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."
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