And, in fact, winnowing is the wrong metaphor, since a good deal of what I chose not to include was anything but chaff. A process made more difficult by the fact that several of the poets whose work I have reluctantly turned away are people who have become my friends during these Molly Bloom years. Until then, here is another bumper crop of new poetry to enjoy, winnowed from the largest pile of submissions yet received round these parts. Now, however, eight years since Molly came into internet being – and 41 since her brief initial flowering as a print publication – this 25th online issue will be the last for a while. This is (or at least so I intend) merely au revoir, not goodbye for ever.
So it’s with some pride that Molly now reaches a quarter-century of online episodes – all of which you can still catch here: Previously in Molly Bloom. Three issues and out was, he reckoned, the norm for little mags. Equally if not more likely, though, the mystery surrounding Molly’s heritage is part of Leopold’s perspective on his wife, and leaving her Irishness and Jewishness in question is a reflection of her semi-estranged husband’s conflicted feelings about her.It was exactly seven years ago, with the release of the fourth issue of Molly Bloom as an online magazine, that one contributor congratulated me on getting beyond what he had observed as the common expiry point of such ventures. Joyce, famously finicky and precise, would get a kick out of that.
My first thought was, this would be a great joke on Joyce’s part - to have the Catholic Molly actually be Jewish due to her mother’s lineage, while the self-identified Jew Leo has a non-Jewish mother and therefore isn’t considered Jewish by traditional religious law. Apparently it’s a matter of unsettled scholarly debate because Molly’s mother’s name, Lunita Laredo could well be Sephardic.Īnd yet, throughout the novel Molly identifies Leopold as the Jew and herself as an Irish Catholic. But what I never realized is that, in the maze-like text of “Ulysses,” there are a few clues that she may be a Jewess too. Molly Bloom, born Molly Tweedy, is a beloved feminist heroine, an unforgettable character in the literary pantheon and an enigma, since most of the novel is from her husband’s perspective. And she loves him too, despite infidelity and tragedy, as revealed by her famous stream-of-consciousness monologue that closes out the novel - and usually closes out Bloomsday readings as well. Leopold adores Molly even though their marriage is on the rocks. He also has an amusing streak of sexual voyeurism and an abiding love for his curvaceous bombshell of a wife, Molly Bloom. And why should the holiday, celebrated the 16th of June (when all of main action of “Ulysses” takes place), not appeal to both groups? The novel’s incredibly likable everyday hero, Irishman Leopold Bloom - the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother - has a deeply empathetic outlook on the world and a good comeback on hand to hurl at antisemites (reminding them their Savior was a Jew). Bloomsday, the semi-official holiday dedicated to the celebration of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” has become a favorite festival for both Irish and Jewish folks of the literary persuasion.
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