On the way home today it was Molly Bloom's turn, via a magical reading by Sinead Cusack, to remind me that there are three utterly convincing characterisations in Ulysses. We have much to thank Nora Barnacle for. She turned Joyce into a major writer. It's not fair to equate her with Molly, and I hope I'm not doing so, but it's hard to imagine the splendid ordinariness of the novel without her.
How incredibly brave the two of them were to set up together, to leave Ireland behind. Especially Nora. The "remarkable in the commonplace" - I got that from Ellmann's biography. Not a bad definition of art, I suppose.
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