On Friday, 29 October our class assembled outside the James Joyce Foundation. As it was a chilly morning, we decided to quickly enter the building where we were greeted by Fritz Senn, the director of the foundation and a renowned Joyce expert. He is an elderly man, very collected, with undoubtedly unrivalled knowledge.

There was a short silence, then he basically talked without drawing a single breath from start to finish. However, a pause was not needed as everyone followed his words with great interest. What we particularly remember from Mr Senn’s lecture, in which he talked about the life and works of Joyce in great detail, were his humorous interludes. You would, for example expect a Joyce expert to advertise or even glorify Joyce’s works. This was not the case with Mr Senn – in fact, he even described Finnegans Wake, Joyce’s last work, as utterly unreadable.

After a short break, Thomas Färber, a Joyce scholar and former teacher of English, took us on a tour through Zurich. He pointed out some interesting facts about Zurich in connection with Joyce, such as the spelling of Sjhl and Ljmmat at the Platzspitz. The installation was placed there by the artist Hannes Vogel and the two Js are dedicated to James Joyce, because the Platzspitz, where the two rivers meet, was his favourite place in Zurich. Another place we visited was the Dick & Davy café/bar at the University hospital. The place’s name is a reference to two medical students mentioned in Ulysses. The tour ended at the grave of Joyce at the Fluntern cemetery, where Mr Färber recited a very moving poem called “Ecce Puer”.

Class 6a & Katerina Vseticka Egli