event through e-mail," Spina said. "I'm not an English major, but I decided to come and support this event. I wanted to try and understand what it was all about."
As one of the co-organizers of the event and the "Ulysses" Web site designer for the marathon, Fyfe had many things to say about the personal meaning he found in the reading of this influential novel.
"We had all sorts of people coming through, and every voice brought out different aspects of the book. Every reading became a performance driven by different energies from this novel's inestimable potential," Fyfe said. "All the readers had to work. Surprisingly, 10 minutes of reading can be hard work with 'Ulysses' -- you get a double mouthful of Joycean verbiage. But it's great fun to articulate the text and to participate in the community of our wonderful English Department and University."
The event lasted far into the night. Along with the faithful readers still plugging away at "Ulysses," other entertainment was provided to help keep the marathoners awake.
"We have some audio copies of Joyce reading 'Ulysses' that we are going to play later," said second-year Ph.D. student Brad Tuggle. "We also found a high-quality version of 'The Dead' by Joyce that we will show."
According to Fyfe, even though the event was supposed to last only 24 hours, he said that he realized they had calculated incorrectly in the morning.
"We were scheduled, naively, to end after 24 hours at 10 a.m. Saturday," Fyfe said. "When we got there and realized that 150 plus pages still remained, the ready consensus was to keep going."
The event finally ended after 30 hours, as exhausted but satisfied Joyce fans returned to their homes. However, all of their hard work will not go unrecorded. The "Ulysses" copy that the group was reading will be placed in Bower's Library -- the English library -- which is located in Bryan Hall, as a commemorative object to show the hard work and dedication that University students put into this marathon.
"Everyone that is reading the main copy that we have of 'Ulysses' will be signing next to the part that they read, and then that copy will be placed in Bower's Library," English Prof. Stephen Arata said.
Participants said the event was a literary success to everyone's delight. Plans are being enacted now for a similar marathon reading to occur next year, but the book of choice is still up for debate.
"We'll be back next year with... another very long book?" Fyfe said. "Personally, I'm hoping to make 'Moby Dick' a 30-hours fast fish. But I'll get back to you in 10 months."
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