Fireworks on the Beach

This episode is named for Nausicaa, the Phaeacian princess who, while playing ball with her maids-in-waiting, discovers the naked Odysseus washed up on the shore of their island. Though she desires to marry our hero, she and her parents help facilitate Odysseus's safe return to Ithaca.

As with the previous episode, we again find the chapter narrated from a specific perspective, this time that of a young woman, Gertie MacDowell. Unlike the pessimistic narrator of "Cyclops," who has a tendency to deflate and reduce, Gertie's voice is that of a sentimentalist, one who tends to soften and romanticize reality. The contrast between the language and style of Gertie and that of Bloom - whose consciousness we reenter halfway through the episode (p. 367) - is stark indeed. The episode makes great use of a series of other ironic contrasts: Gertie's love vs. Bloom's lust, the Virgin Mary vs. the temptress Gertie, the spirituality of the religious ceremony vs. the materialism and fireworks of the Mirus bazaar, to name but a few.

Note also a few other interesting aspects of this chapter. The beach on which Bloom is walking is the same stretch of beach Stephen walked on that morning during "Proteus"; Bloom may find Stephen's poem on p. 381. Also, note that it is now 8:00 at night. For the first time in the book, a significant stretch of time has elapsed: we're missing two or three hours in between "Cyclops" and "Nausicaa," which apparently involved a visit of Bloom to the Dignam house. Another curious point involving time is that Bloom's watch has stopped at 4:30 ... likely the time Blazes Boylan and Molly got it on. Another point of interest involves Bloom's masturbation; not only is this yet another taboo bodily function (along with defecation, urination, menstruation, and copulation) not often presented in so-called realistic novels, but it is also proof positive that there is nothing wrong with Bloom "down there." Bloom can indeed "get it up." Finally, here we are over 300 pages into the novel and Joyce continues to provide the reader with expository information, including finally (on p. 357) a physical description of the novel's protagonist! Of course, nailing down Bloom (or, for that matter, any human being, Joyce seems to suggest) is as difficult as completing the cryptic message Bloom leaves for Gerty in the sand: "I. AM. A."

The Cyclops

Not only is the "Cyclops" episode one of the most memorable of Homer's epic, but this chapter is, for my money, one of the best and funniest in the novel. In Homer, Odysseus finds himself in the land of the brutal, lawless, one-eyed Cyclopes, imprisoned in a cave by Polyphemus, who is swallowing Odysseus's men two at a time. Telling Polyphemus that his name is "No Man," Odysseus gets the Cyclops drunk on wine, pokes out his one eye with a pointed, flaming spear, and escapes the cave by hiding under Polyphemus's sheep as they exit the cave. As he sails away in triumph, Odysseus commits a fatal error by revealing his true name, an action that allows Polyphemus to enlist the help of his father Poseidon (the sea god) to make the rest of Odysseus's journey miserable.

The Joycean counterpart to the raging Polyphemus is "The Citizen," a physically powerful yet small-minded and xenophobic Irish nationalist whose myopia causes him to see things in a distorted and narrow-minded way. Here the narrative structure is essential to an understanding of the section, for the chapter contains two narrators. The primary narrator is the nameless first-person ("I"/"eye") misanthrope who narrates the goings on on Barney Kiernan's pub from the perspective of deflation and reduction, treating Bloom and others with a great deal of scorn and ridicule. This narrator's tale, however, is interrupted some 33 times by parodies embodying "various pompous, sensational, or sentimental literary styles" (Gifford 314). Thus, the second "narrator," often referred to as the parodist, serves to inflate and exaggerate the importance of the actions of the chapter by relating them according to any number of writing styles, the most prominent being the overinflated style of the Irish Revivalists (recall the Library chapter) attempting to translate/rewrite ancient Irish epics.

Perhaps most notable in this chapter is Bloom's near-heroic response to the anti-Semitism expressed by The Citizen, who, ironically, bemoans Irish oppression. Bloom stands up to The Citizen, not by resorting to physical violence (perhaps Joyce's comment on the post-WWI view that heroism no longer can be equated with military triumphs?), but rather by hurling a series of rejoinders aimed at deflating the Citizen's prejudices -- "The Savior was a jew and his father was a jew ...Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me" (342) -- just as The Citizen hurls a cracker box at Bloom, mirroring the Cyclops's hurling a boulder at Odysseus's ship. However, one of Bloom's finest moments in the novel comes in his confronting the hatred of The Citizen with his doctrine of justice, tolerance, and ... Love. That's right, it takes the Jewish Leopold Bloom to best express and embody the central doctrine of Christ's teachings.

