Book Two Episode Nine: Scylla and Charybdis

(you can also read the webpage version of this blog by clicking this here link!)

The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. must work off bad karma first.

~ SD

Bubble, bubble toil and trouble

Now we're into the thick of it. "Scylla and Charibdis" (S&C), the famous library episode. Many consider this to be one of the best episodes in Ulysses, and I concur. There are lots of cover-worthy issues in S&C as it is an episode that begs interpretation, however, in keeping with the prime directive I will try to do this as unobtrusively as possible.

Ulysses is like a giant witches caldron, and Joyce has just about finished adding all of the ingredients to his magic potion. "Scylla and Charibdis" is where he begins to stir them all together. The fact is, whether I like it or not we are now at the point in the novel where we need to discuss the substance of Ulysses and not just its form. Of course we may have to deal with a couple of minor issues concerning form too, but the goal in this week's blog is to try to help you advance your understanding of where this story is heading without giving it all away, and this requires us to unearth a couple of Joyce's hidden treasures.

Never know whose thoughts you're chewing

Speaking of giving it all away, I have to mention that I came across the Cliffs Notes analysis of S&C online*, and it made me even more steadfast in my belief that those types of guides should be avoided by first time readers of Ulysses. I certainly don't mean to knock the Cliffs Notes site or Cliffs Notes in general. I think that a lot of the information they provided is very informative and, under the right circumstances, useful, but talk about stripping the reading experience of independent discovery! It's hard for me to see any reason to read the actual book when someone has already chewed up, digested, and regurgitated the most nutritious portions for you to effortlessly woof down like a helpless baby bird.

Imagine going to see The Matrix for the first time and someone gives you Cliffs Notes so that you might better understand the subtext of the movie. (Yes, there is subtext to be found in The Matrix. What? Did you think it was just about special effects and blowing shit up? Okay, I'll grant you Reloaded and Revolutions, but the original is choke full of clever allusions, in-depth symbolism, and an actual message beyond the superficial story). Anyway...

*note that I did not provide a link to this site (hint!). Now, of course it looms before you like a shiny red button labeled Do Not Push.

What's the story morning glory?

One thing (or theme) that should be glaringly obvious to you in S&C is the father and son pairing. This episode is thick with it. The other theme that should jump out at you is that of transcendentalism (with emphasis on transcendence - hint, hint...). This is particularly evident in the early part of the episode while A.E. Russell is still present. We have briefly discussed the importance of the father and the son (a MAJOR theme), but I should also point out that these esoteric/hermetic/occult/transcendental allusions that populate S&C (and the rest of the book as well) are very important to understanding the story of Ulysses. In fact they combine with the father/son theme to lend significant meaning to the story.

So we're back on that old saw again, the story. Yep, if I've said it once I've said it a hundred times; your first read through Ulysses should be about learning how to navigate the narrative and cultivating a solid general understanding of the story. Again, we want to answer the question "what is Ulysses about?" So, going back to our simplistic description of the text, we know that Ulysses is the story of two men, one older and one younger, who meet. The greater question is why? What is the point of this meeting? What happens? With these questions in mind your job is to factor in the father/son (or Father/Son - hint, hint...) conversations that occur in S&C and the episodes and draw your own conclusions from there. Get together with friends and spitball some ideas. Or try to explain the book to someone who isn't reading it. Don't be afraid to think creatively on this point, and don't be afraid to be wrong. You probably are. (JK... kind of) :)

Well, that's it for your lecture on substance. I suppose you were expecting more, but, you know... that whole prime directive thing... But this little morsel of information should help you piece things together. This is the essence of the reading experience of Ulysses, you know, making sense of the story, order from chaos... stuff like that. Modernist art forms in all genres are about critically reflecting on the material and attempting to draw plausible conclusions, NOT arriving at a single codified answer. I said at the start that Ulysses required work, and I wasn't joking. But I also said it was worth the effort that you would put in. Of course, you'll have to make that determination for yourself, but I am confident that you'll be feelin' pretty good about yourself once you finish this book.

