There are many authors past, and present for that matter, who have colourful careers, whether in their personal lives, or in their written word.

James Joyce, an Irishman, was a novelist and poet - 1882-1941. His life experiences living across two centuries contributed to his narrative style. His most famous novel published in 1922 was Ulysses, which chronicles the experiences of three Dubliners over the course of a single day. He drew from a multitude of parallels, such as the characters of Odysseus with his main characters as well as Hamlet, and many literary, religious, and mythological figures. The celebration of the work is named after the novel's protagonist Leopold Bloom. Interestingly, Joyce chose the date the narrative is set on as the same date he had his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.

He quoted: "The pity is ... the public will demand and find a moral in my book—or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it. ... In Ulysses I have recorded, simultaneously, what a man says, sees, thinks, and what such seeing, thinking, saying does, to what you Freudians call the subconscious."

This quote shows quite literally his way of thinking about his own work, a delightful glimpse into his mind, I think.

Joyce contributed to the modernist movement and is regarded among the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. No mean feat for any writer, now or then. His other notable works are: Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Have you read any James Joyce?