Blogging Ulysses

Narrative Summary

Stephen Dedalus is one of a group of men in a room in the library, discussing Hamlet and Shakespeare. The focus is on how much of Shakespeare’s actual life impacted or is reflected in his work. Dedalus argues that rather than seeing the character Hamlet as an extension of Shakespeare himself, It is Hamlet’s father (the ghost, or King Hamlet) who represents Shakespeare in the play. They hypothesize about details of Shakepeare’s personal life (why he left Anne Hathaway the “second best bed” in his will . . . whether she was unfaithful to him . . . ), and whether or not these details of an artist’s life matter, when we have the work.

Many things run through Dedalus’ mind during the conversation. We learn that Dedalus sent Mulligan a telegram in the bar, saying Dedalus was not coming. Dedalus remembers borrowing money from one of the men, but thinks “molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound.” Someone mentions a man named Piper and Dedalus thinks “Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper.” Thoughts of sons and fathers, Hamlet and ghost, Christ and Father . . .

Mulligan comes in, irked with Dedalus. A library attendant enters and confers with Mr. Lyster, a librarian, about an inquiry that has just come in, and we learn it is Bloom outside the room waiting (he is there to look at old journals to find a copy of the graphic he wants for Keyes’ ad). Mulligan says “the sheeny!”

Mulligan spouts his own bawdy poetry, the men talk more, they begin to leave, one of the men reminds Mulligan that they will meet that evening (and does not invite Dedalus). Dedalus thinks “What have I learned? Of them? Of me?” Mulligan chides Dedalus for a review of a book Dedalus wrote, panning the work, irritating the author. They pass Bloom on their way out of the library, wish him good day.

Thoughts and Impressions

This episode irritated me. I really enjoyed the last Episode, felt like I was starting to “get” it — to connect with the book, to relate to Bloom. The switch back to Dedalus is somewhat jolting, but the plot content of this Episode is what really bothered me: It is a bunch of men discussing literature for about thirty-four pages. Even in the most recent Episode focussed on Dedalus — the difficult third Episode, when he walks on the beach — I found myself enjoying Dedaus’ thoughts and feeling like I was starting to understand more about him. Here, his thoughts are of course still included, (in addition to other things that are hard to decipher) but they were difficult to plumb. Reading this Episode, I felt like Joyce had decided to make it harder to get to the essential nature of the character by obstructing it with intellectual conversation, a surface distraction. Again, I know that Hamlet and Shakespeare (and Christ and God and fathers and sons and Ireland and England and Jews and Christians and outsiders and elites) are important themes in the book, and there is a point to the discussion, but most of this Episode wasn’t what I wanted to be reading.  

Message from Joyce in that in itself? The “what have I learned, of them, of me” is exactly how I was feeling — there are better things to be doing with my time  — but is Joyce saying that about his own work?  That this Episode, at least, is a waste of the reader’s time?  How very arch!  Perhaps it’s a more general commentary on how we waste much of our lives in discussions (or anything) that doesn’t matter with people who don’t matter.  And I also wonder if I’m just seeing this because there is so much thrown into this book in general that it’s inevitable to find a piece that speaks to me, and if I re-read it again in two weeks I will relate to something else. Now that I’ve been thinking about this (and this thought process didn’t even happen until I started writing) I find I am less irritated by the Episode.  But still annoyed at having read it.

One of Dedalus’ thoughts I loved:

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk thorough ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are . . . is doubtless all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too . . .

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I have had a hard time making myself sit down to blog about this Episode. I misplaced my copy of Blamires’ The Bloomsday Book, and I really like reading it after I read the text because it distills the narrative and also explains what I may have missed, without so much telling me what to think about an Episode, or giving too much away about what happens later. But that was only part of the reason for my hiatus from blogging. My irritation with the Episode was another factor, and really, the two combined to make it harder for me to overcome my current ambivalence about doing this. It sometimes feels like it’s too hard to dig into myself to figure out what I think (about Ulysses? about everything else?) and write it down. Do I really want to be doing this? Should/Shouldn’t I just do it because I said I would? Oy. Ulysses as metaphor. Am I in or am I out? Sometimes it’s harder to be in than others . . .

Ambivalence remains, will try to keep going.

Narrative Summary (continuation of Episode 8)

Bloom enters Burton restaurant, is assailed by the smell of “meatjuice” and “slop of greens.” He likens the “men, men, men” he sees to animals feeding, and is disgusted by what he sees, smells and hears: men calling for more bread, a man wearing his stained napkin as a bib, a man spitting back onto his plate, “swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging.” Bloom wonders if that’s what he looks like when he eats, thinks “See ourselves as others see us.” Bloom’s thoughts as he looks around the restaurant covers about a page and half, and at the end of it, when both he and I are practically trying not to gag, he turns around and walks out. Bloom thinks “Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill!”

Bloom imagines how people will eat in some grey future, a communal kitchen with everyone standing in line, holding bowls and thermoses to be filled, the children fighting for scraps. He ponders the merits of vegetarianism. Thinks “Ah, I’m hungry,” finds a “moral pub,” orders a glass of wine and a cheese (gorgonzola) sandwich. Wishes they had a nice, cool salad to go with it. Tries to remember the words to a limerick about cannibalism.

Bloom makes conversation with Nosey Flynn, an acquaintance, and Bloom mentions Molly’s upcoming tour. Flynn says he’s heard that Boylan is one of the promoters, and Bloom, feeling a “warm shock of air heat of mustard hauched” onto his heart, looks at the clock, sees that it’s not yet time for Boylan’s appointment with Molly, which will happen at 4:00. He tries to respond casually about Boylan, and Flynn talks about a boxing match that Boylan recently promoted.

Davy Byrne, the owner of the pub, joins the conversation, and Flynn asks for a tip on a horse race. Byrne declines, saying he never bets on horses. Flynn mentions that Lenehan gets good information about horses. Bloom appreciates the wine and cheese, thinks the bath has lessened his appetite, that he’ll eat again at about six, thinking of time makes him think of Boylan and Molly.

