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 ...