Bloom, Odysseus, Molly and Me

I put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant.

I have journeyed through Ulysses and have lived to tell the tale! This book is nothing but filled with highs and lows. The beginning and ending of the book are amongst the best of any book I have read, but the middle was a winding, secret path full of language and styles that I couldn’t quite grasp.

Ulysses has been described as a modernist thesaurus of possibility which, I think, says it all. When I think of Modernism, I think of Joyce and Woolf striving to write individual subjective experiences. They aren’t like Austen or Eliot whose narrators understand and interpret the world for the reader. But modernism is also a break from past traditions of culture, as well as writing; sexuality, humour, frankness, city scenes, consumerism and so on. What a revolution reading this book would be, if you had never even considered the possibility of a book capturing someone’s thoughts and listening to those thoughts as they come sprawling through white noise. To be able to read a book that represented your own life.

I think what made Ulysses a scandal is the same thing that makes it readable (in parts). For every classical allusion, there is a joke. There are crude bits, bodily bits, bawdy bits, rude bits. It is frank, honest, and real. Whilst these are things today’s reader can appreciate – I suppose because we have conversations that are all of those things – early readers found the novel depressing and chaotic. I wonder what people will make of it in the future? Imagine Ulysses being quaint and outmoded!

The sentences I really loved were the descriptive ones: Joyce certainly is a master of language. I wasn’t expecting to find sentences like the ones I quoted from Telemachus in a book like this one. And I’ll just mention again how great Molly’s soliloquy is… just so you know I really mean it. IT’S WORTH IT. When I read that episode I wished there had been more of her in the book, but I don’t think the chapter would have had such an impact. It’s impossible to think of ways Ulysses would have been improved, because every little detail that I didn’t like makes the book the book it is. For example, I didn’t like some of the styles Joyce used because I found them confusing, but if you take the experimental parts away then it just wouldn’t be the same.

I would recommend reading The Odyssey first, or at least try looking into the incidents that Joyce names his episodes after. According to Joyce, Odysseus was the greatest character in literature and Charles Lamb’s Adventures of Ulysses was a massive influence. This version of The Odyssey splits the story into individual tales, much like the structure of Ulysses itself. Leopold Bloom and Odysseus are, on the surface, very different people. The absolute ordinariness of Bloom’s day – and the book – meant (I think) that any man’s day is an Odyssey. The puzzles and enigmas referred to in the book aren’t always the classical, mythological, high brow references you might think – you can look those up, after all. The puzzles and difficult parts often occur from ordinary circumstances (like the horse race that confused me so greatly). To fully understand anyone’s life, any person’s thoughts is tricky.

All in all, its been good to read a book I was afraid of. I was taken on a voyage through Dublin, through the history of language, through style and thought and description. Reading Ulysses was my very own Odyssey.

The Nostos and the Chapter that Made it All Worthwhile

It is a drunken, sprawling night. It is the end of the day, everyone is a little bit worse for wear, and it is time to make tracks towards home.

Episode XVI –  Eumaeus, 1am, the Cab Shelter

As everyone is now quite drunk by this point, I didn’t pick up much of what was happening. I suppose these are the deep and seemingly meaningful conversations you have when you are drunk, that don’t stand up to the light of day. I had well and truly lost the thread of what was happening in this part.

The Odyssey: Eumaeus is the faithful swineherd in Ithaca who gives the disguised Odysseus shelter when he first returns home.

Episode XVII – Ithaca, 2am, the House

Reportedly Joyce’s favourite section. Perhaps because it is written in a weird question and answer format that reminded me of exam papers at school. Bloom is finally home for the night and goes through little routines that summarise the day’s events before he goes to sleep. A famous line I had heard before happens in this section:

• For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress?
  For a cat. 

The Odyssey: Ithaca is Odysseus’ home. When he returns, he arrives in disguise and doesn’t reveal his identity to everyone.

