Book Three-Episode Seventeen: Ithaca

"Ithaca" is one of the more famous episodes of Ulysses, renowned for its unique catechismic style it tends to receive a lot of attention and praise from critics and commentators. "Ithaca" is the homecoming episode. At its simplest it is an extension of the previous episode, continuing the story of the interaction between Bloom and Stephen, but with a radical shift in style. The dry question and response of "Ithaca" camouflages the warmth and humanity which is shared between its two principals.

Here, once again we see Joyce testing the limits of language and narrative. Like many fans of "Ithaca" one of the things I love about this episode is how Joyce paints such a strikingly vivid portrait of events through a precise, almost mathematical, employment of words. Contrasted against the previous episode, "Eumaeus" and its extreme verbosity, "Ithaca" is sparse and to the point, using language like a scalpel. Both styles achieve the same effect -- creating a visual image through the textual -- but by opposing means.

On account of the style, "Ithaca" can be difficult to decipher at first (like most of these episodes). In one sense we could contrast it against episode three, "Proteus" where Stephen is ambling along Sandymount strand. While that reading experience is virtually unmediated -- we have direct access to Stephen's thoughts -- "Ithaca" is completely mediated by a third person narrator (or two) relaying in as objective a fashion as possible everything that passes between Stephen and Bloom as well as an account of the physical environment. Such filtering of information changes how we receive and process the content; Stephen's unfiltered thoughts and impressions from "Proteus" are warm and sentimental but subject to doubt, while "Ithaca" is cool and calculated, lacking sentimentality but giving more of an air of objectivity.

In terms of navigation this episode is very easy to manage. The difficulty is to make sense of the content presented as it is in academese:

What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire?

 The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat (radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous ether.

In terms of story "Ithaca" marks the end of Bloom and Stephen's journey. When the episode ends, their fated union is complete (but the story is not yet resolved). One of the greatest knocks on Ulysses is that the story doesn't go anywhere. When Stephen and Bloom finally part company neither seems any better or worse off and nothing seems to have changed. So the question that I would ask is does anything happen in "Ithaca"? For example, in Homer's Odyssey when Odysseus and Telemachus reach their home, they bolt the doors and lay waste to the suitors who have taken up residence and wasted their goods. Justice is served and all is set aright. What corresponding issues are resolved in Joyce's "Ithaca"? What is set aright in Ulysses?

To answer this question you first have to identify what problems were presented in Ulysses. What was wrong? Indeed. To understand the resolution to a problem one must first know what is the problem in question in need of resolution. Of course, like everything else with Ulysses the problem is not apparent but must be discovered beneath the surface of the text. So, solve for X before you can determine Y and Z.

Raw Notes

Compile the budget for 16 June 1904.

                                                                     
Debit                                                                                           Credit  
                                                       £.s.d.                                                                             £.s.d.

1 Pork kidney                                    0.0.3                     Cash in Hand                                       0.4.9

1 Copy _Freeman's Journal_                 0.0.1                     Commission recd. Freeman's Journal      1.7.6

1 Bath and Gratification                        0.1.6                     Loan (Stephen Dedalus)                       1.7.0

Tramfare                                            0.0.1

1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam             0.5.0

2 Banbury cakes                                  0.0.1

1 Lunch                                            0.0.7

1 Renewal fee for book                        0.1.0

1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes        0.0.2

1 Dinner and Gratification                   0.2.0

1 Postal Order and Stamp                    0.2.8

Tramfare                                          0.0.1

1 Pig's Foot                                     0.0.4

1 Sheep's Trotter                               0.0.3

1 Cake Fry's Plain Chocolate               0.1.0

1 Square Soda Bread                           0.0.4

1 Coffee and Bun                                0.0.4

Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded          1.7.0

                               Balance              0.17.5

                                                          £ 2.19.3                                                                             £ 2.19.3

Book Three - Episode Sixteen: Eumaeus

After the mayhem and debauchery of "Circe" episode sixteen, "Eumaeus" thrusts us back into the sane world of Dublin Night town reality. Starting with a bang on heels of the retreat from Bella Cohen's brothel "Eumaeus" ends with a whimper in the quiet and relative calm of the cabman's shelter.


The denouement of our epic, this episode represents the atonement of our heroes, where the father and son activate their father/son bond. Finally left alone without the interference or mediation of friends or interlopers Bloom and Stephen engage in their first significant face to face conversation, and despite the fact that Stephen begins the discourse dead drunk and none to coherent from the punch in the face he received from the British soldier, as he sobers up and warms up to Bloom their colloquy becomes more in depth and interpersonal.


