Leopold Bloom, proto-blogger

As Leopold Bloom sits on the pot reading “Matcham’s Masterstroke,” a prizewinning story in the magazine Titbits, he thinks about writing something himself. From the “Calypso” episode:

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).

Leopold Bloom, proto-blogger, collecting choice moments of domestic comedy.

Notice that the imagined byline merges Leopold and his wife Molly into a single self: there’s no indication elsewhere that Mr. Bloom has a middle name beginning with M. Androgyny runs through the novel. In the “Circe” episode of the novel, Mr. Bloom will be revealed as “a finished example of the new womanly man.”

And yes, cuffs were once used as writing surfaces.

Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)