Form of forms

Now about those questions of narrative. For the most part there's nothing particularly difficult, or at least nothing new, in the way of narrative. It's generally us in Stephen's complicated head, as usual. There is a potentially confusing interior dialogue going on in Stephen's thoughts beginning with "How now sirrah..." and ending in the brilliant punchline A.E.I.O.U. This IM is more of a dialogue where Stephen interrogates himself about the debts he owes, particularly to A.E. Russell. If you want to know why the pun is so brilliant revisit episode 2, "Nestor" and reread the list of debts Stephen recalls. Maybe it's just me, but to set up a joke in episode two and spring the punchline in episode nine is pretty impressive.

Otherwise we also have that strange albeit short instance of what appears to be dialogue in free verse beginning with "to whom thus Eglington:" and ending in "Leftabed". To be honest, I don't have any explanation for that, so I would welcome any and all speculation on the subject. And toward the latter half of the episode we also see part of the dialogue laid out in the form of a play musical direction included. I also cannot give a satisfactory explanation for that. Again, your best guesses are encouraged.

Agenbite of Inwit

Oh! There is one other thing I wanted to mention since I'm doling out all this substantive info. In the interest of fair and balanced reporting I wanted to make explicit "Stephen's issue", to balance out the info you have on Bloom from the last entry.

So, as you might recall, I revealed to you that Bloom's wife Molly (Mrs Marion Bloom -- Boldhand) was about to embark upon an affair with her manager Blazes Bolyan, and this knowledge has preoccupied Bloom's thoughts throughout the day. Well, Stephen has been haunted by a recurrent ghost of his own: His mother "who's beastly dead". But its not so much the death of his mother per se as it is his guilt about his behavior at her deathbed and his refusal to honor her dying request to kneel and pray for her.

Like the information that I gave you concerning Bloom and his dilemma, this revelation of Stephen's guilt is clearly crossing the line of the prime directive (a.k.a. TMI). However, just as in the case of Bloom, I absolve myself of the transgression with the excuse that this issue has been at play for quite some time now, and it is highly likely that most readers have picked up on it (or at least formed suspicions about it). Thus the half-life of its interpretive potency has expired and it is safe to give it to you because it is no longer toxic*.

*bs

The only other thing I will say concerning Stephen's personal problem is that you might consider it in connection with Bloom's problem. Taken together their respective issues shape the story, how I won't say (in this blog), but I will say that they serves as a central drivers of the subtextual narrative.

Randomage

Note that the two principals of Ulysses once again find themselves in proximity of one another in this episode. Note also that at each interval of almost meeting they draw ever closer to one another. To remind you, the first instance was when Bloom spotted Stephen from the funeral carriage in "Hades", the second was when he spotted him with the pressmen in the "Aeolus" episode, and now we have them to close enough to speak with one another. Just another thing for you to consider in your ruminations.

Raw notes

Plato and Aristotle factor into this episode greatly (must do more research on this dichotomy)

"Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle with Plato."

"God: noise in the street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see... Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past." (does Stephen align himself with aristotle here?)

Begin on the surface: what's going on in the text?

Next: what subtextual elements are important to understanding the story? (without giving away the store)

---> the father and son theme

Any narrative issues to address?

• "The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. must work off bad karma first".

• "He will have it that Hamlet is a ghoststory"

• "What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners."

• "Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's daughter. Agenbite of inwit."

• "Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound." (Aristotelian?)

• "no man, not a woman, will ever know."

• "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?"

• "an actress played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin."

• "Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience."

• "We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves."

• "...glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself."

• "Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote."

• "Come, Kinch. Come, wandering Aengus of the birds."

• "O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!"

• "...feeling one behind, he stood aside. Part. The moment is now. Where then?"

• "A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting."

• "A dark back went before them, step of a pard..."

Book Two Episode Eight: Lestrygonians

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As we move ever deeper into Ulysses I am finding it progressively more difficult to blog about the book. This is primarily because you should now be pretty well along in your ability to navigate the most common narrative difficulties that Joyce presents, and therefore there is little more for me to say on that issue. Of course there are more sharp curves to come, but they won't pose a major challenge so will only require some basic explanation, and in any event we aren't there yet, so that leaves a vacuum to be filled.

Because "Lestrygonians" presents nothing new by way of narrative challenge, I would like to take this opportunity to address something of more substantive importance: Bloom's dilemma. That's right. That issue that I have been challenging you to decipher, that thing that Joyce has been alluding to in every episode in which Bloom appears, that's the thing I want to address now.

