Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
If you ever get to Dublin, and are feeling literary, you can take a walking tour of Dubliners and see the houses and pubs where the stories take place. An audio guide includes readings and performances of the stories by a cast of famous Irish actors and actresses. (Source.)
James Joyce's personal notebook includes lists of books, his budgets, and quotations for the year he started writing Dubliners. It's online at the National Library of Ireland's website, along with other manuscripts and drafts from later in his career. Feeling nosy? Check it out.
Notoriously bad with money, Joyce told reporters that this iconic photograph of him in 1904—the year he started writing Dubliners—depicted a moment in which he hoped the photographer would loan him some money. Hey, we've all got problems.
For an author with such an amazing eye for detail, it's tragically ironic that poor Joyce was plagued by problems with his eyes. Thankfully, a Harvard forensic psychiatrist has given us the scoop on how medical problems affected Joyce and his writing.