Where do begin in this?
~ Stephen Dedalus
Seriously, how do I get this thing started? How do I begin a blog of James Joyce's Ulysses? There's so much to cover, particularly early on when we don't know anything about what's going on. In the spirit of helping the newbies (or novitiates if we want to be more literary) I will try to locate important themes, motifs, style elements and "landmarks" that I think will make the going a bit easier for you, the uninitiated.
Essentially I will attempt do for you what I would have appreciated someone having done for me on my first (or even my second) reading of Ulysses. But I don't want to make it so easy as to take away from the reading experience, because, you must understand that Ulysses is not merely a novel, but it is an experience. And who am I to take that away from you? So if by the end of the first episode you feel I could have given you more, then good! If you still feel lost after the basic info provided but you also want to continue on following the trail, then I will have done some good in this world and my life will not have been lived in vain.
Basic fact to keep in mind:
Joyce's Ulysses was built on the frame work of Homer's Odyssey or Ulysses as it is sometimes called, hence the name of Joyce's novel. In this spirit it is an epic tale -- just like Homer's. Thus the book is divided into episodes, not chapters. Joyce named his episodes (18 in all) after episodes or characters or elements of Homers text (24 episodes in all)* for example, episode 3 is called "Proteus" after a character of The Odyssey.
*(Joyce's original text and many subsequent editions do not list the episode titles, but they can be found in a few editions, and in the two schemata Joyce gave to Stuart Gilbert and Herbert Gorman).
False start
The Telemachia represents the opening four episodes of Homer's Odyssey, and Joyce calls his first three episodes... The Telemachia - just like Homer. These opening episodes are introductory, specifically they are meant to introduce the young hero of the epic, in this case Stephen Dedalus, but it also introduces a majority of the main themes and motifs of the novel.
The first chapter, oops! the first episode is called "Telemachus". I won't go into any detail about the Stephen Dedalus/Telemachus association other than to say there is an association (the whys and wherefores are for you to figure out yourself). By the way, if you haven't read Homer's Odyssey then I strongly encourage you to do so. It helps a lot when reading Joyce's Ulysses. Actually, before I proceed here are three books to read (in order of importance) that help Ulysses make much more sense: Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, by James Joyce; The Odyssey, by Homer; Dubliners, by James Joyce. If you only read one of these, then read Portrait. It's the story of Stephen Dedalus as a boy growing up, and Ulysses picks up his story shortly after the point at which it drops off in in Portrait. Okay, for real now...
Real start
"Telemachus" begins with Buck Mulligan, Stephen's flatmate in the Martello Tower, descending the stairway, stately and plump. I won't walk you through the entire episode since you can do that yourself - it's what I like to call reading. Instead let me point to one of the first and most important style elements in this work: the interior monologue (IM). Interior monologue and stream of consciousness (SOC), which Joyce also uses abundantly in Ulysses, are not the same thing though people often conflated the two*. I'll discuss the difference in another edition when it is more relevant. Right now we'll just look at the first instance of interior monologue appearing on the first page of the text; "Chrysostomos". Okay, first off this is brilliant! But more importantly for you is how it should be read and understood.
*fair warning: interior monologue and stream of consciousness will dominate the early discussions in this blog
Basically, this single word, "Chrysostomos", is a thought which occurs in Stephen's mind and should be recognized as how he thinks about his friend Buck Mulligan. There are, of course, important historical meanings connected to this word, thus it is associative. Here's a simple example of what I mean: Suppose you're in a class and you have an instructor whom you feel is evil incarnate. He's in the midsts of berating the class for some reason or other, and in your mind you think to yourself "Hitler". You have just created an interior monologue associating your instructor with Adolph Hitler. Anyone who understands who Hitler is, and what he stands for historically, would understand your attitude toward your instructor based on this word association. This is one way in which Joyce employs IM.
