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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   Want to read "Ulysses"? Everett Community College instructor Roger Berger will teach "Demystifying Ulysses," a five-session course in the James Joyce novel through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a University of Washington program new to Everett. The class, for adults ages 50 and up, starts July 1 at the Everett Senior Activity Center. Information: www.osher.washington.edu or 206-685-7372.   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, June 14, 2009 This summer, open up to James Joyce classic By Julie Muhlstein, Herald Columnist Roger Berger knows where he won't be on Tuesday. He won't be in Dublin. He won't be walking the streets of the Irish capital, chugging his way through a beery pub crawl or retracing the steps of fictional character Leopold Bloom. Around here, Bloomsday may best be known as a 12-kilometer footrace attracting thousands of runners each May to Spokane. The Lilac City's tourism industry has nothing on Dublin. The Irish city is the setting of James Joyce's massive, brilliant and confounding novel "Ulysses." The book's entirety takes place in Dublin -- and in Bloom's meandering thoughts -- on one day, June 16, 1904. In Joyce's life, it was the day he first went out with Nora Barnacle, the woman he would marry. In Dublin, the date is marked annually with a weeklong Bloomsday Festival. There are readings and re-enactments, literary talks, walking tours, and film showings. Here in Everett, Berger will spend Tuesday grading papers. He's an English instructor at Everett Community College. This spring quarter, he taught Modern American Literature and English 102, which required a research paper. Nobody read "Ulysses" in Berger's classes this year. It's a book more apt to be tackled in upper-division university courses, he said. "We don't really teach a tremendous amount of literature at the community college," said Berger, 56, who taught at Wichita State University and Wabash College in Indiana before coming to Everett. These days, most students don't have patience for difficult fiction. "If they don't like a book in the first four pages, they don't want to read it," he said. Even so, Berger won't give up on "Ulysses." He loves the book. He's read it so many times he's lost count. This summer, he'll help other students read it when he teaches "Demystifying Ulysses" at the Everett Senior Activity Center. The five-session course is offered through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a University of Washington program new to Everett. The membership program is for adults ages 50 and older. There are no grades, no exams, and no college credits earned. "It's just for fun," Berger said. Fun? Countless readers would say so. "Ulysses," with its stream-of-consciousness style, parallels to Homer's "The Odyssey," and mind-boggling references to everything under the sun, will be celebrated Tuesday by Joycean scholars and fans the world over. In Seattle this weekend, a group called the Wild Geese Players was to spend Saturday afternoon staging the book's chapter 15, "Circe," at the University Bookstore. On the group's Web site, at www.wildgeeseseattle.org/Joyce/Bloomsday/2009.html, is a chapter description: "Stephen Dedalus and his friend Lynch, both very drunk, have entered Nighttown, Dublin's red-light district, in search of female companionship. Leopold Bloom, who has some paternal feelings for Stephen, has followed them. A long chapter full of hallucinations and nightmares, where Bloom confronts many of his unspoken desires." "Ulysses" is tough, but Berger thinks its appeal is easy to grasp. "It is based upon a very simple idea," he said. "Joyce really asks, 'Is life like a soap opera?' Except he would have thought in terms of an opera. He looks at a family -- a husband and wife, a daughter, and a son who died in infancy." Writers have explored family foibles and strengths since literature's start. "Joyce looks back at Odysseus's wife and son, and at Noah and Hamlet," Berger said. "He's really just asking if we reproduce this family structure throughout human history. All families are alike. "It feels very modern," Berger said. "The character whose thoughts we follow could be living today." Picture the Leopold Bloom of Dublin's past walking the streets of Everett today -- or Tuesday, Bloomsday. Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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