The Sirens Sweetly Singing ....

It's now about 4 p.m., and while Bloom sits in the bar at the Ormond Hotel, Blazes Boylan is well on his way to his tryst with Molly. Everyone knows the story of the Sirens, the sweet-singing temptresses whose irresistible song lures sailors to their doom by causing them to crash their ships on the nearby rocks. Odysseus, of course, has his cake and eats it too, by filling his sailors' ears with wax and tying himself to the mast; that is, Odysseus hears the Sirens' song, but withstands the temptation toward destruction the song invites. Simply put, this chapter is about music. There are 157 references to 47 different pieces of music. After spending five months exploring musical composition, Joyce - a great singer and music lover in his own right - said he could no longer enjoy music, as he now knows all the "little tricks" of musical composition. The section begins with an "overture" of sorts, each fragment reappearing later in the chapter. Look for musical references throughout: for example, at one point Simon sings a song about Lionel while Leopold listens, and the three (singer-subject-listener) fuse into a three-note chord, "Siopold!" (276). "The Croppy Boy" plays a significant role in the chapter - here are the lyrics: http://www.james-joyce-music.com/song16_lyrics.html. In one sense, this chapter involves the Ulyssean Bloom heroically resisting the call of the Sirens, which here becomes the temptation to wallow in overly sentimental (and paralyzing) nostalgia, as evidenced by the drunken men who have surrendered to alcohol, singing, and weeping: "Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs. For all things dying, want to, dying to, die" (286). Ultimately, Joyce himself (as he does so often in this novel) bursts the bubble of self-importance by having Bloom conclude the chapter with his own anal trumpet!

I Wanna Rock!

"The Wandering Rocks" represents the beginning of the second half of the novel (chapter 10 out of 18), and the first of what will become a series of radical experiments in form. In Homer, this episode is not even really an episode, but rather a few lines in which Circe warns Odysseus to stay away from these rocks, which appear, disappear, and reappear in the sea. Thus, like many of the wanderings in this chapter, it is a "near miss." This chapter contains 19 sections, or short vignettes, many of which occur simultaneously; rather than being organized chronologically according to time, the chapter presents itself spatially, as a sort of birds-eye view of Dublin. In fact, one can argue that in this chapter, Dublin itself is the central protagonists (though our friends Stephen and Bloom make appearances as well). The chapter begins with religion (Father Conmee) and concludes with politics (the visiting Viceroy). In the 5th section, Blazes Boylan buys "fat pears" and "ripe shamefaced peaches" for Molly, while in the 10th section Bloom is simultaneously buying her a soft porn novel, Sweets of Sin. In sections 11 and 13, we meet the destitute Dilly Dedalus, who receives no financial assistance from her father or her brother.

Stephen, Prince of Dublin

"Scylla and Charybdis" takes place in the National Library and includes both Stephen (holding court amid a group of Dublin literati) and Bloom. What Joyce does here with the Homeric correspondence is quite remarkable. You may recall this Homeric episode: Ulysses must sail his ship safely between Scylla (a six-headed beast) and Charybdis (a huge whirlpool). Ulysses stays close to Scylla, losing six of his men, but later must return and loses his entire ship to Charybdis. Similarly, both Stephen and Bloom must navigate a "middle path" between two dangerous extremes. Recall their journeys thus far: Stephen has come to the library from the newspaper office, Bloom from lunch. Stephen must mediate between his Scylla - the crass, reductive world of newspaper reporting - and his Charybdis - the lofty, self-indulgent world of intellect and ideas (the Irish Revivalists of this chapter). In other words, Aristotle's actualities and Plato's abstractions. Bloom must mediate between his Scylla - the world of pure physicality and sensation (good ol' Buck Mulligan!) and intellect (Stephen). Notably, he passes between them upon exiting towards the end of the chapter.

Much of the chapter is dominated by Stephen's somewhat difficult "theory" with regard to Shakespeare: in short, Stephen theorizes that in playing the role of the Ghost in Hamlet, Shakespeare is speaking to both the "son of his soul" (Hamlet) and the "son of his body" (his deceased son Hamnet) about his (Shakespeare's) own wife's infidelities. Note that Odysseus, Bloom, and Shakespeare/Hamlet all go on journeys, return, and face the prospect of a wife being usurped. (If you really want to make your head spin, go ahead and throw Joyce's own biography into the mix!) For Stephen, Shakespeare - "the father of his race" (208) - is the consummate artist, both in terms of giving "birth" to literary/artistic creations (no female required!) and in merging the subjective with the objective: "He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible" (213). In other words, Shakespeare has reconciled the swirling whirlpool of inner thought and subjectivity that threatens to swallow us up (Charybdis) with the cold, hard, objective facts of the external world (Scylla).

