English department puts on a marathon

Just before 8 a.m. Thursday, graduate student Erik Bohman seemed alone on campus. Outside of Ballantine Hall, he stood with a stack of books and a small sign he had made the night before.

“IU ENGLISH PRESENTS A MARATHON READING OF JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES,” read the sign.

The morning was still chilly, and Bohman wore a jacket as he waited to begin. A few friends walked by, saying hello before heading inside to Ballantine.

“Hey there,” said one passer-by in a blue button-up. “I heard about this yesterday — looks good. Are you going to finish it?”

“We’re going to try,” Bohman said.

Bohman, along with graduate student Elise Lonich, organized the public reading of “Ulysses” as part of a program to help graduate and undergraduate English students. They have also organized weekly social hours at the PourHouse Café on Friday afternoons, and this was the final event of the year.

“We wanted to foster a community between the graduate students and the undergrads. We’ve been having activities all year, and this is the culmination of that,” Lonich said. “Day-long readings of ‘Ulysses’ are common. First of all, because it’s such a long book that everyone has heard of but nobody has actually read.”

Bohman said the novel, written by James Joyce in 1922, has been called the greatest English novel of the 20th century. The plot follows Leopold Bloom on an average day in Dublin in June of 1904.

“It’s a really fun text to read out loud. It’s also one you can appreciate without necessarily having to sit through the whole thing,” Bohman said.

The reading lasted from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Throughout the morning, people meandered by, stopping only slightly to hear a passage before moving on.

One young man came out of Ballantine, putting headphones in his ears. Then he saw the readers and stopped.

“Nice!” he said. He listened for a few moments, then put his headphones back in and walked off.

By 1:30 p.m., a small crowd had gathered. The stack of books Bohman had earlier were passed out to the 10 to 15 people in the courtyard as they followed along with the public speaker. The group was always changing, and as readers left, they passed their copy of “Ulysses” to the newcomers.

After every half-hour, the readers switched.

“Well this isn’t the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen,” said one passer-by to Lonich with a laugh. “Keep the strength.”

“We’re persevering,” Lonich said.