So what do our heroes discuss in this much awaited atonement? What earthshaking, world-changing exchange takes place between Bloom and Stephen that has necessitated 600 pages of foreshadowing? Well, everything and nothing, mostly leaning on the side of nothing. Specifically:

Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman, prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the presabbath, Stephen's collapse. ~ (courtesy of episode seventeen, "Ithaca")

The conversation, to say the least is not particularly scintillating, as Stephen and Bloom make their way through late night Dublin and into the relative calm of the cabman's shelter where various down and out denizens of the city waste away trading tall tales. "Eumaeus" may in fact be the most boring and seemingly pointless episode in Ulysses.


Of course, you must realize by now that that is simply not the case. What on the surface seems trivial and dull in Ulysses always obscures a deeper richer reality. Like Bloom himself, "Eumaeus" is full of interesting surprises and can be quite endearing once you peel below the humdrum surface. It took me a few years to gain an appreciation of what was actually happening in this episode, as it seems that absolutely nothing happens at all. As usual, you must incorporate what you know and try to contextualize. (I know! So much work this book!). And as usual, keep in mind your Homeric correspondences and major themes. Hey, I'm not saying this is the most exciting read in the book, but it is infinitely more interesting and entertaining once you get a hold of what Joyce is doing with the subtext.


As far as episode navigation, no problem, right? There is virtually nothing that should confuse you in this episode. Okay, admittedly, the narrator is a bit convoluted in his descriptions, but after what you've experienced with Joyce's shenanigans this should be a piece of cake with cream cheese icing.


All in all "Eumaeus" is not going to rock your socks as the most exciting text you've ever read, but at minimum, being obstacle free it should at least allow you a little mental breathing room.


Raw Notes


The atonement or bonding of the spiritual father and son.


Stephen goes from child-son to man-son in the space of a couple of hours.


Homeric parallel of Ulysses getting to know his now grown son Telemachus for the first time.


"...both black, one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father Maher."


"...you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun."


"Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding:
—We can't change the country. Let us change the subject."


"Christus or Bloom his name is or after all any other, secundum carnem."

Book Two-Episode Fifteen: Circe

We have arrived, friends, at the penultimate episode of Ulysses. "Oxen of the Sun" has deposited us at the apex of our metaphorical rollover coaster, and "Circe" will now send us hurtling back towards earth at dizzying speeds. But our journey through the halls of "Circe" will not crest at the earth's surface but send us deeper, harrowing a phantasmagoric hellscape where our heroes, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, will meet and confront their demons.


Joyce's "Circe", thus named for the corresponding episode in Homer's Odyssey where Odysseus and his remaining crew encounter the goddess Circe who transforms most of the crew into swine at the touch of her wand, is equally infused with the magical and the mysterious. Here is where the story of Ulysses coalesces and finds it's resolution as Bloom and Stephen must now come face to face with those issues that have been dogging them throughout the day. This episode is best summarized by Joyce himself in this quote from the preceding episode "Oxen of the Sun:


"There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful."


There is, of course, a deeper purpose to these karmic reckonings than the mere construction of a story where protagonists must rise above themselves through brave confrontations. Ulysses is not the simplistic story of the self overcoming the self for the purpose of personal growth, though that would be a laudable objective in its own right. But Joyce's ambitions were bigger than that. It may not be clear to the reader, and I may be giving away more than I ought to here, but you might be well served to think of our heroes as vehicles through which things bigger than their individual existences are accomplished.


In this respect it is especially important to reference the preceding episode. As I mentioned in the last blog entry "Oxen of the Sun" and "Circe" combine to form the critical action in Ulysses. If you can make sense of these two densely packed literary conglomerations and assimilate the myriad allusions, references, and symbolisms that make up the rest of Ulysses, then I have every confidence that you will have no trouble putting the puzzle together.


Okay, that's a pretty tall order for a first read, and I don't expect that you will be successful in that endeavor. Hell, you're probably just happy to get through the book without a "postal" incident. Still, whether you get there or not, it's important to recognize that the story does have a purpose beyond frustrating the reader. In fact, its goals are quite noble once you come to understand them.


Stylistically and structurally "Circe" can be a little bit intimidating at the start. First of all the sheer length of the episode can give us pause (don't look down!). And the theater script format of the episode my throw you off for a moment, but I suspect that once you acclimate to it, you will find the reading relatively easy. Because it is written like a play, all of the dramatis personae are clearly delineated so it's very easy to know who is speaking when. More cumbersome is the bizarre, dreamlike scenarios and the endless procession of characters populating "Circe". It is not easy to discern when the action has transitioned from reality to the through-the-looking-glass-esque dream world that Joyce has fashioned.


Not to redundantly repeat myself and say the same thing over and over again in a repetitious manner, but the importance of the "Circe" episode cannot be overstated. The degree to which you can understand this episode will determine how well you get Ulysses. This is not to suggest that if you don't get this episode you can't enjoy the book. As you have hopefully discovered already, Ulysses can be enjoyed purely for the beauty and texture of its prose and the depth and detail of its character development. But as someone who has gone through various stages of learning this text over the past ten years I can tell you that the book is significantly more satisfying when you can make greater sense of the story, and that means making sense of "Circe".