One can't help but think that Joyce is speaking here of his own literary life as well. Like Stephen, Joyce successfully escapes the backward-looking Romanticism of the Irish Revivalists. The comment "Our national epic has yet to be written" (192) seems to imply two questions: Is Stephen the right man for the job? and Is Joyce's Ulysses that book? Finally, Stephen's great comment on Shakespeare sounds an awful lot like an assessment of Ulysses itself: "Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-law. But always meeting ourselves" (213).

Out to Lunch

In "Lestrygonians," Joyce parallels Bloom's culinary experience with the episode of The Odyssey in which Ulysses/Odysseus parks his ship outside a harbor inhabited by giant cannibals, who proceed to attack all the ships save the hero's own and eat all of Ulysses's men except the ones on his ship. In addition to obvious food/meat correspondences in this section, to me the interesting parallel lies in both Bloom and Ulysses being men of prudence, men who choose the moderate, middle path. Ulysses's prudence causes him to refrain from sailing right into the harbor, as do the rest of his ships, while Bloom's moderation causes him to be repulsed by the cannibalistic "dirty eaters" in Burton restaurant, leaving it in favor of the "moral pub" Davy Byrne's, where he eats a semi-vegetarian meal of burgundy wine and a cheese sandwich (note also the pseudo-Eucharist here). There's a lot in this chapter about what it means to be human, including ruminations on the past versus the present ("Happy. Happier then" and "Me. And me now") and on digestion, for lack of a better term: "Immortal lovely. And we stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something fall see if she" (176). That is, Bloom will check the statues of gods and goddesses in the National Library courtyard to see if they have anuses! Bloom's memory of making love to Molly on p. 176 includes both food (the seed-cake that passes from her mouth to his) and defecation (the nearby goat that leaves droppings). It's a remarkable scene. Furthermore, we learn that Bloom hasn't had sex "since Rudy."

Other tidbits in this chapter worth noting include the "throw-away" flier concerning Elijah (recall the horse Throw Away, an inadvertent betting tip from Bloom to (I think) Bantam Lyons earlier); more "Who's getting it up?"; "U.P." (any ideas re: this puzzle?); mention of Mina Purefoy in the midst of a three-day delivery (we'll visit her late in the day); Bloom as God, delivering "manna" in the form of bread crumbs to the birds; and Bloom's sighting of Stephen's poor sister (we learn of the 15 impoverished Dedalus children).

I ♥ the Hibernian Metropolis

Three chapters of Stephen. Three chapters of Bloom. In chapter seven, "Aeolus," the two finally intersect (albeit briefly) in a newspaper office located at the epicenter of Dublin proper. However, this much-anticipated meeting is anything but climactic, with each protagonist barely acknowledging the presence of the other. The chapter is titled for the God the Winds who had bagged up and given to Odysseus all of the winds save the one that would return Odysseus home to Ithaca. However, as their captain slept, Odysseus's curious men opened the bag of winds, thus preventing a safe and timely return home. Throughout this episode, note the "wind" being blown around the newspaper office, both in terms of the bloviating (thank you Bill O'Reilly) on the part of the newsmen as well as in the 63 newspaper headlines that punctuate the chapter. It might be worth noting at this point that in addition to parallels to Homer, each chapter also contains a correspondence to a particular body part: "Calypso" is the kidney, "Lotus-Eaters" is genitals, "Hades" is the heart, and "Aeolus," of course, is the lungs. (Significantly, as he is so out of touch with his body, Stephen's three chapters have no bodily correspondences.) Finally, recall that Joyce once famously said that a writer "should never write about the extraordinary. That is for the journalist." Thus, the novel as a whole becomes a campaign against writing that distorts the ability to accurately perceive the world. Hence, "factual" newspaper reporting proves less than ideal in portraying the truths about life, since (1) fact-based newspaper accounts fail to accurately capture human experience (which we'll witness first-hand when we read the woefully inaccurate and incomplete newspaper account of Dignam's funeral near the end of the book) and (2) the news deals with the extraordinary, not the ordinary.

Bring Out Your Dead!

