Bloomsday for Cab Drivers / 3: Dealing with Joyce Fanatics
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Click on the picture to see a larger version.
Statue of James Joyce, North Earl Street, Dublin. Photograph by Thorsten Pohl, September 2005.

The statue was created by Irish sculptor Marjorie Fitzgibbon and unveiled on Bloomsday, 1990.

Source:
Wikipedia. Click here to view source.

Bloomsday for Cab Drivers / 3

Dealing with Joyce Fanatics

Be warned -- the true Joyce fanatic will want to show off his or her knowledge of the Master and his works while simultaneously testing the extent of your own.

That's where these pages will come in handy. They're designed as a crash course that will give you some instant expertise on the theme of cabs and cab drivers in Ulysses.

This is something that not too many Joyce fans can claim. Not even the ones who have actually read the book.

Our cab driver's tour of Ulysses covers these topics:

  • Some essential background on James Joyce and Ulysses;
  • The "hazard", or cab stand;
  • Jaunting cars and fourwheelers (two- and four-wheeled cabs);
  • Jarvies (cab drivers); and
  • The Cabmen's Shelter.

There should be enough material here to last the length of a cab trip, but if you use it all up too soon, don't panic.

Nine-tenths of the people who affect an intimate knowledge of Ulysses are probably trading on what they memorized from their roommate's garbled notes on the night before the final exam, so if you've got the nerve, feel free to invent your own Ulysses quotes and try them out on your passengers.

It's not too likely that any of them will penetrate your facade. They'll probably be doing the same thing themselves.

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