Up until this point I didn't think it was fair to just blurt out this major aspect of the novel, because, as I have stated ad nauseum, I think independent discovery is one of the most rewarding parts of reading Ulysses. A mystery is always more satisfying when you can solve it before it is revealed to you. Having said that, I think that we are now at a point in the epic where it is more beneficial to make plain what exactly is going on with Bloom, in order to help lend a bit more context to the story which is unfolding. So, now is the moment I have to come out with it in plain words (since Joyce won't do it himself).

So... Out with it!

Okay, I'm just going to say it plainly; Marion (Molly) Bloom is going to commence an affair with here manager Blazes Boylan. There. No more secrets, no more tiptoeing around. It's out in the open now, and we can deal with it as mature adults. Maybe you already knew and just didn't want to say anything. You either figured it out through the many telltale clues, or maybe someone tipped you off. However you found out the point is it's no longer a secret. The affair has now been made public. And if you didn't know, if this comes as a complete surprise, then I hope you don't feel too betrayed finding out this way. I hope we can get past this, for the sake of the story.

Oh! it's also terribly important to point out that Bloom knows that this affair is going to happen. He knows the precise time it has been scheduled, and this knowledge accounts for many of Bloom's more cryptic IMs, particularly those that concern him referencing the time of day. It's pretty evident that this knowledge consumes Bloom, intruding on his otherwise tranquil and random musings throughout the day, and it is largely around this point of psychic tension (as well as Stephen's, which we will cover at a later point) that the real story of Ulysses is constructed (or at least that's my conjecture).

So why spill the beans now?

Aside from the fact that there really isn't a whole lot else to talk about with "Lestrygonians", this episode also happens to be dominated with references to this issue as Bloom's thoughts continually return to the subject, despite his attempts to suppress them. It's also high time that you picked up a major piece of the puzzle that is the story of Ulysses.

Does this revelation flirt dangerously close with crossing the line of the prime directive? No, it steps boldly over that line. But I figure at this point the damage is minimized. So I sincerely hope I haven't diminished your reading experience. Revealing this information also gives us an opportunity to look more closely at how Joyce uses innuendo cum allusion to advance his agenda and also to talk a little bit about symbolism or representation or motif... not sure which term applies best.

According to my dictionary.com iPad app, an allusion is "a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication: an allusion to Shakespeare" Many events in Ulysses are foreshadowed by these casually dropped phrases, such as this one by Bloom early in the "Lestrygonians" episode: "Coming events cast their shadows before."  Quite right Mr. Bloom, they surely do.

To this end, one of the earliest foreshadowings of Bloom's impending cuckolding comes in the form Molly's handling of the letter she receives from Blazes Boylan and the particular notice which Bloom takes of her handling of said letter. Let's go back to episode four for a replay of events. 

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

—Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

—O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme*.

*Yeah, he's bringing the program alright. Is that what they called it back in the 20s? 


At the time of the reading of this brief exchange between husband and wife there is no way we would make the inference of an affair. The act of putting the letter under the pillow, Bloom's casual question to his wife, and her casual response all seem like normal actions arousing no suspicion in the reader. If we go back a couple of pages there is an even earlier allusion which we can only recognize retrospectively as a foreshadowing.  "Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion."

Looking back with more information now at our disposal, we can see that Bloom's question to his wife was disingenuous. He already knew in advance who the letter was from, and he knew the secret significance of the letter. Joyce is brilliantly (if not brutally) efficient in his use of foreshadowing and allusion. "In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread"? How smooth is that!? Or "His quickened heart slowed at once." Seriously deft stuff here people. By setting this heart-racing reaction Joyce not only establishes Bloom's recognition of the affair at the moment of finding the letter, but he also sets up a motif that repeats throughout the story, acting as a cue to the reader (in the know) that Bloom is (once again) preoccupied with the coming and inevitable event foreshadowed by the strip of envelope under the pillow.

People can argue about whether Ulysses is worth reading or not, but anyone who questions the brilliance of the writing clearly has no frame of reference, OR... they're just dumb.     

As regards symbols, motifs, references, metaphors and things of that ilk, they serve a number of functions. Among other things they may: create subtextual correspondences between the text and historical, literary, religious or other material; establish or fortify thematic ideas or character traits; connect characters in some non-obvious manner; or serve as signals to the reader. I'd like to talk a little bit about this last one.