Every great epic - The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost - must contain a journey to the Underworld, the world of the Dead, and Ulysses is no exception. In "Hades," Joyce uses the graveyard setting of Paddy Dignam's funeral to meditate on death. Note that at the same time, in "Proteus," Stephen Dedalus is also meditating on death as he walks along the beach. However, whereas the gloomy Stephen would likely subscribe the aphorism, "In the midst of life we are in death" (96), Bloom sees things differently, reemerging from the graveyard world of the dead with a newfound lust for life in all its glory: "Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life" (115). For Bloom (and, perhaps, Joyce himself) in the midst of death we are in life.

Meet Leopold Bloom!

The protagonist of Joyce's novel -- and the counterpart for the hero Odysseus -- is none other than Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged Jewish advertising man whose wife is about to have an affair. How can this somewhat neurotic nobody be the embodiment - or, more precisely, the reincarnation - of perhaps the greatest literary hero of them all? Be patient, boys. You shall see.

The first chapter is titled "Calypso" after the goddess on whose island Odysseus is imprisoned for seven years. The first thing to make clear is that this chapter and the next two take place simultaneously with the three earlier Stephen chapters: 8:00, 10:00, and 11:00 a.m. Note also that while Stephen is a young, heady intellectual, Bloom is very much attuned to his bodily needs and to sensual/fleshly pleasures. Bloom's family situation is less than stellar: his sexy wife Molly is about to have an affair with Blazes Boylan; his daughter Milly has just turned 15 and is beginning to emerge sexually; and 11 years ago his son Rudy died at 11 days old. Finally, note Joyce's excessive realism: while Shakespeare, Dickens, and many other writers went pretty far in terms of accuratelycapturing human experience and behavior, only Joyce goes so far as to portray his lead character not only taking a crap, but thoroughly enjoying it.

The second chapter of Part II is titled "Lotus-Eaters" after the brief encounter Odysseus and his men have with an island of people addicted to the stupifying, narcotic effects of eating Lotus leaves. Odysseus's men are tempted to remain there (who wouldn't be?), but Odysseus succeeds in forcing them back to his ship. Similarly, in this chapter Bloom is tempted toward a narcotic state of forgetfulness (especially with respect to his wife's impending infidelity), only to be constantly jolted back into the painfulness of reality. Thus, the flower imagery of the chapter is counteracted by images of pain and suffering, culminating in Bloom's assessment, "No roses without thorns" (78).

Finally, a word on Joyce's famous stream-of-consciousness style of narration. While Bloom does not narrate the novel in first person, we do get his thoughts throughout the novel. The thing to keep in mind is that Joyce gives us Bloom's thoughts as they occur, with no expository information whatsoever. Another way of saying this is that we don't get any information that Bloom himself is not thinking at the time. One classic example of this: "Potato I have" (57). A few hundred pages later, we will finally understand what the hell this sentence means ... but Bloom doesn't let us in on its full meaning because he's not thinking of it at the time.

The Tower

Well done, Gents! One meeting down, eleven to go. (A more daunting thought may be one chapter down, seventeen to go ... or 23 pages down, 760 to go.)

I thought discussion went pretty well, but I'd be interested to know what other folks thought. Too much book talk? Not enough book talk?


From what I recall, the following topics/issues were broached:

• Stephen as Telemachus, son of Odysseus
• Mulligan and Haines as two "usurpers," trying to take over Stephen's story and literary/artistic aspirations (Mulligan) and Irish culture and history (Haines)
• Stephen in mourning and guilt-ridden over his mother's death and his refusal to honor her request that he pray for her
• The old milkwoman as a symbol of Irish sterility and emptiness
• Stephen leaving the tower (without the key)
• The blasphemous, irreverent mockery of Roman Catholicism
• Ireland/Stephen as servants of two masters: English (politcal) and Italian (R.C. Church)

I don't recall us discussing the various "bowls" that fuse in the chapter: Mulligan's bowl of lather, the bowl-shaped sea, and the bowl into which Stephen's mother vomited up bile as she was dying. Nor, I think, did we talk about Joyce's emerging use of stream-of-consciousness, or internal monologue; that is, despite what at times is a fairly straightforward narrative and narrative voice, at times the narrative falls into Stephen's own internal voice/language/consciousness. This will continue during the next chapter, and by the third chapter we'll be exclusively in Stephen's head. Finally, while the novel reenacts/revitalizes The Odyssey, it also touches on Hamlet throughout - witness the melancholy, intellectual Stephen, dressed in black and in mourning for a recently deceased parent (just as Hamlet is at the beginning of the play).

If anyone has any further issues/thoughts/questions, by all means, open up discussion on Chapter One below ...

St. Stephen Picks His Nose ...

On to Episodes 2 and 3 (pp. 24-51) ...