Bloom shifts his thoughts back to food, the odd things that people eat, and how humankind discovered what is edible (who first ate oysters?), how they give themselves airs in fancy restaurants. Bloom’s thoughts drift to the wine, how it’s made, winepress with sun’s heat coming down, and he thinks about a day that he and Molly were in the country, her head pillowed on his jacket, kissing, caressing. “Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum.” Molly passed the seedcake in her mouth to his in the kiss. “Joy: I ate it: Joy. . . ” Returning to the present, he thinks “Me. And me now.” And two flies, stuck together on the windowpane, buzz.

Bloom admires the wood of the bar, thinks of marble, of statues of women, goddesses, how the gods and goddesses eat, while men are “stuffing food in one hole and out behind.” He thinks that goddesses don’t have a hole behind, but then he’s never checked, decides to look when he’s at the museum later.

Bloom rises to go the the outhouse, and while he’s gone Byrne asks Flynn about Bloom. “Isn’t he in the insurance line?” Flynn responds that Bloom canvasses (sells advertisements) for the Freeman. When Byrne points out that Bloom is wearing mourning clothes and asks if his family has had trouble, Flynn admits he hadn’t noticed. Flynn remembers seeing Bloom carry home face cream for Molly a few days before, so Bloom’s wife is fine. Flynn surmises that Bloom’s canvassing for the Freeman doesn’t bring in enough to cover the expense of face cream, and informs Byrne that Bloom is a Mason, probably gets a financial advantage from that.

Byrne describes Bloom as a “decent quiet man,” and both agree that Bloom does not drink to excess. Flynn says Bloom is “not too bad . . . has been known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due.” He adds that Bloom still canny, never puts anything in writing.

Other men come in the pub, including Lyons, who Bloom saw earlier in the day, and they rib each other over what they’re drinking. Bloom comes back to the bar, waves his hand and leaves, Flynn saying so long.

Bloom walks, humming Don Giovanni, thinking about money he has coming in, that he could buy Molly a new petticoat, thinks “Today. Today. Not think.” Bloom comes to a corner, notices a blind young man looking unsure, asks if the boy wants to cross. Bloom helps the young man across the street, feels sympathy for him, wonders what it’s like to experience Dublin without sight (similar to Dedalus’ thoughts on the beach), to make love to a woman you can’t see, know things only by touch. Bloom wonders if the blind can feel differences in color.

Bloom notices a judge entering a building, thinks of a moneylender who stood trial “Now he’s what they really call a dirty jew.” Bloom heads to the library, sees a “straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers.” — It’s Boylan, and Bloom thinks “It is. It is.” Bloom’s heart jumps, he changes path, looks away, moves quickly toward the museum entrance, thinks “Not see.” Bloom guesses Boylan didn’t see him. “Light in his eyes. . . Safe in a minute. . . My heart!” Bloom tries to look busy, checks his pockets, makes sure he has the soap he bought. Thinks “Safe!”

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Thoughts and Reflections (on both parts of the Episode)

I loved reading this Episode. The text is almost exclusively Bloom’s thoughts and impressions, and it is a rich, detailed, intimate communication of his state of mind and his way of looking at the world. The distance imposed by the format of the previous Episode is gone. Bloom thinks about his emotions, remembers being happy. His feelings are closer to the surface and more accessible than they had been before.

Bloom’s thoughts show him as a decent, sensitive person.  He feeds the birds, helps the blind, worries about women in labor. And he longs to be close to his wife, as he had been in the past. He shies from what he thinks will happen between Molly and Boylan, but it keeps rising to the fore of his thoughts.

His other focuses, death and dying, business and advertising, religion and food have their part in this Episode as well. With respect to food, in stark contrast to Bloom’s fixation with eating meat earlier, the slovenly eating habits of the men in Burton’s restaurant repulse him. It’s quite a difference, and we are indeed seeing another aspect of Bloom in this Episode.

There is still much that is hard to understand, references and allusions that I’m sure I’m not getting. For example. I did not understand that Bloom had placed a personal ad in a newspaper, in order to establish correspondence with unknown women, and that that’s how he began corresponding with Martha. Neither did I understand that Bloom worried about Boylan having VD. I had to turn to commentaries to decode these and many other fragments.

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I’m finding the following books, blogs and websites really helpful:

Hart, Clive and David Hayman, ed., James Joyce’s Ulysses: Critical Essays, California: University of California Press, 1974.

Blamires, Harry. The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide through Ulysses. 3rd ed. New York:
Routledge, 1996. 

http://uftrou.blogspot.com/p/welcome.html

http://thewiseserpent.blogspot.com/2013/04/james-joyces-ulysses-chapter-one.html

https://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Ulysses

Narrative Summary

In this Episode, Bloom walks through Dublin and stops to have something to eat.

Bloom passes a candy shop and sees a priest buying sweets, a treat for students. A young man hands him a flyer for an evangelical lecture. Bloom sees Simon Dedalus’ daughter waiting outside an auction house, and assumes that Simon is inside, selling some furniture. Bloom thinks “home always breaks up when the mother goes,” recalls worriedly that Simon has fifteen children, and ascribes the family’s size to their theology, that a priest won’t give absolution if a married woman attempts birth control. But the priest, Bloom thinks, doesn’t have any mouths to feed. Priests don’t go hungry,  they’re “all for number one.” Bloom notices that the Dedalus child’s dress “is in flitters” and that she is underfed.

As he crosses O’Connel bridge, he looks at the river, thinks “If I threw myself down,” and recalls the story (the one he tried to tell in the carriage on the way to the cemetery) about a boy who threw himself from the bridge and was fished out of the water. There are gulls flapping, looking for food, and Bloom crumples the evangelist’s flyer and throws it to the birds but they aren’t interested in paper. He passes a woman selling food from a cart, thinks “wait. Those poor birds,” buys two Banbury cakes from the woman, crumbles them up and tosses them to the gulls.