What do I mean serve as a signal to the reader? Well, let's take an example from "Lestrygonians". "Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers."  here we have a reference to Boylan without ever mentioning his name. Joyce uses various code words throughout to reference Blazes Boylan without mentioning him directly (that's what makes it code). In this way the reader is signaled to Boylan's presence (either in real time or in Bloom's mind). Certain words become associated with Blazes Boylan and establish who he is and how he fits into the story. I would suggest you reread the end of "Lestrygonians" beginning with the above quote "Straw hat in sunlight..." Don't worry, it'll only take you a minute out of your way. What you will find is a lot of compacted information -- from those Boylan code words, to this great line "Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes*" to this great line "My heart!"-- in this brief event.

*my italics

Joyce is able to compact a great deal of depth into a relatively small textual space by means of these devices of innuendo, reference, and representation, giving a dimensionality to Ulysses that most other novels lack. (So why is the book so f#%$ing long?!)

One last word on symbolism

Okay, I have to point out this one really cool piece of symbolism which Joyce deploys in the first episode ("Telemachus"). When I was made aware of the hidden meaning I was awestruck at Joyce's wit. "Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it."

Haines = England

Silver case with green stone = Ireland (the emerald island surrounded by silver sea)

Thus, Ireland is in the hands of the English. Or in England's pocket if you follow the citation to it's conclusion.

Seriously, is that not cool?!  This is the kind of stuff that makes Ulysses worth all the work.

Raw notes:

• "A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man... placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom."
• "Bloo... Me? No."
• "Elijah is coming" 

• "Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth."   

• "Some chap with a dose burning him. If he...? O! Eh? No... No. No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely? No, no."
• "Think no more about that. After one."

• "Parallax"

• "They are not Boyl: no, M Glade's men."

• "Blew up all her skirts ..." 

• "Sit her horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress... Strong as a brood mare some of those horsey women... Toss off a glass of brandy neat while you'd say knife."

• "five quid at compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years want to work it out on paper..."

• "I oughtn't to have got myself swept along with those medicals."

• "a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, shadowing Trinity's surly front."

• "Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets his notice to quit."

• "No-one is anything."

• "There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face... Like a man walking in his sleep... Poached eyes on ghost."

• "Coming events cast their shadows before."

• "Something occult: symbolism."

• "Gas: then solid: then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, like that pineapple rock."

• "Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts." 

• "See ourselves as others see us."

• "Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in it? A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart... Two. Not yet."

• "Then about six o'clock I can. Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She..."

• "Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck."

• "food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food" 

• "Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten about two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott's dyeworks van over there. If I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. Five guineas about. On the pig's back."

• "Today. Today. Not think." 

• "Dark men they call them."

• "Karma they call that transmigration for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses."

• "Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is. His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to the right" 

• "Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes."

Book Two Episode Seven: Aeolus

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HEADLINES! (AND MORE HEADLINES!)

Congratulations! you are now more than a third of the way through Ulysses (at least episode wise). You've survived the underworld of "Hades" and have now entered the land of windy "Aeolus" where you are greeted by more Dublin denizens and... HEADLINES! Apropos considering the environs in which the episode is situated, don't you think? That Joyce is one clever cat I'll tell you what. Clam dever!

KNOWN KNOWNS

Putting aside Joyce's cleverness for the moment, I am wondering a couple of things: one, is it possible to know or even construct a theory about what Ulysses is about at this point in the book? and two, given what Joyce has given us, can we begin to make meaning of the text?

Okay, what do we know so far, or as our friend "Rummy" would say, what are our known knowns? Well, we know that Ulysses is, on the surface, the story of two guys meeting. We know that those two guys are Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. And we know that Ulysses is structured upon Homer's Odyssey, and that episode names in Ulysses have symbolic correspondences with their Homeric namesakes.

Of course, we also know other things, specific information such as the fact that Bloom is married to Mrs. Marion (Molly) Bloom née Tweedy, and that Stephen currently resides in the Martello Tower with Malachi (Buck) Mulligan. We could go on listing what we know, but we need not revisit all the minutiae. The point is, we now have lots of information but are still in no position to really know what we are reading about. We are a short novels length into Ulysses yet the story is still veiled in obscurity.

