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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed, or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can can reason who can read

hello and welcome to bookworm this is Michael Silverblatt I'm speaking to you from

Dublin from the Marion Hotel where I am sitting with John Banville and several

visiting members associated with the Lannin Foundation.

We've come to Dublin for the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the day on which Julies takes place,

not the 100th anniversary of its publication. I assume that's yet to come. There'll be another big deal. John Banville

brought to give one of the addresses to the James Joyce Symposium began by acknowledging

that his own work is not work that takes on the encyclopedic world participant of the Joyceian frame, but rather of the unaccommodating world, the world which is in tandem with one's temptation to withdraw from it.

In fact, it's hard to say which came first the alienation or the hostility from the world

in response to the alienation.

So I thought I'd begin by asking you to, in a sense, recap what's been your position that the Bloom's Day has been more

a social than a literary function?

Well, I mean, who could disapprove a party?

I mean, it's been a big party, and it's been, I hope and it's been I hope enjoyable for people.

I envy these people who have the nerve to dress up in storeboaters and blazers and silk dresses

and go out about the streets.

They look very elegant and they look as if they're having a wonderful time.

My problem, I suppose, is that I am suspicious when tourist boards and political parties

and government ministers suddenly get very interested in literature.

...