A rowboat on the river is advertising a brand of trousers, and Bloom admires the ingenuity of the idea, thinking of advertising ideas he’s had in the past, of other clever advertisements he’s seen, like advertising a cure for V.D. over a urinal. It occurs to Bloom that Boylan might have V.D., but he stops himself, diverting his own thoughts to something else. Thinks about Molly saying “oh, rocks” when he tried to explain a word earlier, and smiles, acknowledging that Molly has a way with words, and can get to the heart of an issue.

Men walk by holding signs for something Hely’s stationers, where Bloom used to work, and he remembers when he first started there, earlier in his marriage, a dinner he and Molly went to when Molly wore a lovely dress and was so striking. He thinks “Happy. Happier then.” Thinks about a Milly, a small child, in the bath. Now she’s grown, doing photography. Bloom thinks: “Stream of Life,” thinks of other times with Molly, Molly taking out her hairpins once Milly is asleep in her little bed. “Happy. Happy.”

Bloom is recalled to his surroundings when a woman he used to know, Mrs. Breen (possibly an old flame) greets him, and they exchange family news. Mrs. Breen’s husband is a bit odd or crazy. Bloom notices that her looks have faded, her clothes not as fashionable as they once were, thinks “shabby genteel” but makes sure his thoughts don’t show on his face. He notices another woman looking at Mrs. Breen in a dismissive way and thinks it cruel, that women are “the unfair sex.”

Bloom asks about a mutual friend, Mrs. Purefoy, and learns that she’s been in labor for the past three days, which he is very sorry to hear. Mrs. Breen is giving details when Bloom touches her arm “gently”, warning her to move a bit so that a strange man can pass. Mr. Breen emerges from a building, walking the other way, and Mrs. Breen says goodbye, rushing to catch up with her husband.

Bloom passes the office of another newspaper, The Irish Times, and thinks about going in to check if there have been any more responses to his advertisement for a lady typist. This is how he first got in contact with Martha. Bloom thinks about her letter, decides to let any others’ responses wait, since he’s already read forty-four of them. He believes The Irish Times is the best paper for small personal ads, and thinks of some he’s seen there. The paper is doing so well that its owners bought The Irish Field, which reports hunting news, and Bloom thinks about horse-people, and that horsey women seem more masculine, riding astride, in at the kill . . . He thinks about Mrs. Purefoy, and Mrs. Breen’s life, and childbirth, and midwives and doctors, who come in the middle of the night to deliver a baby but have to wait months for their fee. . . .

Bloom passes some policemen who’ve just had their lunch, and he recalls a time he almost got arrested because he got swept up in a protest of the Boer war, then thinks about how young protesters become part of the establishment as they get older, and about plainclothes policemen spying on Irish radicals.  He thinks about how boys who brag to their girls about what they’ve been up to often end up in jail because the girls tell the wrong people. Bloom thinks the Sinn Fein is a smart way to limit infiltration — circles of ten, and only the head knows anyone up the chain of command.

The sky turns gray, and Bloom thinks “things go on the same, day after day;” trams come in and out, policemen march out and back, Mrs. Purefoy groaning in labor on a bed, children born every second, people dying every second, city-full of people passing away, another city-full born. . . “No one is anything.” Bloom thinks “ This is the very worst hour of the day. . . Hate this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.”

The sun comes out again, and Bloom sees Parnell’s brother pass by, thinks of the coincidence because he was thinking of Parnell earlier. Bloom passes a young couple, hears the man trying to impress the woman with a boring story.

Bloom thinks about the concept of parallax, which he is trying to understand (loosely, the idea that a thing looks different depending on one’s position in relation to it). Mrs. Breen spoke about the full moon being out, and Bloom realizes there was a full moon the night that he, Molly and Boylan all walked together by the river. Bloom wonders what he missed between Molly and Boylan that night. Tells himself “Stop. Stop. If it was it was.”

Bloom passes a building where a theater used to be, thinks of a play he saw there, how time flies . . . “I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I?” He was twenty-eight, Molly twenty three. Things changed after Rudy, their son died. Molly said she could “never like it again.”  Bloom ponders if he would go back to that time, when they were just beginning. He thinks “Are you not happy in your home” and that makes him think of Martha’s letter, that he needs to answer it, that he’ll write Martha while in the library. “Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.”

“A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded. . . . With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.”

Bloom decides he must eat, that he’ll feel better then.

A Note About Format

Joyce does something new with the format of this Episode: He gives an all-caps headline for each piece of it, with a total of over 60 ‘headlines’ in the thirty-four pages of the Episode. Much of the Episode takes place in newspaper offices, and the headlines lend an urgency that is commensurate with what most people imagine (or used to imagine) is the tone of a newsroom. The headlines make the narrative more dramatic, as if the events in the episode are being distilled and reported. It’s hard to describe, but until now I’ve felt, when reading Ulysses, that I find things out as they happen to or are thought of by the characters: I’ve accompanied Dedalus or Bloom through the Episodes, witnessing what they witness, and knowing their thoughts as they think them. In contrast, in this Episode, the headlines establish distance between the narrative and the reader.

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Narrative Summary

The Episode opens with a brief description of the trams that run through the heart of Dublin. Then we are with Bloom in a newspaper office, getting a copy of an advertisement that had previously run for his client, Keyes. Bloom wants to revise the ad, and is told that if Keyes will commit to running the new ad for three months, then the paper can write up a paragraph — a puff piece — about Keyes’ business and put it in the News section. Bloom sees Hynes, who is there to file a report about Dignam’s funeral. Bloom tries to remind Hynes of the money Hynes owes him, but Hynes seems not to understand what Bloom is getting at.