WE MUSN'T BE LED AWAY BY WORDS

There are many reasons why Ulysses remains so mysterious this far into the narrative. Hundreds of obscure allusions and non apparent symbolism (known unknowns), and constantly changing narrative voices contribute are major contributors to this mystery. But I would like add another culprit to this list: disjunction. One of the stylistic elements Joyce seems to employ is the disjointed narrative where the story appears to be ever shifting from episode to episode. One minute we're in a tower, the next we're in a school, then we're walking along the beach, suddenly there's a new guy we never even heard of and we're at his beautiful house, with his beautiful wife, and then we ask ourselves, well, how did we get here?!*

*(Sorry about that, Talking Heads was playing in the background and "Once in a Lifetime" got stuck in my head.) 

The point is, we feel we can never quite get our bearings, through theses changes. There doesn't seem to be any flow to the story.

But I submit that the disjointed narrative of Ulysses is more imaginary than real, and "Aeolus" is the perfect exemplar of this disguised disjunction. Diced into a series of short newspaper articles set apart by bold type headlines, you might think that a couple dozen different miniature narratives are taking place... and you'd be wrong*. Beneath the visual surface of the text, i.e. the divisions by headline, is a continuous storyline. The headlines seem to mean very little in actuality. The style serves to obscure the reality of the content, misdirecting the eye, and thereby the psyche, away from the actual consistency of the text. In this same way the stylistic shifts that make up the surface of Ulysses can misdirect us from the consistency of the story taking place before our eyes.

*Pericles Lewis of Yale University points out that there are actually five stories going on in this episode, but those are subtextual and won't concern us here. We are just trying to get through the text at this point.

LOYAL TO LOST CAUSES

Having said that, it doesn't change the fact that we still don't know what Ulysses is about at this point, and that can lead to some frustration. The fact is we can't really "know" the story of Ulysses until we've read Ulysses (unknown unknown?). This realization can cause some readers to feel like they've gone from being lost in the text to believing that the text is a lost cause. And it doesn't help when smart people write stupid articles like this one that appeared in Slate magazine.

Well, it's a free country and I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion (even if it's wrongheaded...). So I will just say that the mark of being an adult is that you make up your own mind and don't delegate the responsibility to "experts" who think they know your mind better than you. And really, the idea that you could read only a single episode of Ulysses and have it be a worthwhile experience, as though it were a soundbite, denigrates the novel and underestimates your intelligence. Let me tell you how you should feel about that. You should feel insulted! Yeah! That's how you should feel!

Now run along and go play! But only after you've finished your reading.

RAW NOTES

Immediately we are confronted with a completely new style

Comparison of narrative flow between "normal" stories and Ulysses: as I began reading Aeolus it immediately occurred to me that this story doesn't flow like other stories. It seems to be constantly disjuncting, if I can make up a word. This becomes very apparent during "Aeolus" because the text of the episode is divided up into a bunch of little morsels that makes the particular episode feel disjointed. I think about Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (another of my favorite books) and how that story is so fluid and easy to follow. The characters go through a logical progression in both their exposition and the issues that confront them. The general issue of the story -- the trials and tribulations of the marriageability of the sisters Bennett -- is made plain to the reader early enough to anticipate (roughly) what one might expect. Or at least enough to keep the reader focused on what the resolution might be. Austen creates a great deal of mystery as to how things will resolve, so there is much the reader doesn't know. But, at least the reader knows what the story is. It is a continuously progressive narrative that the reader can easily follow, with more than enough signs to keep the reader safely on the road. Between style shifts and shifts between the stories of Bloom and Stephen, not to mention the constant issues of navigating the narrative voice shifts, the story of Ulysses seems to lack continuity. The first ride is a bumpy ride. Very bumpy. I have to remind myself of this because now, after so many readings and so much investigation the story reads to me like a regular narrative.

When you think about it every story is a mystery. A man is found dead in an ally; who is the murderer? Mrs. Bennett is desperate to marry off her eldest daughters before they become old maids; will they marry, and to whom? The mystery of most stories is how the story will resolve. A story is an interesting means of asking questions, presenting mysteries, or creating dilemmas to be solved or resolved. But typically, the story itself is not the dilemma. But Ulysses presents us with the additional burden of solving the mystery of the story itself, and part of this mystery is created through disjunction, that is, the surface text seems to shift from episode to episode. So, just when you feel like you're into some kind of narrative groove, the scene changes, or the characters change, or the style changes.