Episode XVIII – Penelope, 3am / unspecified, the bed

This chapter is SO GOOD. It is so good that it was worth reading all the preceding chapters – this was my reward. In fact, the episode of In Our Time I mentioned in my last post states that this is the best place to start. I would say that if you were going to read any snippet of Ulysses it should be this chapter. The last episode of the novel is a soliloquy from Bloom’s wife Molly. In other words, it is a five thousand word sentence. But in reading terms, it is joy.

• first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

The Odyssey: Penelope was Odysseus’ wife. She waited for him to return, stalling her many suitors by saying she would wed again only after she had finished a tapestry she was making. She would weave the tapestry during the day and unweave each day’s work at night.

I’VE READ ULYSSES! Wrap up post to follow soon, and then normal reading shall resume.

Sirens, Circe and the Devil’s in the Detail

I’m determined to finish this now! I’ve read too much to just give up. I was feeling ready to stop after the last couple of episodes, but after listening to the In Our Time podcast about Ulysses (radio 4, originally broadcast on Thursday) I am feeling much more excited again. To any other flagging Ulysses readers I highly recommend it.

Episode X – Wandering Rocks, 3pm, the Streets of Dublin

I enjoyed this section after the trickiness that the previous episodes have been but only after I got into the mindset of not caring who I was reading about, and just enjoying each scene as just that: a tiny piece of action, a small incident that happens on a normal day.

• Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary’s fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones. I think this could be Miss Havisham’s house. I enjoy reading Joyce’s descriptive sentences, I think because these seem to be what I am most used to reading.
• Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance. I just thought that quote was really funny to share with my fellow book bloggers!

The Odyssey: The wandering rocks are a group of rocks between which the sea is always violent. They are one of two routes home to Ithaca, Odysseus chooses to avoid them.

Episode XI – Sirens, 4pm, The Concert Room

More form to learn! This episode is to be read like a fugue, which is a technique in classical music where two or more voices sing and repeat a theme is introduced in the beginning. At first I thought this would be an awful chapter to understand (look at the first page!) but it has turned out to be my favourite so far. I went back and read the first couple of pages when I had finished and it made more sense. I liked it because of the direct parallel’s to the greek myths. I also started to feel sorry for Bloom and his knowing about Molly’s affair.

The Odyssey: Femme fatales that sing enchanting music to try to lure sailors onto the rocky coast of their island. They are only described as mermaids in folk-lore after The Odyssey, to Homer they looked like women.

Episode XII – Cyclops, 5pm, the Tavern

This section is written like an epic poem, with the actual plot mixed in. Is Joyce being ironic? He writes about things like a description of a handkerchief. Or is this part of the whole meaning behind Ulysses? Is the ordinary epic?

This section also made sense of the earlier incident (back in Lotus-Eaters, I think). Bloom meets a man called Bantam Lyons who asks for his newspaper. When Bloom says he was about to throw it away anyway, the man actually thinks he is being given a tip. Fun fact: A horse called Throwaway won the real life Gold Cup at Ascot on 16th June 1904. Thus proving that is must be pointless trying to read Ulysses without the help of the internet!

• Your God was a jew. When the Citizen is abusing Leopold I liked the people he listed as jewish, with the final dig being God.

The Odyssey: Cyclops are a race of one-eyed giants, Odysseus meets one called Polyphemus who eats some of his men. Odysseus manages to escape by blinding the cyclops with a heated stake. Right at the beginning of  the chapter, the unnamed narrator says Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?

Episode XIII – Nausicaa, 8pm, Rocks on the Strand

I liked this chapter – Joyce is writing in the style of a nineteenth century romance, and that is a style that I am familiar with! The scene is told from two different perspectives and they link up satisfyingly: The first is a young girl, Gerty, fantasising about romance, the second is a strange man watching her, who turns out to be Bloom. The first quotation is from Gerty’s thoughts, the second from Bloom’s.

• No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only, his affianced bride for riches and poor, in sickness in health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.
• Say a woman loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. […] Always know a fellow courting: collars and cuffs.

The Odyssey: Nausicaa is a young girl and possible love interest for Odysseus after she finds him washed ashore on her island.