Raw Notes


"Account for yourself this very minute or woe betide you!"


MRS BREEN: (Eagerly) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.


"Wildgoose chase this... What am I following him for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met. Kismet."

Book Two - Episode Fourteen : Oxen of the Sun

How long I have waited to finally arrive at this point in the epic; the beginning of our climb to the climactic action of Ulysses. Think of it like the slow suspenseful, inexorable trek up the biggest hill of a roller coaster, where you know you will eventually be dropped back downward hurtling toward the earth at some ridiculous rate of sped. 


"Oxen of the Sun" is the first half of what I would argue are the two most significant episodes of Ulysses. The crystallization of all of Joyce's efforts begin to unfold here at the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street. Fitting that the fruits of the author's labors should come to fruition via a birth (and a hard one at that). Coincidence? You decide. 


Of primary significance to the reader (that's you) is the much anticipated meeting between Bloom and Stephen. Although our two protagonists have crossed paths at various points in their respective sojourns through Dublin, this is the first time they share space, activity, and conversation together. Back at the beginning when we first began this journey, I broke down the plot of Ulysses to it's most basic element: the story of two guys who meet. And there have been plenty of occurrences, close calls, and shared thoughts that have indicated that this meeting has been presaged. So, here we are at the crossroads of destiny, the principals have met, and the question that confronts us is: now what?  


Now what, indeed. It would be a slap in the face -- if not completely demoralizing -- to say that the real work begins now. If you've read thirteen episodes of Ulysses then you are well aware of how much work you've already invested. So I won't say that this is where the real work begins. In fact, I will say the opposite: all of the work it took just to arrive at this point, the dense and difficult prose, the narrative obstacles, the adventures in protean style shifts, and the demands of the author of this blog (that's me) that you try and make sense of this pile of text should (hopefully) have prepared you to see the convergences of those oft repeated references, allusions, and motifs that Joyce has woven into a story. The work is by no means over, it is simply coming to a head. And "Oxen of the Sun" while symbolically bring the important elements of Ulysses into a "coherent" whole will, through that very symbolism, confuse the bejeezus out of you. As usual, Joyce makes his point frustratingly complicated (but not without purpose). 


Bygmester Finnegan, it's time to begin again! 
It will be worthwhile for us once again to review what we know about the themes, motifs, references, and symbolism that we have encountered up until now. Of the major themes presented, I hope the father/son dialectic will have immediately come to mind. Other related themes that are evident in "Oxen" are those of maternity, fertility, masculinity/femininity/androgyny, and the process growth of change. Feel free to refer back to the episode one blog for a partial list of themes, motifs, etc. 


Style, style, style on top of the pile 
In terms of episode style, I guess I should start by cautioning you to tighten your seat belts 'cause there's going to be a bit of turbulence ahead. This episode is among the most challenging to read through and contextualize (IMHO) as it is very heavily laden with style issues. In fact, Joyce famously presents us with a chronological survey of English prose history which morphs from style to style as the episode progresses until language appears to disintegrate into a barely comprehensible confusion. Some of the styles in particular as well as the general shifts can make the content hard to apprehend. The irony, agony, and brilliance of Joyce is in evidence in "Oxen of the Sun." 


It is vitally important to understand the subtextual symbolic action taking place in "Oxen" in order to understand how the climax of the story plays out and, thereby, understand Ulysses as a complete story. The "action" is brilliantly embedded in the form of the episode, but it is so well embedded that the reader cannot unearth it without the help of outside assistance. It is highly unlikely that anyone has ever read this episode without some foreknowledge of Joyce's hidden art and figured out what was going on. This is one of the reasons why Joyce made sure that certain select individuals --such as Stuart Gilbert and Frank Budgen among others -- were give license to publish certain inside information or "keys" to the book. Without such extra-textual information this would truly be a mystery too dense to penetrate. That said, I still (stubbornly) hold to the belief that your first read should be unencumbered by explanatory notes.  


However, just because you cannot know everything about the episode doesn't mean you can't learn anything through the episode. While it is true that Joyce's methods are obscure (some would say unsound), you can at least figure out what the general theme of the episode is about. Again, go back to what you do know: birth, fatherhood, son-hood, and all that that might entail. You might think about that debate that Stephen was embroiled in back in episode nine at the National Library, or even revisit the story of the slaughter of the oxen of the sun god Helios in Homer's Odyssey. (Let's not forget our Homeric underpinnings). Whatever the case, don't let the complexity of the episode goad you into a quick and unreflective read through. We've done all of this reading just to get to this meeting. Let's not cheat ourselves out of the fruits of our labor. 

Raw notes 
"That answer and those leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent, Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. The young man's face grew dark. All could see how hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss." 

"...the dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. " 


"...and the brave woman had manfully helped." 

"...he involuntarily determined to help him himself …" 

"It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) contentions would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientific methods."