I recently read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and it took me, what, maybe twenty or thirty pages to figure out what the story was about. I have little doubt that there is more to the story than what the surface text reveals, but the surface text makes for a compelling story in it's own right. This holds true for other great books as well: 1984, Crime and Punishment, Wuthering Heights, To Kill a Mockingbird, blah, blah, blah... You can figure out what the story is with little effort (the author makes sure of that), and the story is a compelling one. But with Ulysses the story becomes part of the mystery. And this is true for both the surface story of 'two guys meeting' and doubly (more like decuply) for the myriad sub-stories. Joyce subtracts plot from the narrative, shrouding it in mystery, leaving only prose and style, and the style of "Aeolus" is decidedly disjunctive. At least at first glance. As you get into the main prose of the episode it becomes pretty clear that the narrative is pretty continuous and reads fairly straightforward if you don't take those headlines too seriously.

So what do those headlines mean? How should we interpret them? Answers: not sure, and don't. The truth is I haven't taken much time to investigate this particular aspect of Ulysses (although you can bet that I will now). The fact of the matter is that you don't need to worry about those headlines during your first reading. They don't interfere with your ability to read or understand the text in any significant way so... who cares? I've always felt they were some sort of red herring, although I'm fairly sure they are not. But that's how I have treated them up to this point in my Ulysses education. I'm confident that once I ferret out a reliable, or at least plausible, explanation of the headlines, I will be slapping my forehead for missing their symbolic significance.

Is it possible to derive any meaning from Ulysses at this point?

Is it possible to know what Ulysses is about by episode seven?

• "Ireland my country. "

• "Two crossed keys..."

• "I could go home still: tram: something I forgot. Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No."

• "The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to the dusty windowpane"

• "Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply. —Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With an accent on the whose."

• "He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket."-- not Bloom...

• "Madam Bloom... The vocal muse. Dublin's prime favourite. Lenehan gave a loud cough."

• "I want you to write something for me, he (Myles Crawford) said. Something with a bite in it... Put us all into it, damn its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy."

• "Child, man, effigy."

• "... he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day"

• "Where are those blasted keys?"

• "Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit."

• "But it makes them giddy to look so they pull up their skirts..."

Book Two Episode Six: Hades

(you can also read the webpage version of this blog by clicking this here link!)

What do they be thinking about?

My general rule when writing a blog entry is when all else fails try to anticipate what the reader, i.e. you, might be thinking about, struggling with, puzzling over etc, while reading Ulysses. I do this by trying to put myself back into my own mindset during my first reading of Ulysses, looking for things that caused great confusion for me. But at this point in the book I have to presume that because you have had the benefit of topnotch guidance from yours truly*, you are beginning to find certain things less challenging than I did.

*I will now finish the rest of this blog entry typing with one hand, having broken my arm patting myself on the back

With this in mind, as I read through episode seven, "Hades", I am finding very little that should give you trouble. Relative to the experience you have gained reading up to this point, and taking into account the content and style of the episode, I reckon "Hades" is one of the easiest episodes to get through. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption.

"Hades" is heavy on dialogue (which is the easiest narrative element in Ulysses to navigate), and their are no new narrative curveballs thrown in. Considering the book in question, this is a very straightforward episode. There are, of course, plenty of Bloomian IM/SOC to untangle, but you're well practiced at this by now, so no problem right? Right!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I would love to ramble on and on like I usually do, I really don't have much to give you by way of instruction or help here. My only real worry for you at this point is that you may be getting impatient with the slow pace of the text. A friend of mine who was part of my Ulysses book group back in the day crapped out at this point in the book, unable to withstand Bloom's dense monologues and the lack of action. The fact is that while you are likely getting the hang of reading Joyce you are nonetheless still in the dark as to what is going on. As I have said before, ignore the minor inconvenience of your ignorance. Or better yet, accept it as part of the fun. It's like making your way through a darkened haunted house! (with very apathetic monsters).

And like any good haunted house, Ulysses is full of ghosts. Especially here in Hades, house of the dead. Just as we discussed Homeric episode title correspondences in "Proteus" I will again make brief mention here. I don't think I'm divulging any grand secrets by pointing out that "Hades" takes place in a graveyard. Duh! And of course, this being a James Joyce joint, there is lots of clever, subtle symbolism and allusion to the Homeric original. See if you can spot a few. They're not easy to find, but once they're pointed out, you either slap your palm against your forehead and say "how did I miss that?!" or you just shake your head at the genius of the man (the man being Joyce, of course).