Bloom wants a different graphic on the new advertisement, and tries to communicate what he wants to the newspaper’s foreman, but vacillates between trying to make sure the foreman understands and worrying that the foreman thinks Bloom is being intrusive and pushy. Bloom, reminded of earlier in the day and Cunningham snubbing him, thinks of clever things he could have said to Cunningham about the dent in his hat.

Bloom watches the typesetter setting copy. It’s done backwards, and he remembers his father reading Hebrew “backwards” (right to left) as well. He needs to discuss the proposed three month commitment to the paper with Keyes, his client. Bloom thinks of stopping in at home to see Molly on the way to see Keyes but decides not to, and goes into another office to telephone Keyes. Ned Lambert, Simon Dedalus, and some other newspaper men are talking in that office, discussing the speech reprinted in the paper that day. Lambert and Dedalus leave to go get a drink.

Bloom, standing close to the door, gets hit by the doorknob when someone else comes in. The newspapermen have an animated discussion about the merits of different speakers and speeches, talking self assuredly, joking with each other, and Bloom is tentative, on the fringes. Bloom makes his phone call, finds out where he needs to go to speak to Keyes, and awkwardly takes his leave, with the editor, Myles Crawford, assuring him that he’ll get what he wants (the puff piece) for his client. The news boys mimic Bloom as he walks down the street outside.

Stephen Dedalus comes in, carrying Deasy’s article, asking Crawford to print it. The men seem to like Stephen, and he joins their discussion, now ranging to cover Ireland and England,and parallels to and Greece and Rome. Crawford asks Stephen to write something with bite for the paper, assuring Stephen that he has the ability. They start talking about great journalism, and Crawford pulls out a back-copy of an article the paper ran about a famous murder. Crawford is caught up in narrating the details of the murder, the men enthusiastic, when Bloom calls and asks to speak to him about Keyes. But Crawford, in a different mood now, won’t take Bloom’s call, saying “tell him go to hell.” Bloom is told to come by in person.

The men shift subjects, discussing great legal minds and famous cases, quoting lawyers’ speeches, and even Stephen Dedlaus is moved by some of the recitations. One of the speeches recalled is on the subject of reviving the “Irish tongue,” and raises parallels between the Irish and the Jews in relation to the English and the Egyptians.

Stephen suggests that they all go to the pub, and they agree. Stephen thinks to himself that he has much to learn about Dublin still — about the men, and how to make his way among them. As they set out, Stephen begins to tell a story about two old women who decide to climb to the top of Nelson’s column (in the heart of Dublin).

Bloom comes back, asks Crawford for a moment of his time to resolve the Keyes matter. Keyes has counter-proposed that he commit to a two-month run of the new advertisement (not three) but only if the paper gives him a “little puff” about his business. Bloom says “What will I tell him, Mr. Crawford?”, but Crawford’s mood has changed completely and he says to tell Keyes “he can kiss my arse.” Bloom’s eyes wander, he notices Stephen Dedalus, that it looks like they’re all off for a drink, and he tries again with Crawford. This time, Crawford says “He can kiss my royal Irish Arse.” Bloom stands still, and starts a tentative smile as Crawford passes him, on his way out with the men for a drink.

Stephen Dedalus continues the story of the two women as the men walk.

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Thoughts and Impressions

It’s clear that Bloom is on the fringes with this group, tolerated but not embraced, and aware of their attitude towards him. He’s unsure how to act and lacks the other men’s casual camaraderie.

I think that the greater distance I felt from Bloom in this Episode because of the headlines that Joyce uses enabled me to read the Episode without becoming too uncomfortable or embarrassed on Bloom’s behalf.  He gets humiliated here, and has no idea how to react.  

In addition, while I know that good writers are supposed to show, rather than tell, about character’s emotions, it struck me very deeply in this Episode that although Joyce tells us Bloom’s thoughts, we still have to guess at Bloom’s feelings. And so far, Bloom has not had clear thoughts about his own emotions — he hasn’t thought “how embarrassing’ or “how dare he.” Perhaps that’s because people don’t normally think to themselves “I’m angry” or “I’m embarrassed.”  But I think it’s also because Bloom distances himself from his own emotions, and does not allow them to rise up clearly to the forefront of his consciousness.  I would imagine that to do so would be very difficult.

Dedalus joins the newsmen very shortly after Bloom leaves it, and I enjoyed the seamless switch from Bloom’s thoughts to Dedalus’s. At the end of the Episode, when the two are almost in a group together, there were parts where I had to stop and think about whose thoughts I was reading, but not many. It should be interesting to see how Joyce handles the scenes where the two men converse.

Narrative Summary

This Episode begins as Bloom and other mourners step into a carriage to follow a hearse carrying Dignam’s body from Dignam’s home to the cemetery. Bloom notices one of the neighbors peeping at them through window blinds as they wait to start moving. The carriage is not large, and the four men (Bloom, Simon Dedalus, Martin Cunningham and Mr. Power) are squashed. Bloom is glad he bathed. As they pass, people in the street lifted their hats, a sign of respect for the dead that was common at the time. Someone remarks that they are glad the custom has not died out. Bloom, looking out the window, sees Stephen Dedalus walking in the street, and tells Simon. Simon stretches across to see, but Stephen is no longer visible.

Simon asks if Stephen was with Mulligan, his “fidus achates,” (loyal sidekick) and Bloom says Stephen was alone. Simon rails against Mulligan, expressing his feeling that Mulligan will ruin his son. Bloom thinks Simon noisy and willfull, proud of his son, but rightly so. He thinks about his own son, Rudy, and imagines his childhood, had he lived. Milly is Molly watered down, a girl becoming a woman.

The men, uncomfortable in the small carriage, notice crumbs on the seats, and discuss who else is attending the funeral. They stop briefly in front of a home for dogs and Bloom thinks of his father’s last request, that Bloom care for his dog. It starts to rain. The men discuss what they did the night before, and mention a speech by a Mr. Dawson, reprinted in the day’s newspaper. Bloom takes the paper from his pocket, and thinks about the book Molly asked him to get. Simon Dedalus, circumspect since they’re attending a funeral, says he’ll look at the paper later. Bloom glances at the obituaries, reassures himself that he tore up the envelope from Martha and put her letter in his breast pocket.