So, once you understand the meaning of "Chrysostomos" a great deal of light is shed on Stephen's relationship with and attitude toward Mulligan. Who or what a "Chrysostomos" is, of course, is another thing that you must eventually figure out for yourself. However...
WARNING: Because there are literally hundreds of allusions to uncover (and not all are IM), it may not be worth the time or effort to ferret out these meanings during a first reading. You will want to pick and choose which things you need to know right away and which things can wait. Otherwise you will never make it through the book. This is the primary reason that Ulysses is such a difficult read.
The other problem with "Chrysostomos" is one of style or narrative. Because it appears in the midst of a third person narration and is not set apart in any special way, it's function, meaning, and reading are very confusing. This style element (or narrative difficulty) of interior monologue will occur throughout the book, so it is worth figuring out early, as it will make a lot of your reading less confusing.
So how do you know when you're reading an interior monologue? Well... you just do. Unfortunately there are no specific markers such as the dashes (--) which Joyce uses to set apart character's spoken words. IM can appear anywhere at anytime, in the middle of narrations, in the midsts of spoken dialogue, anywhere, anytime, and because they will weave seamlessly in and out of third-person narrations so often, you just have to develop an eye and an ear for them. So the only thing I can tell you is that with practice you will eventually get used to them and recognize most of them when they appear (though some are really well hidden).
Let's take another example from the text which I like: "Cranly's arm, his arm"
This one functions a lot like "Chrysostomos" in that it is meant to reveal Stephen's attitude toward Mulligan, but it's point of narrative connection is further away from the sentiment thought. It is connected to the third person narration "Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's..." which appears about two paragraphs back. Being disconnected from its source, this IM phrase poses a reading challenge, and if you don't know who Cranly is, then it poses a challenge of interpretation as well. The narrative challenge you will work out soon enough, but discerning meaning requires either prior knowledge or research, so you'll have to accept being in the dark about a lot of stuff through the entire novel.
Actually, just before this IM phrase is another, longer IM of Stephen's: "Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear his. The cold steelpen." This IM functions slightly differently than the ones previously mentioned, as it does not tell us what Stephen thinks of Mulligan so much as reveals his perspective on their relationship. Narratively speaking it comes in between Buck Mulligan's dialogue.
IMs establish attitudes, states of mind, ideas, and ways of thinking. They let us know how characters feel and what they think about specific situations and persons. Get to know them, get to love them. They are brilliant! And they're everywhere.
A few choice snippets of IM from episode one (These should help you establish a feel for them):
• "Chrysostomos"
• "Cranly's arm, his arm"
• "She bows her head to a vice that speaks to her loudly. Her bonesetter, her medicine man. Me she slights..."
• "Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon" (one of my faves :))
• "Usurper"
There are plenty more in the episode but these should help you to learn to identify them.
Finally, we have those perplexing vignettes to address. You know the ones, they're like mini-stories, snippets appearing seemingly out of nowhere, insinuating themselves into the middle of the narrative. Like the "Clive Kempthorpe" scenario or the two that deal with Stephen's mothers death. These vignettes are a bit like SOC but not exactly SOC. They're more like peeks into the memories or the daydreams of characters. If you've ever watched the TV show Scrubs then you'll recognize these. (If not then just play along). They're like those reveries that J.D. (Dr. John Dorian) falls into every five minutes where he conjures up in his mind some ridiculous scenario sparked by the present situation -- and we are allowed a peek into these innermost fantasies. Most of the vignettes in Ulysses function like this, but not all of them. We'll cover those that don't when the time comes. What's important at the moment is that you know that they exist and recognize when they occur, because like IM or SOC they come out of the blue, with little warning. In other words they create yet more narrative headaches. But they're really fun!