As usual, there are also the thematic threads and motifs that wend there way relentlessly through each episode. Plenty to find here, but no shame if you miss some (or many). But please don't miss all of them. Ulysses is the proverbial 'forest for the trees' experience, and you should know that the forest remains dense throughout the journey. But don't despair, because the trees are marvelous!

Questions for you (from me -- with love <3):

"Hades" is the first look we get at Bloom in the extended company of is Dublin peers. Instead of passing comment on this or making some kind of interpretation, I will instead pose a few questions to you about this. What are your impressions of Bloom's relationship with the other Dublin males? How would you characterize the interaction? How do you feel that he fits into this group? Also, while I'm putting questions out there, can anyone point out the albatross following Bloom? You know, that now familiar, all important issue that defines Bloom's day.

My favorite line:

"Thank you. How grand we are this morning!"

Raw notes:

•   "Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat. -- There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. -- Who is that? Your son and heir."

•   "He doesn’t see us, Mr Power said.  Yes, he does.  How do you do? Who?  Mr Dedalus asked. Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said.  There he is airing his quiff. (Bloom) Just that moment I was thinking."

•   "He's coming in the afternoon"

•   "... White disk of a straw hat"

•   "Is there anything more in him that they she sees?"

•   "Of the tribe of Ruben, he said -- The devil break the hasp of your back!"

•   "We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly. His eyes met Mr Bloom’s eyes. He caressed his beard, adding: Well, nearly all of us."

•   "Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely:"

•   "If it’s healthy it’s from the mother.  If not from the man."

•   "Coffin now.  Got here before us, dead as he is."

•   "...a face with dark thinking eyes..."

•   "She would marry another.  Him?  No."

•   John O'Connell, cemetery caretaker --  "Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham’s side puzzling two long keys at his back."

•   "Now who is that lanky looking galoot over there in the macintosh?  Now who is he I’d like to know?  Now I’d give a trifle to know who he is.  Always someone turns up you never dreamt of."

•   "I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's number."

•   "If we were all suddenly somebody else."

•   (Hynes to Bloom): "What is your christian name?"

•   Bloom re: the man in the macintosh: "What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord, what became of him?"

•   "I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death."

•   "The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again."

Book Two Episode Five: "Lotus Eaters"

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Welcome to another edition of Ulysses for the Rest of Us. We are glad to see you're still with us. 

-- We?! 

-- I! The royal "we"! You know, the editorial...

Anyway, glad you're still here. It's around this point that some start seriously thinking about jumping ship. If you're getting the itch to bail then, don't worry. It's normal. It's a phase. You'll grow out if it. Just keep on keepin' on. It's what Odysseus would have done.

So here we are at episode five, "Lotus Eaters", where, aside from a couple of brief interruptions, we get to spend some quality alone-time with our hero, Leopold Bloom. We've already gotten a glimpse into Bloom's personality from our introduction in "Calypso", and now we are treated to an extended foray into the life and mind of our 'Odysseus on the Liffey'. And what other method would Joyce employ for this character exposition than the interior monologue and stream of consciousness? By now you should be old hat at weeding the interior thoughts of characters from the more detached third person over narrations, so we don't need to have an extensive tutorial on this point. That horse has been well whipped I think.

However...

I would not be doing my job of I didn't make at least brief mention of IM/SOC as regards Bloom. Really, what I feel the need to do is validate a feeling that many of you may be experiencing with this episode (and possibly the last episode as well); tedium. Bloom's interior monologues and stream of consciousness can be difficult to follow at times, and yes, they can get a bit tedious. Here's what I think the trouble boils down to:

Firstly, Bloom is a broadly (but not deeply) educated, well rounded person. However, he is not particularly brilliant. Where Stephen has the nature of an artist and the mind of a genius, Bloom is, quite frankly, common. He is "the common man". So, when we read Stephen's internal ruminations, though they may come of as a bit self-absorbed or even melodramatic, they are beautifully rendered, thus they hold our interest. We might say that Stephen has his head in the clouds. But Bloom is grounded. He is down to earth, practical, and not given to lofty abstractions (probably because he isn't capable of them). So, Bloom's thoughts lack the art that we find in Stephen, and rendered in such unlovely terms they can begin to bore us. In other words while Stephen gives us Michelangelian masterpieces, Bloom gives us stick figures.