By means of introduction, these two episodes conclude the Telemachiad, or first of three parts of the novel. Part II (pp. 54-609) will primarily concern Leopold Bloom, while Part III will concern Bloom's wife, Molly.

Episode 2 is referred to as "Nestor," named for the wise old sage and friend of Odysseus whom Telemachus consults. This will be used for primarily ironic effect by Joyce's having the Nestor figure here be the small-minded, cynical Mr. Deasy, headmaster of the school at which Stephen teaches. (I neglected to mention that Episode 1 takes place at 8 a.m.; this episode takes place at 10). Episode 3 (now 11 a.m.) is "Proteus," in reference to a shape-shifting sea god of that name. Stephen takes a walk on Sandymount Strand, a beach just outside Dublin proper, and waxes philosophical on a number of topics, including sensory experience, consciousness, death, the body/soul dichotomy, and plenty of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. By this chapter we are entirely in Stephen's head, with no semblance of an outside/objective narrative to ground us. This makes these 15 pages downright excrutiating to read. If you gmake it to the end of the chapter, I'd say you've already gotten further than most people who try to read Ulysses.

Practical information: Next meeting will be Thursday, May 17 at McLadden's on Lasalle Road in West Hartford. Let's say 7:00, unless people think there needs to be a time adjustment. Happy reading!

Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog of the Ulysses Men's Book Club. I thought I'd lay out some ideas and offer some suggestions and see what people think.

1. Meetings: As I said in the evite, I hope to meet every month at an Irish bar to discuss the book. I'd propose the 3rd Thursday of each month, unless that proves to be a conflict for anyone.

2. Schedule: This is a long and difficult book. My proposal is to aim for our last meeting to be held on or around St. Patrick's Day 2011. The book consists of 18 "chapters," about 800 pages. Figure on an average of 60-70 pages per month. I'll have a reading schedule worked out for the first meeting. Obviously, I'd like to talk some Joyce at the meetings, but I'm fine with discussions eventually getting to the great issues of our day as well: Sox vs. Yanks, Dems vs. Reps, WH vs. Avon, Guinness vs. Murphy's, etc.

3. Difficulty: As you probably know, this is a notoriously difficult book. For my money, it's also the most rewarding book I've ever read. My advice: Don't get bogged down, keep on plowing through, and don't be shy about getting "help." (See my next post.)

4. Homework: If possible, try to read the first chapter of Ulysses for the first meeting, Thursday 4/15 at the Half Door at 7:00. If you don't get to it, don't sweat it. I'd be happy to provide some background info re: Joyce, his first novel (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), and the organization of the novel.

"You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith."

-- William Faulkner

Keeping Professors Busy

Yes, Joyce is one cocky son-of-a-bitch. He once said, "If I gave it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of ensuring one's immortality."

That said, you may wish to consult another book (or two or three) in order to enrich your reading of Ulysses. Below are a few suggestions:

James Joyce's Ulysses (Stuart Gilbert) - one of the first book-length studies of the book; very helpful in terms of situating the Homeric episodes, as well as other schematic possibilities; a LOT of reproduced text here, I think because Ulysses was still banned in the U.S. when Gilbert's book was first published

Ulysses Annotated (Don Gifford) - one monster of a book! Gifford is so detailed, so precise, so pedantic, at times it's like reading Ulysses itself. Nevertheless, if you're OCD and/or want to get as many of the references (biographical, historical, cultural, mythological, religious, etc.) as possible, this is the book for you.

The Cast of Characters (Paul Schwaber) - I read this book because the author (a Wesleyan professor) gave a guest lecture in the class I took. This is a psychoanalytic take on the book, and on Stephen in particular. It's pretty good, though if I recall correctly, it's a bit too "clinical" at times for my liking.

Ulysses on the Liffey (Richard Ellmann) - Ellmann is well known for having written Joyce's biography, which many consider to be the finest literary bio ever written. (Alas, I still haven't read it.) I recall this book as being short (less than 200 pages), highly readable, and very insightful. For my money, the best bang for your buck.

ReJoyce (Anthony Burgess) - The section on Ulysses is less than 100 pages, but is engaging and very fun to read. In his stylistic prose, Burgess seems to be having as much fun as Joyce himself in Ulysses.

I have two other books - Hugh Kenner's Ulysses and Stanley Sultan's The Argument of Ulysses - that I'm going to try to read this time through. I'm also going to read some of Vladimir Nabokov's lecture on Ulysses.

Finally, I have a series of very engaging, lively audio lectures in MP3 format by Dartmouth Professor James Heffernan. Let me know if you'd like these. (http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=237)