They pass a theater and Bloom thinks of going to see a play that night. He thinks of Molly, and how Boylan is coming to see her that afternoon. At that moment, Cunningham sees someone he knows walking in the street, and says hello. So does Power. It’s Boylan, and Bloom catches a glimpse of a straw hat as they pass. Bloom is struck by the fact that he was just that instant thinking about Boylan. He’s uncomfortable, awkward, looks at his nails, wonders what they/she see in him. Thinks about his body aging. He looks vacantly at the others.

Power kindly asks Bloom about Molly’s coming tour.  Bloom thinks Power a nice fellow, and mulls that Power supports a woman beside his wife, although “they say it is not carnal.” He imagines that would get old. They pass a moneylender on the street and Cunningham nudges Power, saying “the tribe of Reuben” (the man is Jewish) and “we’ve all been there” but then looks at Bloom and amends it to “nearly all of us,” emphasizing his “other”-ness. Bloom starts telling the men a funny story but Cunningham rudely takes over telling the story. They laugh over the anecdote, but then think of Dignam and turn serious. It was a sudden death, and Bloom opines that that is the best way to die, but the others stare at him. He explains that there’s no suffering, but they seem put off by what he’s said.

Nearing the cemetery, they pass another hearse, carrying a tiny coffin (the mother unmarried). Power states that the worst thing is suicide, and Cunningham tries to redirect the conversation. We find out that Bloom’s father killed himself. Bloom thinks Cunningham, who knows this, is being kind (even though he was rude before). He recalls hearing that Cunningham’s wife is a drunkard who pawns their furniture to buy her drink, and that Cunningham goes and buys back the furniture, over and over. Bloom thinks more of his father’s inquest, the note he left, and the verdict, overdose.

Bloom thinks of other dead people, and how they died. The carriage slows to pass a herd of cattle bound for slaughter the next day. Bloom offers that there should be a tram to take the cattle from the country to the docks so that streets don’t get congested. He then suggests that funerals should be handled in the same way, and the men imagine what the tram would be like, and Cunningham remembers an incident when a hearse plowed into another vehicle and the body was exposed to view.

Bloom imagined this happening right then, to Dignam’s body, wonders if the body would bleed. He thinks about surprising Milly with a visit. They pass a house where a gruesome murder was committed, and discuss the trial, and the fact that the jury acquitted. Bloom decides not to surprise Milly, thinking “Must be careful with women. Catch them once with their pants down. Never forgive you after.”

They arrive at the cemetery, and they descend from the carriage. Two more carriages follow theirs, their passengers stepping out as well. Bloom thinks it a paltry funeral. He looks at the horses that draw the hearse, wonders if they know what they carry, that there must be twenty or thirty funerals here a day.

Cunningham pulls Power aside and whispers that Bloom’s father poisoned himself. Power, chagrined, looks across into Bloom’s “dark thinking eyes.” Meanwhile, Bloom and a man from one of the other carriages are discussing Dignam’s family’s financial circumstances, and the collection for them that is being made to tide them over until the insurance money is paid. He thinks about widows, and the Hindu custom of suttee, and of Queen Victoria’s long mourning for Albert. Bloom thinks that her son, the future king, should have been her focus. “Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes.”

They follow the coffin into the chapel. When the others kneel, Bloom puts his newspaper on the floor to protect his pants. A priest began to read. Bloom is skeptical of the service: “Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin”; “Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over everybody . . . has to say something.” He also remembers hearing that in some mausoleums “they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas” emitted by the bodies.

The service over, the men follow the coffin to the gravesite. Simon Dedalus sees his wife’s grave and weeps, and Power consoles him. Kernan, who rode in one of the other carriages, opines that the priest was too quick with the service, and that he prefers the protestant service. Bloom thinks that Kernan is also a mason. Bloom dislikes the idea of resurrection — “every fellow mousing around for his liver . . .” but refrains from saying so.

Another man, Menton, asks someone near him who Bloom is, and is told that he is Molly’s husband. Menton, who admired Molly and danced with her years before, wonders why she married “a coon” like Bloom. Menton remembers that years ago he “fell foul” of Bloom at bowls (bowling).

The cemetery caretaker chats with them, tells a story of two drunks visiting the cemetery, and the men know he is doing it to lighten their mood a bit. Bloom thinks him a decent fellow, but wonders at living at a cemetery, asking someone to marry you and live with you there.

Arriving graveside, Bloom thinks of the dead bodies enriching the soil, imagines the maggots. The gravediggers bring the coffin close to the grave, and Bloom notices that an unknown man in a macintosh who has come to the burial. Bloom looks at the coffin and thinks of the wasted wood, which is just going into the ground to be gnawed at. He thinks of a new kind of coffin, with a false bottom so the body can slide into the grave.

Bloom admires another man’s suit. He imagines dying, thinking it must be a mistake, that there’s more you want to do. When graveside prayers are said, Bloom thinks”Hope you’re well and not in hell.” The coffin is lowered into the ground, and the gravediggers begin to shovel dirt.

The men put on their hats, and a man named Hynes writes down the names of those present, asking Bloom his Christian name because he is not sure. Bloom tells him, and asks him to include McCoy in the list as well. Hynes asks about the unknown man, and misunderstands Bloom’s repossess, writes down that the man’s name is MacIntosh.

The men move away, looking at names on tombs, stop by the grave of the patriot Parnell, discuss him a bit. Bloom, a bit apart, realizes he’ll be back at the cemetery soon on the anniversary of his father’s death. He thinks about the phrases carved on the tombstones — “who departed this life’ and “who passed away” — like it was voluntary — and that it would be batter to carve what people did in life, so strangers walking by could know more about the dead.

He marvels at how many dead there are. How can they all be remembered? Bloom sees a fat grey rat, thinks about rats eating flesh. He wonders if the news of a new arrival circulates in the afterlife — “underground communication.” As he exits the cemetery, he thinks “Back to the world again. Enough of this place.” Bloom worries that every time you come to visit, you’re that much closer to staying, and consoles himself that they’re not getting him just yet.

Bloom remembers Menton, convivial evenings, cold fowl and cigars, Molly and Menton’s wife together on a swing, but Menton getting annoyed when Bloom had a lucky shot bowling. He remembers Menton’s dislike but wonders at it (not knowing Menton fancied Molly). Bloom notices that Menton’s hat is dented, probably during the carriage ride, and, trying to be helpful, tells him so. Menton stares right through Bloom. Cunningham joins in, tries to smooth over the moment. In response to Cunningham, Menton removes hat, adjusts it, and says thank you. Bloom, “chapfallen” falls behind. Thinks, of Menton, “How grand we are this morning.”

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Thoughts and Impressions

This was an odd Episode. At first it seemed like not much was happening, and I found it a bit tedious. I wondered what the point of this part of the story was, and where it was going. I worried that maybe I would feel this way for the rest of the book, but then told myself that it’s part of the arc of the narrative, and that Joyce is probably doing this for a reason, even if I don’t understand why.

I read the Episode a second time, and still did not understand the point. I then started reading an essay about it, and began to understand: This Episode is set up to establish mood and tone. It is about Bloom’s preoccupation with death, and how he is regarded as “other” and even scorned by many of those around him. I went back to read the text again, and found the experience so much more rewarding. And then I questioned why I could not realize what was going on for myself, and I was a bit chagrined at underestimating Joyce (again). I wonder if I am being too hard on myself, and decide to let it go.

My skin crawled as the men, even ones Bloom considered kind, were dismissive of him. They interrupt him, take over telling his story, stare right through him, wonder at the comments he makes. How hard it must be to be Bloom! To keep moving forward even though not valued by those around him.

The crudeness of some of Bloom’s thoughts, about corpses, and about sex, disgusted me too. I imagined Joyce saying “why so squeamish? It’s all part of the same thing.”  And Bloom’s pragmatism — thinking about saving the wood from the coffins, the tram for cattle and corpses  — is so singular.

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I’m trying not to feel bad because I did not read Ulysses or blog at all yesterday.  I originally said I would cover part of an Episode every day, but it’s hard to know where in the Episode to stop, and some are just too much to digest in one day.  In addition, while I am enjoying the book and the process, the boost I received from enthusiasm for a new project is wearing off.  I think that’s OK, but I worry that not having a set schedule will lead me to slack off, and ultimately not to finish, which I very much want to do.  I’m think I need to figure this out as I go along, but I find that frightening.  One of the later Episodes is 200 pages long!  How am I going to deal with that?  It worries me.

Need to clean my house, do some laundry, answer some emails, fulfill other commitments.  Will read today and write tomorrow.

D

Narrative Summary

This Episode begins in Leopold Bloom’s kitchen. He is setting up a breakfast tray to take to his wife, Molly, who is still in bed. He gives the cat some milk, and thinks about what he should eat for breakfast, deciding to pop out to the butcher to buy a pork kidney while the kettle is warming for his wife’s tea. He grabs his hat, checks that a white slip of paper is still tucked into it, and goes out, leaving the door unlocked because his keys are in another pair of pants in the bedroom and he doesn’t want to disturb his wife.

He crosses the street to walk in the sunshine. He thinks it will be a warm day, and that his black clothes will make him feel it more. He imagines traveling east, circling the globe before the sun, never growing older because the day never changes. He thinks about scenes in other lands, the people, the buildings, the moon seen from there. Then he thinks “Probably not a bit like it really.”

He thinks about the buildings around him, are they better or worse from a real estate value perspective. He approaches a shop owned by one Larry O’Rourke, and Bloom recalls that Simon Dedalus (Stephen Dedalus’ father) can mimic O’Rourke well. He considers discussing Dignam’s funeral, which will rake place later in the day, with O’Rourke, but simply wishes him good day instead. He wonders where O’Rourke gets his money, and calculates how much he can make selling porter.

Bloom stops in front of the butcher’s window and stares at all the meat, enters inside and takes his place in line. There is one pork kidney left in the case . Bloom worries that the girl in front of him will buy it. He picks up a newspaper or magazine and reads an advertisement for buying farmland near Tiberias, in what is now Israel. He admires the girl’s figure while she orders (she is his neighbor’s maid), thinks about her skirts swaying as she whacks the rugs to clean them.

He tries to give his order quickly so that he can follow the girl and watch her walking, but the butcher moves slowly. Once he’s outside he does not see where the girl went. He continues reading about the land near Jaffa, for sale by the Turkish government. The proposal is to buy the land, choose what to have people who live there plant (olives, oranges, almonds or citrons), and they send some of the crop to you every year. He thinks “Nothing doing,” but that there is still an idea there.

The citrons in the advertisement make him think of a friend with that name, and he reminisces about times spent with him and others. Bloom thinks about the citron fruit, thinks about the country where the land is being offered for sale, how it is old and dead, its people wandering. He calls it “the grey sunken cunt of the world.”

Bloom turns his attention back to what’s around him, how he’s feeling, real estate values. He thinks about being in bed with his wife.

When Bloom gets home, he sees the mail has come. There is a letter for his wife (it makes his heart slow) and a letter to him and postcard to his wife from Milly (their daughter). His wife calls down, asks about the mail, and he brings hers to her. She tucks the letter under her pillow while he adjusts the window shade, and tells him to hurry up with her tea.

He returns to the kitchen, continuing to prepare the tray and putting the kidney in a pan to cook, briefly scanning the letter from his daughter. He turns the meat over in the pan, and takes the tray, now ready, up to his wife, checking to make sure everything is how she likes it.