Secondly, Bloom's thoughts often go uncompleted, so it's difficult to know exactly what is going through his head. This can make him difficult to read, both in the literal, textual sense, as well as the figurative personality sense. For example, "Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure." Okay, so what the bleep is that supposed to mean? Granted, I have taken the text out of context, but even within the larger context of the original paragraph (or even the episode) the meaning of that passage is very obscure. This is not to imply that we can understand Stephen any better. Just think back to the density of "the ineluctable modality of the visible". Even as we get to know Bloom and Stephen in very intimate terms, Joyce manages to shroud them in darkness.

Stephen and Bloom are both obscure characters, but for different reasons. Stephen's obscurity comes from his multitudinous abstractions layered in a heavy coat of literary, biblical, and/or historical allusions, woven into a textual shroud. Meanwhile, Bloom gives us a pile of incomplete sentences and thoughts that simply go unvoiced. In our above example Bloom alludes to something... but he doesn't specify what. So we are left to speculate. Bloom is also given to dropping a ton of popular culture references, in contrast to Stephen's high culture allusions -- with my tooraloom, tooraloom tay.

Confronted with an episode full of plainly articulated, clipped thoughts, it's not surprising that many readers get turned off around this point in the book. But I assure you that it's not as hopelessly boring as you might first find it. Patience dear reader, patience. The obscurities become clear over the course of the book, and you will also get used to Bloom's style of monologue, just like you got used to Stephen's.

Don't sell our man Bloom short. Many professional literature types consider Bloom the most complete character ever created in fiction writing. Hell! The guy has an entire day dedicated to him that's celebrated worldwide! So there must be something interesting about him, right? So, if you're feeling a bit bogged down here in the land of the Lotus Eaters, don't despair. Simply let yourself get to know old Poldy. His secrets will all soon be revealed and he will open up like a flower. And of course, if you have questions about what's going on here, you can post them in the comments section. I might even have an answer.

Another word on tangled narrative

Just a quick nod to a particular passage that I anticipate some of you might be finding difficult to work through. The passage begins with; "M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly." What follows this phrase is a melange of conversation, internal monologue, and third person narrative in a large textual ratatouille that spans a couple of pages or so. It's actually very funny once you understand what's going on. As has been the case until now, you have to parse who is saying what, when. The key is to remember that the entire passage unfolds in the midst of M'Coy telling Bloom about how he (M'Coy) found out about Paddy Dignam's death. Bloom's interest at the moment are clearly focused elsewhere (the haunches if a stately fraulein). Aside from being hysterical in its accuracy of how our attention tends to drift during other people's ramblings (kind of like you right now), it's also very revealing of an aspect of Bloom's character.

Conclusory note

In the interest of full disclosure, I find "Lotus Eaters" among the two or three least interesting episodes in Ulysses, but hey, that's just me. Having said that, there are some very funny parts to be found here. More importantly, Joyce introduces another important puzzle piece (and a very obvious one at that, seriously, if you don't know what I'm talking about then... never mind). We also see many of the earlier themes carrying through here, so as usual, keep an eye out for repeated elements weaving their way through the story. And finally, that thing that I mentioned in the last blog that dogs Bloom throughout the day, you know his "major issue"? Well, there is another subtle reference in this episode as well. See if you can spot it.

Raw notes:

•   "Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath.  Curious longing I. Water to water.  Combine business with pleasure." -- These clipped thoughts allude to something specific but clearly are not made plain to the reader. My favorite thing is when people talk as though they knew all along what was being implied, and that the implication was obvious.

•   "Mrs Marion Bloom... Torn strip of envelope."

•   "Sweeeet song.". -- There's a deviously embedded IM

•   "Mrs Bandmann Palmer... Hamlet she played last night. Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman."

•   "... Who left the house if his father and left the God of his father."

O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers

She didn't know what to do

To keep it up

To keep it up

•   " A million pounds, wait a moment.  Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter.  One and four into twenty:  fifteen about.  Yes, exactly.  Fifteen millions of barrels of porter. What am I saying barrels?  Gallons.  About a million barrels all the same."

•   "Turn up with a veil and black bag."

-- Curious narration of the mass. Seems like Bloom is doing a third person account of the mass. Not sure if this is the case.

•   "Lifetime in a night"

•   "Oh, and I forgot that latchkey too."

•   "I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered.  I was going to throw it away that moment. Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms. I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks."