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