When Bloom brings the tray into the bedroom, Molly comments on how long she had to wait. The bed springs jingle as she sits up, and he looks calmly at her large breasts, noticing how her warm smell mingles with the smell of the tea she is pouring. He sees the edge of a torn envelope beneath her pillow, knows she’s read her hidden letter, and instead of leaving he straightens the bedspread and asks her who the letter was from.

Molly is a singer, and she says the letter is from her accompanist, Boylan, discussing the program for a coming performance or tour. She points to something at the end of the bed, indicating Bloom should give it to her, and because there are clothes strewn on the bed he is unsure what she’s pointing at. Bloom starts to hand her different items of clothing, but it’s a book she wants. Molly flips the pages, finds the right spot, shows Bloom a word, “metempsychosis,” and asks him what it means. He says “the transmigration of souls” but she still doesn’t understand so she asks him to explain “in plain words.” Bloom explains again – it’s like reincarnation. He leafs though the book, which seems to be a cheap novel. It takes place in a circus, and is somewhat erotic/sadistic. Molly has finished it and asks him to get her another, by author Paul de Kock (!).

Molly smells something burning and Bloom remembers his cooking. He hurries downstairs to find that the kidney is only a little burned. Bloom scrapes off the burnt bits and gives them to the cat. He sits down and reads the letter from Milly, his daughter, more carefully. Milly turned fifteen the day before, on the fifteenth of the month. This is her first birthday away from home. Bloom thinks about when Milly was born, and we learn that he had a younger son who died while still a baby. Bloom remembers scenes from Milly’s childhood, and reads the letter two more times. He worries about her. She mentions a boy in the letter and Bloom frets about what she’s doing and not doing. His thoughts shift to his wife, the letter, Boylan, what he thinks will happen. Bloom thinks about taking a trip to visit his daughter and he pets the cat.

Bloom needs to relieve himself and decides not to go upstairs, gathers a paper to read and goes to the back garden, heading for the outhouse. In the outhouse, he opens the paper and reads a story, the winner of a writing contest the paper had run. Details of his bowel movement. Of the story, Bloom thinks they’ll “print anything now,” but envies the writer the prize money awarded. Bloom thinks about writing something himself, and remembers when he tried to write down the mundane and random things his wife said while dressing. He thinks about her dressing, and about their conversation on the morning after she first met Boylan.

Bloom tears a part of the story out of the paper to wipe himself. He exits the outhouse and checks his pants to make sure they’re clean for the funeral. He hears the bells of a clock tower, and thinks “Poor Dignam.”

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Thoughts and Impressions

Another short Episode, this one, for the most part, easier to understand. But still, so much here, and it’s hard to summarize succinctly. I am conscious that the summaries are getting longer. I think I’m getting bogged down. . . But the further in I go, the more I worry about leaving out something significant. I think about how children tell stories, including every detail even if it doesn’t impact the narrative, and I know I don’t want to do that . . .

Our first impression of Bloom is so distinct! “Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.” I had to stop and just marvel at Joyce’s determination to frame our view of Bloom in this way. His appetite for food and his focus on what to eat are striking, perhaps signaling other things he hungers for? While I’ve never gotten this far in Ulysses, I know that Molly Bloom is not a faithful spouse, and so I wonder how much of what I see in Bloom and his exchanges with Molly is there because I know a bit of what happens later. Joyce foreshadowing. At any rate, Bloom’s focus on pork, given that I know he’s Jewish (as I am), is striking to me.

When Bloom checks to make sure the slip of paper is still hidden in his hat, I don’t know what the significance of that is but it’s so odd that I assume it’s important later on. I wondered why Joyce makes sure to tell us Bloom is wearing black. Reading later that he is going to a funeral explained it. Perhaps, in Joyce’s time, wearing black was an obvious sign of something to do with death — mourning (like Dedalus) or a funeral? Would the original readers have known right away what I realized later?

The advertisement for buying land in modern day Israel is a surprise to me, as is the discussion of the citron fruit: “Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. . . . Always the same, year after year.” — A reference to the Jewish festival of Sukkot, when as part of the observance a citron is held together with a palm frond and shaken and sniffed. I know this because I do this every year, but I am not expecting Bloom’s Judaism to resonate with me, since Joyce is not Jewish. I feel a qualm that I’ve underestimated Joyce! and I wonder how many readers understand this reference, thinking back to the latin that I didn’t quite get in the first Episode.  

What else is here that we still don’t know about, or don’t understand as Joyce meant it to be understood? There’s a sentence, when he is returning home, about a girl running down the path to meet him, and I can’t tell if it’s something Bloom is experiencing right then (she does not stop to talk with him) or if it’s a memory. Sources I checked later were conflicted about it — one said a memory of his daughter, the other a girl in the street running past him. Does it matter which? Maybe Joyce didn’t even care? Is this more of his mediation on all we experience being perception — Aristotle’s modality of the visible from the previous Episode?

Molly’s lack of gratitude for the breakfast tray, her lack of appreciation of Bloom, her slovenliness and taste for cheap novels (Paul de Kock? Really?) are all conspicuous to me, and I try not to dislike her automatically because I already feel sorry for Bloom. Again I wonder what I would have thought of her had I not known anything about the plot. I go back and re-read the part where Bloom’s heart, quickened at the idea of being in bed with Molly,“slow[s] at once” when he sees the letter that has come for her. Later, he thinks about Molly and Boylan, and feels “[a] soft qualm regret” for what will happen. I can stop worrying about this at least: Joyce means for the reader to think badly of Molly.

Bloom’s letter from Milly is a paragraph long. She says “I am getting on swimming in the photo business now” and that she’s had her photo taken, but I can’t tell if she’s trying to become a photographer or a model for the pictures. One of the boys bathing in the first Episode mentioned pictures of a girl and, according to a source I checked at the time, that girl turns out to be Bloom’s daughter.

The graphic description of Bloom in the outhouse was extremely shocking when first published, and in fact was one of the focuses of the Ulysses obscenity trial. Today, it is still extraordinary, both bold and matter-of-fact. Joyce intersperses the narrative of Bloom’s bodily functions with other things Bloom is thinking about — the story he’s reading in the newspaper, Molly’s dressing rituals — as if to say, ‘Well, why not? What’s the big deal?’ It’s brilliant mischief.

Narrative Summary

There’s really very little that actually happens in this Episode. Dedalus goes for a walk, intending to visit his Aunt Sara, but because he’s involved in his own thoughts, misses the turn and ends up walking on the beach. He passes some people, and sees the carcass of a dead dog. He is alone the whole time, there is no dialogue except for scenes he imagines or remembers. The episode, a little more than fourteen pages, is a recording of his thoughts as he walks, almost pure stream of consciousness.

At the beginning of the walk, he thinks about the “ineluctible modality of the visible,” the Aristotelian concept that what we think we perceive through sight is not really what is there but what we are conditioned or expect to see, based on our past experience. Daedalus closes his eyes to try to experience the world around him without being misled by sight. He relies on his hearing and other senses to guide him for a bit, wondering if the world around him will be gone when he opens his eyes. He opens them and the world is still there.

He sees two women who he recognizes as midwives, carrying something wrapped in cloth, what he thinks is a “misbirth”, with the umbilical cord trailing, and he thinks of birth, and how we are all linked by the nature of our creation. He thinks about his own “creation”, how his parents’ coupling brought him into being but that he exists now and cannot be willed away. This is the first mention of Dedalus’ father in the book.

He imagines what the visit to his aunt’s home will be like, and constructs a conversation. The “conversation” reveals that Dedalus was once very religious, and thought of becoming a priest; that his relatives think he had rather grandiose plans when he was younger — he said would write books with only letters for titles. The relatives’ “conversation” implies that Dedalus hoped to impress girls with his accomplishments.

Dedalus realizes he’s passed the turn-off to his Aunt’s house, and decides to walk to the pigeon house instead. He thinks back to when he was in Paris, events that happened there, conversations he had with friends or acquaintances, girls he met.

In the distance, he sees the tower he has been living in and thinks again that he will not sleep there that night. He walks further along the beach and sees the dead dog’s carcass, and the remains of a boat emerging from the sand. He is a bit frightened by a live dog that comes near to him, and he thinks of death again, how Mulligan saved a man from drowning, and he feels guilty that he himself would probably not be able to do so because he is a weak swimmer. His fear of the dog compares poorly to Mulligan’s bravery in saving the drowning man.

He imagines what has happened on this beach in centuries past — battles, invasions, the Irish conquered from the sea. . .

The dog that frightened him belongs to a couple who are gathering cockles in the surf, and they pass him on the beach, the woman walking behind the man. Dedalus stops to write down something he has thought of and doesn’t want to forget, sees his shadow on the sand, and thinks about a girl. He contemplates his own person — the boots he wears that are hand-me-downs from Mulligan, who he “disloves.” He thinks of Oscar Wilde’s love “that dare not speak its name” and that “He (Mulligan?) will now leave me.”

He watches seaweed floating in the water and thinks of the man who he heard had drowned the day before whose body has not yet been recovered. He imagines how they will bring in the body.

The sky becomes cloudy, and he begins to turn back to town. He realizes that he gave his handkerchief to Mulligan and lays snot picked from his nostril on a rock. He turns around to see if anyone is behind him and sees a three-masted ship off-shore.

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Thoughts and Impressions:
It was very hard to understand what was happening in this Episode. It sounds simple — he takes a walk — but the way it’s written is not simple at all. While reading it the first time, I had the feeling that I had to write down what I was experiencing right away, and so rushed to the computer as soon as I finished reading the Episode. Here is what I wrote:

Don’t know what’s going on, picking up bits, is he talking to himself or someone else, is he visiting an uncle or is he walking on the shore, seeing same people over again or different ones, is he in the past now or present? Beautiful words, understanding some, a clue here and there, while I read I think about whether I’m understanding it, so I’m thinking about what I’m reading and something else at the same time, and then my mind wanders. My own stream of consciousness rather than Dedalus’ or Joyce’s. I’m missing what he’s written because I’m thinking my own thoughts. I understand more when I concentrate more but then I think my own thoughts less . . . Is this Joyce’s way of showing the true nature of our lives?  That we never completely understand each other because we are in our own minds? That we have to give up part of ourselves to understand another even a little?  Genius to make me experience this . . . What else will he show? Go back, read again.

I didn’t even know that the “visit” to the aunt and uncle’s house only happens in Dedalus’ imagination until I read an annotation.

There is, of course, a lot of symbolism, things meaning other things, things I’m sure I didn’t catch. Perhaps reading Ulysses is like a rorschach test — what you notice and pick up on (and what you don’t) has more to do with who you are than what you are reading.  

Parts I loved:
When Dedalus stops to write down his thoughts, I couldn’t help but think that Joyce had done that countless times as well. Then Dedalus, pondering the transient nature of his own life, thinks: “Who ever anywhere will read these written words?” — The burning question for all writers, including even Joyce.

Towards the end of the Episode, when he’s thinking about Mulligan leaving him (for Haines), he thinks “And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all.” — The insistence that love must accept us whole, as we are, and that when (if?) love fails it is because this is not possible.

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Note: Some may see the fact that I haven’t yet mentioned the links between Ulysses and The Odyssey, Hamlet, and how Christians view the relationship between God and Christ as a grave oversight. At this point, however, I am aware of those parallels because of reading about the book, rather than because of the content of the Episodes I’ve read so far. Those themes, I think, become more clear once the book is seen as a whole, and are only hinted at in the beginning Episodes. While it may not be a very scholarly approach, and I may not entirely succeed, I am trying to write about Ulysses as I experience it, and not write what I am supposed to know about it.