Other Things:
Joyce gives us a lot of dichotomies to contemplate, like that of darkness vs. lightness. Established from the first page and working more or less throughout the episode we see Buck Mulligan painted in light, white, bright hues, "tripping and sunny like the Buck himself" Alternately Stephen is portrayed in darkness and dirtiness. Black, worn mourning clothes, hair on end, unbathed for weeks, morose. Mulligan has white glistening teeth with gold points, light tonsured hair, and silver points flash on his smoke gray eyes. Hint: Follow the darkness and lightness references throughout the book. Contemplate them like a mystic monk.
Along with the dark/light dichotomy, Joyce establishes in this introductory episode just about every important theme and motif which will shape the book. Given the vast amounts of themes, motifs, references, associations/correspondences, etc. this is no small feat. Especially when we consider how short the episode actually is. After you finish the book (and have had some time to absorb the contents) go back to the first chapter and see, no, marvel at the depth of this episode.
Speaking recently with a woman who had to read Ulysses as part of her graduate studies (or maybe it was PhD)... anyway, she said to me that her course professor had told her to follow the pillar of cloud as a way of staying oriented or engaged in the story. I mention this because I followed a similar strategy on my first reading. Reasoning that if I could not understand the meanings behind the text, I could at least look for repetitive elements. This strategy kept me engaged and made the text make slightly more sense, and thus I am recommending it to you. So, with that in mind I'll give you what I think are some good guiding elements to keep an eye out for.
• The veil
• The lifted skirt
• The pillar of cloud
• Father-son references (in all forms)
• Ghosts
• Androgyny (in all forms)*
*(I think that androgyny is one of those few themes that doesn't come up in episode one but I felt it needed to be mentioned now. Consider it a gift, from me to you. You've earned it!)
Again, their are plenty more things you could use to pull you along, but these are some good ones. If you know of, or discover others along the way feel free to use those (and don't be stingy with the info! Remember, sharing is caring.) And don't feel compelled to use everything I offer, I'm just spitballin' here.
See ya in the classroom! ~ cg
Raw Notes (these are the notes I took to help me "organize" this first episode blog):
• "Chrysostomos"; "Cranly's arm, his arm"; "She bows her head to a vice that speaks to her loudly. Her bonesetter, her medicine man. Me she slights..."; "Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon" (one of my faves :)); "Usurper"
• The brightness of Buck Mulligan:
• white teeth with gold points
• light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak
• Contrast with darkness of Stephen
• Dressed on black (shiny fraying black coat, black trousers)
• Gay Buck/Sullen Stephen
• The well fed Mulligan, bread buttered on both sides, primrose waistcoat and puce gloves/Stephen in his secondhand digs
• The darkness of Stephen
• Dogsbody's hair stands on end, baths once a month/ Buck is well tonsured, cleaned and shaven
• The unclean bard makes a habit of bathing once a month - Mulligan
• Stephen saw his own image in cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires
• Establishing almost all major themes in first episode:
• Darkness and lightness (or brightness, or whiteness)
• Death of Stephens mother and his unresolved guilt (agenbite of inwit) he is haunted
• The Irish language question (Homerule)
• British subjugation
• Irish identity
• Church and monarchy
• Usurpation
• Betrayal
• Unresolved guilt (atonement)
• Reckoning
• Antisemitism
• Hamlet/Shakespear Father/Son
• Turko the Terrible
• The veil(?): ...pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight...
• (Not sure if the Aristotelian/Platonic dichotomy made it in the first episode)
• The key
• Clive Kempthorpe vignette (stream of consciousness vs. Interior monologue)
• A cloud began to cover the sun, slowly, wholly (time marker - find cloud in episode 4)
• I am another now and yet the same. A servant too. Server of a servant.
• Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger (keep this in mind as you read/reread the Telemachus episode of the Odyssey)
• Pay up and look pleasant - Haines
• ...he himself is the ghost of his own father.
• Drowned man
• Photo girl (Milly Bloom)
• What Stephen hears when the church bells ring in the distance:
Liliata rutilantium
turma circumdet
iubilantium te virginum
(time marker)
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