Episode XIV – Oxen of the Sun, 10pm, the Maternity Hospital

I know Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are in the hospital where Mrs. Purefoy gives birth to a son. I know that Joyce traces the history of the English language in this episode. I didn’t find either of these things out by actually reading the chapter. I read it, and it made no sense to me at all.

The Odyssey: Also known as the Cattle of Helios, they are the sun god’s symbol of fertility. Odysseus tells his men not to harm them, but they are too hungry to obey. Zeus punishes the crew by destroying the ship with a lightening bolt.

Episode XV – Circe, 12am, the Brothel

This episode is SO LONG! About 150 pages long! I thought it would be ok to read because it is written as a play, complete with stage directions. I foolishly thought knowing who was speaking would be easier to follow. It wasn’t. Sigh. But this section isn’t as slow to read as you’d think from looking at it.

The Odyssey: Circe is a goddess of magic, who turns Odysseus’ men into pigs after a meal. Odysseus protects himself from her potions, frees his men and they stay on the island for a year, feasting. Not really learning a lesson, it would seem.

So… I have read 522 out of 682 pages, I have finished Part II and am about to move onto Part III. The end is in sight…

Ulysses So Far

Episode IV – Calypso, 8am, Leopold Bloom’s House

This is first encounter with Bloom, the man himself, is quite ordinary.

The Odyssey: Calypso keeps Odysseus detained on her island for several years, trying to make him her immortal husband. Eventually, Zeus orders her to set him free because it was not their destiny to be together forever.

• Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee double you. I just really liked the idea that if you are following someone’s train of thought, a lot of the time it’s just nonsense, background noise.

Episode V – Lotus-Eaters, 10am, Westland Row and Turkish Baths

The Odyssey: When Odysseus and his crew stop on the land of the Lotus-Eaters, they are given a drug that makes them forget their home.

• Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there: quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, strange customs.
• Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals cotton to it.
• Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes. Repentence skin deep. Lovely shame.

Episode VI – Hades, 11am, The Graveyard

This chapter was really depressing, I suppose a compliment to Joyce’s writing the everyman’s thoughts about death. Accurate, but a bit much!

The Odyssey: Hades is the greek god of the Underworld, who is quick to anger when someone tries to cheat death. In greek mythology, all the living people who went into the Underworld were heroes.

• Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extraordinary interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go when we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’d wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs. Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. never know who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope.
• They’re so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in one coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The Irishman’s house is his coffin.

Episode VII – Aeolus, 12pm, The Newspaper Office

This chapter has probably been the most difficult so far, it was a real struggle (that I didn’t succeed in overcoming) to keep track of who was in the room, or even which room they were in, let alone what they were talking about.

The Odyssey: Homer’s Aeolus was the god of winds. He gives Odysseus a bag full of the captured winds so he could sail home. Unfortunately, his men open the bag, thinking it was full of riches, and the ship is blown off-course.

• You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is a host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles in our name. You = Jews Us = Egypt ???
• Sophist wallops haughty helen square on proboscis. Spartans gnash molars. Ithacans vow pen is champ. I assume this section is one of the ones people mention about you needing to be a real academic to get all the references. I didn’t, these are a couple of quotes to demonstrate why!

Episode VIII – Lestrygonians, 1pm, Davy Byrne’s Pub

Again, this is all about the body, it made me chuckle that when we are hungry everything comes round to food.

The Odyssey: The Lestrygonians are a tribe of giant cannibals, who ate many of Odysseus’ men.

• Flakes of pastry on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior.
• Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in pudding time.
• I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts; you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don’t know what poetry is even.
• Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. 
• God made food, the devil the cooks.

Episode IX – Scylla and Charybdis, 2pm, The National Library

I take the bit about the newspaper office being the most difficult back, this is. What the hell is this about? I have no idea! Suggestions welcome!

The Odyssey: Being between Scylla and Charybdis is the ancient greek equivalent of being between a rock and a hard place. Scylla was a six headed sea monster, Charybdis a whirlpool, and Odysseus had to choose which was the lesser evil. Other than this chapter being a literary minefield, I’m not sure how this links together.

• All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen’s discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. I imagine this is the nature of many great debates!
• What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners. […] Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the world that has forgotten him? This is being said about the ghosts in Hamlet, although I quite like the idea of this being the ghosts in literature in general.

Tales From The Telemachiad

I have finished Part I of Ulysses, otherwise known as The Telemachiad. Surprisingly, it is great so far – the stream of consciousness parts are challenging but enjoyable, and the plot has been OK to follow. I get the feeling I’m being broken in gently but I have to say Joyce’s descriptions of the scenery are fantastic. I think his style of writing is great for capturing the essence of a place.

A quick note on the format of my posts whilst I’m reading: I won’t bother with chapter descriptions because I know lots of people are going to be reading Ulysses, but for my own reference I’ll give the place and time of each episode, a link to The Odyssey , and then I’m just going to mention all the bits I found interesting whilst I was reading.

Episode I – Telemachus, 8am, The Martello Tower

Photo by Alain le Garsmeur

As introductory paragraphs go, this one is not too daunting. Not as daunting as I had imagined anyway! You are immediately thrown into the landscape and the dynamic between the three men.

The Odyssey: Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and the first four books of The Odyssey are about Telemachus searching for news of his father. Stephen Dedalus is linked with Telemachus: Whilst his father is gone Penelope has had plenty of suitors who try to usurp Odysseus and Telemachus. In Ulysses, Buck Mulligan is called a ‘usurper’.

• Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Stephen is mourning the death of his mother. Joyce excellently describes grief and separates it from the love you have for the person before they die and after you have come to terms with their death.
• The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. I liked the association of the sea caught in the bay outside and his mother’s sick bowl. It is setting a tone of earthiness and the body. The image is continued across a few pages, as Stephen’s mood deepens and he becomes more introverted. A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay behind him, a bowl of bitter waters. Love the language, especially the last five words.
• Memories beset his brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children’s shirts. I like the visuals here, and the collecting of memories. It makes Stephen’s loss seem raw, that he has these images near the surface where he can recall them at a moment’s notice.
• The nickel shavingbowl shone, forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, forgotten friendship? I have read somewhere that Joyce intended to make a departure from the greek epics by way of abstaining from grand themes like battles and heroism. Instead, he writes about incredibly ordinary things and makes them big.

Episode II – Nestor, 10am, The School

The Odyssey: Homer’s Nestor was a wise councillor who befriended Telemachus, seen by the Schoolmaster Mr. Deasy giving Stephen advice.

• History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. 
• – That is God.
  Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
  – What? Mr Deasy asked.
  – A shout in the street.  

Episode III – Proteus, 11am, Sandymount Strand

I think this is my favourite chapter so far, even though it is the first real stream of consciousness monologue. It struck me just how revolutionary this novel must have been when it was first published. I do find the style tricky but I think that is the nature of the beast. Can you ever fully understand someone else’s uncensored, unexplained thoughts?

The Odyssey: Proteus is a sea-god, and is named ‘The Old Man of the Sea’ by Homer. He is a shape-shifter and insightful about the future.

• He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots. The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of seeds of brightness. Again, the language is fantastic, these are sentences to be read aloud. I read this part whilst sitting in a windowless room, so was overcome with wanting to go walking out on the sand with the wind whipping around. If there is lots of writing like this in the rest of Ulysses I’ll be really pleased.
• His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur’s rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Hmmm….

All good fun so far. Who would have guessed?

Beginning Ulysses, Or What on Earth am I Reading?

Today I started reading Ulysses. I sat in a bookshop filled with glee and read the first twenty pages. If I’m this proud from twenty pages, how satisfying will this book be when I read hundreds of pages? When I finish? Normally I don’t like to know too much about the plot or themes of a book before I’ve read it. However, due to the extreme challenge that this book is rumoured to be, I don’t want to get all the way through and not pick up on the most basic of details – I know I won’t understand it all, so I at least want to grasp the bones of it.

