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)