Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged dog
Today being Bloomsday I thought it would be a good wheeze to persuade Casey to Gnaw-A-Barnacle.
(Nora Barnacle, 1884-1951, was James Joyce's lover, muse and eventual wife - and the inspiration for Molly Bloom. His passionate and highly erotic love letters to her are available to read on the Internet.)
When we reached the harbour the tide was in and only one suitably barnacled rock was accessible (albeit with wet paws). But anyway, Casey protested, barnacles are sharp, hard-shelled crustaceans with precious little meat in them and besides they are firmly attached to the rock. That's right, I explained - when James Joyce's father discovered that his son was involved with Nora Barnacle he remarked that with a name like that she would surely stick to him.
Casey's ears pricked up at the word 'stick' and he offered to gnaw one of those instead.
No, I said, Nora Stick won't cut the mustard.
By this time the waves were washing around Casey's legs and we decided to give the idea a miss.
Instead we were able to dip into the brilliant all-day dramatization of Joyce's Ulysses in its entirety on BBC Radio 4. It ends with Molly Bloom's famous soliloquy which you can listen to, read by Marcella Riordan, here if you have a few minutes to spare, and also see a delightful photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading the book.
My title is a reference to Dylan Thomas's filching of Joyce's title Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man .
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