Here is what I have found out so far, correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m compiling this initial outline before reading from a fair few different websites, but most credit must go to this.

Ulysses is split into three parts and eighteen episodes, each reflecting a character or incident of The Odyssey. There are no episode or chapter titles in the book itself, but they do appear in Joyce’s outline. The novel is set on June 16th 1904 between 8am and 3am.

Part I: The Telemachiad

• Episode I – Telemachus, 8am
• Episode II – Nestor, 10am
• Episode III – Proteus, 11am

Part II: The Odyssey

• Episode IV – Calypso, 8am
• Episode V – Lotus-Eaters, 10am
• Episode VI – Hades, 11am
• Episode VII – Aeolus, 12pm
• Episode VIII – Lestrygonians, 1pm
• Episode IX – Scylla and Charybdis, 2pm
• Episode X – Wandering Rocks, 3pm
• Episode XI – Sirens, 4pm
• Episode XII – Cyclops, 5pm
• Episode XIII – Nausicaa, 8pm
• Episode XIV – Oxen of the Sun, 10pm
• Episode XV – Circe, 12am

Part III: The Nostos

• Episode XVI –  Eumaeus, 1am
• Episode XVII – Ithaca, 2am
• Episode XVIII – Penelope, 3am / unspecified

Apologies if you have no interest in James Joyce, Bloomsday or Ulysses because my next few posts will be about all three! Plus I’ll need a guide to The Odyssey. Now I’m off to read a little bit more….

Bloomsday and a Week with Joyce

“What did you do in the Great War Mr. Joyce?”
“I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?”

Bloomsday, June 16th, is almost here. Despite my earlier reservations (IMMENSE FEAR) about reading James Joyce at all, let alone Ulysses, I am actually now quite excited. The readalong, should my excitement become contagious, is hosted by o and her sign up post is here.

Rather tragically, my work life is unsympathetic to my wish to drink coffee and sit around reading all day, and I have to go to work on Bloomsday itself. But, instead missing all of the fun, I have decided to spend a whole week in celebration of James Joyce, Ulysses, and my education in both matters. To help me, because obviously this is going to be a huge challenge, I’ll be listening to BBC Radio 4’s celebratory programmes which I read about here.

In theory, my week will be going a bit like this:

• Monday: Go and buy a copy of Ulysses. It is (I think) about 750 pages, how handy, about 100 pages per day. Try and read a substantial chunk to get going.
• Tuesday: Read more Ulysses.
• Wednesday: Repeat.
• Thursday: More reading, listen to In Our Time on Radio 4, which “will discuss the background to Ulysses, considering its historical and literary context, its themes, contents and style, and the impact it has had since publication”. Useful!
• Friday: Reading.
• Saturday: The big day, read as much as I can, propose a toast to Mr. Joyce.
• Sunday: IN THEORY finish reading Ulysses. Listen to the BBC dramatisation.

Bloomsday, Signing Up

I’ve never finished a book by James Joyce. I’m scared of James Joyce. However, if I’ve learnt anything from my March reading its that books can greatly exceed your expectations. So in June I am going to give myself a chance by taking part in the Bloomsday Readalong.

From o’s sign up post: What is Bloomsday? Bloomsday is on the 16th June (this year it falls on a Saturday) and it marks the day on which James Joyce’s Ulysses is based. As a day of celebration, it began in 1954, the fifty year anniversary of the events in the novel, when John Ryan, Flann O’Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (Joyce’s cousin) and AJ Leventhal attempted a pilgrimage along the Ulysses route (I say “attempted” because their mission had to be aborted owing to a somewhat impressive intake of alcohol!). Since then in Dublin and all around the world, Bloomsday (the name taken from one of the main characters, Leopold Bloom) has been observed.

Whilst you can sign up to read the whole of Ulysses in a day, scheduled by the hour, I don’t think I’d be able to manage yet! So my intentions are to grab a copy of a James Joyce novel (probably Ulysses, but we’ll see) and read as much as I can.

Gulp!