The dead are in our thoughts frequently but few of us think about them as members of the community in which we live. But they are. In Anchorage, their names are on streets, sections of town, public buildings, businesses -- the Hotel Captain Cook, for instance.
Cemeteries, permanent homes for the dead, draw visitors who wish to pay their respects. The dead are part of written and oral tradition; they survive in stories passed down through generations. Many of us have the dead looking at us from photographs in our living room.
In Dublin, which I visited while in Ireland recently, the dead are intertwined with the living in large measure because of the Irish literary tradition.
It is virtually impossible for an educated person to walk the streets of Dublin without noticing the repeated literary references, especially references to James Joyce and the characters he created in short stories and novels. I passed a statue of Joyce going to and from my hotel.
Joyce, who died in 1941 at 58, was well aware of the power the dead hold over the living. His story "The Dead," set at a Christmas party circa 1900, brings the protagonist Gabriel Conroy into repeated contact with those who are gone. The story ends on a elegiac note, the living and the dead linked by the snow falling on them all.
The owners of No. 15 Usher's Island in downtown Dublin say their Victorian building is where the Christmas party took place. Never mind that the party is fictional. No. 15 is open to those who would like to have their own party, a reception or a wake in a Joycean setting.
Joyce wrote fiction in which reality plays a crucial role. His greatest creation, the novel "Ulysses," takes place in Dublin on June 16, 1904 -- Dublin as it existed on that day. One of the important locations in the story is No. 7 Eccles St., a real building but fictional home of Leopold Bloom. When No. 7 fell to urban renewal, a group of writers and their friends saved the front door. The door, a sacred relic, is now in a museum devoted to Joyce.
Anchorage has yet to have a fictional character like Bloom -- a man honored by the community as though he lived and died although he never existed. The power of this fictional character -- and Joyce's novel -- is so great that June 16 is celebrated around the world, especially in Dublin, as Bloomsday.
The enduring presence of Joycean references took a surprising turn in a pub where I had lunch with my wife. The Irish love horse racing, and the races from Cheltenham in England were on television above the bar. In the only complete race I saw, the winner was Martello Tower, paying 14-1 to the joy of my fellow patrons. The Martello Tower, now a museum near Dublin, is where the opening scene of "Ulysses" occurs -- as another guest and I noted with head-shaking laughter.
Dublin contains many other plaques, memorials and other references to departed literary lions, including George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and poet Patrick Kavanagh. At the Abbey Theater, founders William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory stare down at the audience from paintings mounted on the walls.
Bram Stoker, creator of Dracula, was born in Dublin, and after he died in 1912 at age 64, his ashes were brought to Dublin, his final resting place.
Dracula has no final resting place, and it is difficult to imagine him a member of any community, living or dead.
Michael Carey is an Alaska Dispatch columnist.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.