May the 4th be with you! It’s Star Wars Day and the 83rd anniversary of the publication of Finnegans Wake.
"Van Gogh was mad; but I prefer the word exaltation, exaltation which can merge into madness, perhaps. In fact all great men have had that vein in them; it was the source of their greatness; the reasonable man achieves nothing."
- James Joyce
Vincent was born OTD in 1853
The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature by designer Peter Mendelsund and academic David Alworth, new from Penguin imprint Ten Speed Press. There's a chapter devoted to Mendelsund's explorations and ideas for Ulysses and Moby-Dick covers.
William Blake, an important influence on Joyce, was born OTD in 1757. His hammer-wielding creator Los appears in Proteus and the famous line “Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand?” echoes his Milton: “I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity."