The Ongoing Trials of Ulysses

Refuting Slate Magazine's Anti-Ulysses Column: "Is Ulysses Overrated? All but one chapter—and not the one you think.". By Ron Rosenbaum for Slate Magazine - Posted Thursday, April 7, 2011

Dear Reader,
Let me take a moment away from our investigation of James Joyce’s Ulysses to address something that has been stuck in my craw for a while.

In publishing the Thursday, April 7, 2011 article "Is Ulysses Overrated? All but one chapter—and not the one you think." By Ron Rosenbaum, Slate magazine committed the sin of taking an axe to one of literature’s sacred cows. In Homer's Odyssey, when the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios are slaughtered, death is the sentence levied on the perpetrators. But we live in less unsparing times, and this is of course a sacrilege of words, not carnage, so I suppose a polite textual rebuff is appropriate in this instance. In that spirit I would like to take this opportunity to address some of Mr. Rosenbaum's claims and to make a case for why James Joyce's Ulysses is worth reading... in its entirety.

Mr. Rosenbaum's general claim is that save for one episode, "Ithaca", one need not bother reading Ulysses. This suggestion is unacceptable for a couple of reasons. First off, the proposition that reading any single excerpt from any great book is a sufficient alternative to reading the entire text strikes me as irresponsible coming from someone who has devoted his life to literature. Secondly, while I am fully onboard with Mr. Rosenbaum's appreciation of the "Ithaca" episode, I must confess it took me three tries to get there. "Ithaca" is a dry read out of context, and it only comes alive within the broader context of the story. If a reader can appreciate "Ithaca" on the strength of its creativity and the style of its prose alone, I am confident that that same reader will appreciate the entire book with all of it's quirks and difficulties.

One of Mr. Rosenbaum's particular criticisms seems to be that Ulysses isn't Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, another of Joyce's masterpieces. In his words, "Portrait of the Artist... didn't need [to be] blown up to Death-Star size and overinfused with deadly portentousness." With all due respect to Mr. Rosenbaum, yes it did. What has apparently escaped Mr. Rosenbaum is the fact that Portrait and Ulysses are of a piece, the latter text written as the fulfillment of the former. The two books are best understood in relation to one another. (For a more thorough explication of this connection he might consult Charles Peake's James Joyce, the Citizen and the Artist.)

The continuation of Stephen Dedalus' story from the end of Portrait transitioning into Ulysses isn't simply a neat literary device, nor is it a vehicle of convenience, it is an absolute necessity. Stephen's is the voice which Joyce chooses to advance his own real life ambitions, dreams and aesthetic agendas. Joyce's objective was to author Ireland's national epic in order, not to recapture the past glories of Erin, but to forge its future. Ulysses is both the story of how that national epic was shaped, and the national epic itself. It is the book that authors its own existence.

The presumption made by many readers (and wannabe readers) of Ulysses is that it's a book full of literary parlor tricks, arcane allusions and complicated symbolism to no end. The belief is that Joyce was engaged in literary snobbery and smartypantism for the sake of showing everyone how superior he was to the rest of us. This is certainly what Rosenbaum would have us believe when he decries Ulysses as:

...an overwrought, overwritten epic of gratingly obvious, self-congratulatory, show-off erudition that, with its overstuffed symbolism and leaden attempts at humor... bearable only by terminal graduate students who demand we validate the time they've wasted reading it.

Well, I was not an English major, nor did my graduate studies require me to read Ulysses, yet I managed the book just fine. And so have many other readers of Ulysses. I can also tell you with certainty that the validation I received from reading Ulysses has come entirely from the revelations of the text itself, and not through the acknowledgment of others. Of course, I suppose that Mr. Rosenbaum and others of his ilk would probably say that people just pretend to enjoy the book in order to seem intelligent or well read. It is this attitude that galls me. It's quite fair to read Ulysses and hate it. I know people who have done just that. But it is arrogant to presume that just because he didn't understand the book or enjoy the reading that no else could possibly understand or enjoy it either.

But I am not here to bury Mr. Rosenbaum, but to praise Ulysses. So I should get on with the business of offering my defense and explaining why the book is actually worth reading.

Contrary to the views of Mr. Rosenbaum, there are many things about about Ulysses that makes it worthy of the effort. If you like beautifully written prose look no further. Even Mr. Rosenbaum must acknowledge that Joyce was a fantastic craftsman of the written word and he himself attests to the virtuosity to be found in Ulysses. But for me this is the least valuable aspect ofUlysses.

Ulysses is also a book that makes learners of its readers. If you take an interest in trying to make sense of Joyce's thicket of references, symbols, and allusions you will naturally progress from becoming a passive recipient of information to an active seeker of knowledge. From personal experience I can say that my knowledge of Shakespeare has improved immensely after reading Ulysses. As a Shakespearean scholar Mr. Rosenbaum should appreciate that. Plus, owing to Ulysses, I have delved into readings on the occult to unravel the Eastern philosophical mysteries that populate the text and shape the story, discovered the poetry and art of William Blake, become better versed in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (and thereby Greek mythology in general), revisited Dante's Inferno, and discovered the intricate historical evolution of the Christian Trinitarian doctrine adding the names Arius, Sabellieus, and Photius to my lexicon of random knowledge.

These are only a few of the intellectual gains I have received by reading Ulysses. As a graduate of an advanced degree program in Liberal Studies, the multidisciplinary approach of Joyce's Ulysses embodies everything in learning that I hold dear. If I had my way, every Liberal Studies program would be required to teach a course on Ulysses.
But as much as I value the learning aspect of Ulysses, there is another aspect of the book which holds even higher value for the reader, and it is on this basis above all others that I endorse Ulysses.

Ulysses is not just a learner's book but also a thinker's book. It is reading for diligent, curious people who want more than mere entertainment for their reading experience. One needn't be a "terminal graduate student", literary scholar, or bonafide genius to enjoy Ulysses. What you absolutely must be is an advanced reader (in the John Mortimer sense of the word). Ulysses isn't simply about reading, it is about using your brain. To understand Ulysses is to conjecture, ask questions, and hypothesize. In short it is an exercise in critical thinking, and this is the supreme value of the book.

Ulysses is Modern Art in the truest sense. Concerned about the relationship between art and society, it is the story of the redemptive powers of aesthetics, and the belief that art can change the world for the better. "To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated consciousness of my race" is not just a sweet literary catchphrase, it is a mission statement. When Joyce wrote Ulysses he was on a mission to fix a broken country and to give it voice and legitimacy in the world. He believed that his means were much more efficacious (and humane) than the political bluster or military might chosen by his peers and elders. When Stephen Dedalus chooses "silence, exile, and cunning" as his only weapons, he is speaking on behalf of Joyce himself. These are the means which Joyce employed to realize his goals, and Ulysses is the tangible fulfillment of his lifelong objective of employing art as savior. With Ulysses Joyce became Ireland's national voice, and gave the world a work of art that is, nearly a century later, still considered to sit among the greatest writing ever produced.

For us as readers the value of this modernist masterpiece is in the work that it requires of us. What makes Ulysses worth reading is that we learn a great deal through the process of trying to come to terms with what the text might mean. I have spent time and effort to cobble together my own ideas and theories about what this book is about. I have done this with Ulysses as opposed to other texts because few other texts have demanded this of me. This is not to say that other books cannot be probed for deeper meaning. There are any number of great works of literature from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to Morrison's Beloved that can provide the hungry reader with a bounty of literary nutrition. But the style of the writing of these texts don't demand it. You can just as easily read them once, enjoy them sufficiently, understand them on a superficial level, and move on satisfied with your yield. Ulysses does not afford this luxury, because you're either in or you’re out with Ulysses. Joyce gives the reader nothing for free, save for beautiful prose. Everything else must be earned.

The fact that Ulysses is not an effortless read, the fact that it is obscure, the fact that it's erudite are all of the things that make it so incredibly worthwhile. This book isn't for everyone. There are even those who might go so far as to argue that it is only for the very few. But, just because Ulysses isn't for everyone doesn't mean that it isn't for anyone. And it doesn't mean it isn't worth reading.

At this point you might be wondering if I have come to bury Ulysses or praise it? Time? Effort? Work!? This doesn't sound like a picnic in the park. I assure you that I consider these requirements selling points, with a caveat: Ulysses may not be for you. My goal here is not to convince you that Ulysses is a 'must read before you die' book. It's not. And I don't want to give the impression it is a good book for everyone to read. It isn't. I am simply making the case that Ulysses is worth reading, and that despite the cheap shots that it sometimes takes from its detractors, there is plenty to redeem this masterpiece. You don't have to agree that it is the greatest novel of the twentieth-century, but it's hard to imagine a reasonable person categorically dismissing Ulysses as not worthy of being read.

The bottom line: if you like challenges, if you like mysteries, if you like great prose writing, if you don't mind learning something, and if your ego can handle the idea that you don't know everything, then Ulysses is definitely worth your time and effort. If the above criteria do not apply to you and you simply want entertainment and excitement in your reading, then grab a copy of The Da Vinci Code and godspeed.

Book Two Episode Eleven: Sirens

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Folly. Persist.

My rule of thumb when writing about anything is to keep it simple: know what you want to say and say it. Of course it stands to reason that the more you know about your subject, the more you can say, and hence the easier it is (or should be) to write about it. To write a blog about Ulysses for first time readers is to write narrowly about the particular episodes, their structures, styles, and the narrative pitfalls one might encounter. But I'm also finding that as we move deeper into the book, piecing together a general understanding of the story is important as well, and this requires us to try and fit particular episodes into the wider framework of the book.

"Sirens" (at least for me) seems to be something of a challenge, for while I know this episode fairly well, I can't quite seem to reconcile it into my understanding of the larger story. If we think about Ulysses as a puzzle and the episodes as individual pieces, then you might say that with "Sirens" I have a piece that I don't quite know what to do with. This is made more complicated because we are marching linearly through the book, so I can't really discuss greater meanings at length without giving away the parts that you have not yet read, thus it becomes difficult to lead you (and myself as well in is case) to some satisfactory understanding of the episode.

Sweeeeeet song

I imagine that many of you have found aspects of "Sirens" difficult since Joyce, in his now predictable fashion, has introduced yet another way of deconventionalizing the conventional narrative. Concerning the narrative I don't want to repeat what has already been said one thousand and one times before by one thousand and one different writers: that structurally "Sirens" is meant to read as a musical piece. But there really isn't anything else to say regarding the structure. If there's one thing that you as a new reader might find challenging in this episode it is this musical aspect of "Sirens".

To repeat past analyses, that conglomeration of clipped phrases which signals the start of "Sirens" is Joyce's equivalent of the warming up of an orchestra: different instruments playing different parts of the total piece at the same time. The cacophony that introduces the episode is meant to coalesce into a melodic oeuvre. Joyce attempts to achieve this by effect playing with elements of the text, staccato repetitions here, rhythmic iambs there, and plenty of onomatopoeia. The host of techniques Joyce invents to attain his goal of a musical episode in prose makes for some "interesting" reading in parts. So, if you're finding some of the wording a bit odd, that's your explanation.

Lash me to the mast 

As I stated in an earlier blog entry, we mustn't be led away by words, or in this case, we mustn't be led astray by music. The technique here, the siren song, can lead us to believe the text is more difficult than it really is. But once again, just like we did in "Aeolus", we can simply read through the oddity of the style and easily discern the what is actually happening. The surface story of "Sirens" is pretty simple, but the technique gives the veneer of complexity. Perhaps Joyce would have us dash or ship against the rocks.

Do not misunderstand my point here. I don't mean to imply that Joyce is throwing these style shifts in simply to serve as obstacles. I imagine that many who have read parts or the whole ofUlysses have suspected this of Joyce, but they could not be more wrong. Despite the difficulty of the text, Joyce did not create these difficulties for their own sakes. All of these textual anomalies, style "experiments", and the myriad allusions and symbolism that make up Ulysses fit into a broader framework. My own suspicion is that while Joyce understood these difficulties as necessary evils, he nonetheless took a perverse pleasure in knowing how difficult the text would be.

Bringing her in to port (or not)

This brings me back to my particular dilemma: finding a place for "Sirens" in the larger context of Ulysses. I think that's what I would really like to write about in this entry, because I think that's where we now are in terms of what we need to help us get through the remainder of the book. Episode structure will continue to need some commentary, but just as the above analysis required relatively little time, so too will the rest of the episodes. Of course, this doesn't mean that the reading gets easier from this point. Quite the opposite. There is some serious turbulence ahead, but nothing that can't be explained in a couple of paragraphs or so (I think).

The bigger issue is making sense of the text. In the last few entries I've been trying to push you into thinking more about meaning instead of simply taking for granted that meaning will come to you. It won't. That being the case, there is some obligation on my end to try and provide some structure to that end.

The ways of the creator...  

I have mentioned in earlier entries that Joyce created a schema (actually two schemata) for Ulysses. The schema can be seen not only as a guide to understanding each episode, but also as a way to integrate the parts to a greater whole. The schema implies connectivity or a larger purpose to the story. I am not suggesting that you can (or should) comb the the schema for answers to the larger meaning of the text -- it ain't in there. But you should take it's existence to mean that each episode -- their respective contents and styles -- has a purpose within the greater organism. And, as we better understand how each particular episode contributes to the whole, we can better understand the meaning of Ulysses.

Raw Notes
I have a hard time incorporating this episode into my broader understanding of the story. It's clear that this is the episode where "the deed" commences, but I'm wondering how that, music, And the wiles and ways of women factor into the bigger picture.

"—Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.
—Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked."

"Means something, language of flow."

"He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence."

"Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out."

"Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode."

"See the conquering hero comes."

"Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee"

"A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her."

"Too late. She longed to go. That's why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost."

"Silly man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. "

"Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six."

"If she found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain"

"Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off."

"Seems to be what you call yashmak..."

Book Two Episode Ten: The Wandering Rocks

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Here Comes Everybody


We have now arrived at the midpoint of the novel and you my be wondering what the point of this particular episode is (or more likely your wondering what the point of the whole book is, but we'll get to that). This is one of only two episodes in the book which does not concern itself directly or extensively with either of the main characters. True, we do encounter both Bloom and Stephen in "The Wandering Rocks" but they are given equal or in some cases lesser airtime than some of the other personages whom we meet, and if it seems as though you are meeting everyone who might live in Dublin circa June 16th 1904, you may not be far off. There appears to be an endless processional of people in this episode.


For some of you this may be a rather dull episode to read through, and I won't pretend it's the most exciting episode in Ulysses, but I suspect that at least it should not be a difficult read for you. Like every other episode in the book "The Wandering Rocks" serves its purpose in fulfilling the greater objective(s) of Ulysses -- which have not yet been made evident to you.


Narratively the episode is more or less straight forward with clear third person descriptions and a bit of interior monologue to weed through. Interestingly, we are treated to a rare glimpse into the thoughts of characters other than Bloom and Stephen. We get a pretty extensive ride along with the superior, the very reverend John Conmee S.J. We also get a good chunk of the mental meanderings of Patrick Aloysius Dignam, son of the late Patrick (Paddy) Dignam, as well as Tom Kiernan, who seems to think very highly of himself. None of these IMs should give you any problems as far as navigating the text, although you may wonder why you are being subjected to them. I have my own theories about why they are here, but I won't burden you with my conjecture. I'll let you make sense of things yourself.


Didn't that happen already?
If, at times, you think you are rereading something you just saw two pages before, you're not crazy*. One the stylistic elements of the episode is the repetition of action within different vignettes. I mean, how many times do we encounter Eugene Stratton and Marie Kendall, or have that disk shooting down the groove to ogle us? Once again, I'm not going to be a spoil sport and tell why these repetitions exist, but I do want to draw attention to them so that their existence doesn't escape your awareness. It's vey easy for particulars to get lost in the density of the text during a first read, even when they're rather obvious. While I'm on the subject of narrative structure I'll also throw out that there's an interesting bookending to this episode. Let me know if you catch it and what your thoughts are on it. Hint: it relates to one of the many themes of the novel.


*well, you may actually be crazy, but these particular repetitions you are experiencing are not proof of that


The pause that refreshes
Since we're at the midpoint of the book (at least episode-wise) this might be a good time to review what we have read. After all, if you're simply plowing through the reading without reflecting then you're likely not getting much out of the reading. We did this a little a couple of entries ago, but let's try it again focusing our attention on Stephen and Bloom.


So, what do we know about Stephen up to this point? Well, we know he's quite learned, thinks in complex, abstract, almost poetical ways. He is an aspiring writer. He isn't the happiest person you might encounter. He seems to be haunted by the thought of his dead mother, and fairly unimpressed by his father (who art not in heaven), Si Dedalus. He also seems to have exiled himself from both his family and his friend and flat mate Buck Mulligan. (I should also point out for those who don't know, that exile is one of Stephen Dedalus' three defense weapons of choice, the other two being silence and cunning [see this excerpt the final conversation with Cranley in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]). Up to this point Stephen has just been wandering aimlessly around Dublin.


As for Bloom, we know that he is an ad canvasser for the Freeman Journal, married to Marion (Molly) Bloom (née Tweedy), and that he lives at 7 Eccles street. He is a Jew (on the spear side) though not practicing. He's relatively well educated, but not exactly a genius, possessing a better than average knowledge of music and apparently knows his astronomy, among lots of other random knowledge. He is rumored to be a Freemason though this is only conjecture on the part of some of the other citizens. We also know that Bloom is a father, having one daughter with Molly (Milly Bloom, newly turned 15) and one son (Rudy) who died eleven days after he was born. Thus Bloom is a father, but not the father of a son. Perhaps most importantly, we know that Bloom's wife is going to have an affair at or around four o'clock with one Blazes Boylan, and we know that Bloom knows of this affair.


This is just a fraction of what we might list about Stephen and Bloom, but they should serve as solid, basic facts to work from. I was somewhat selective about what I included, trying to insure that some of the most important facts about our heroes were present.


Other important things to consider
So, what else? Outside of Bloom and Stephen, what other facts can help us piece the story together? Well, I am of the opinion that there are no irrelevancies in Ulysses, and that everything provided is useful in understanding the story. However, while trying to build a broad understanding of the story, it is best to focus on the bigger facts first. Maybe the biggest fact outside of the principle characters is the fact of Dublin itself. Dublin, Ireland, Irish-ness and all that that means to the citizenry, our heroes, and Joyce are a constant theme of the novel. Ulysses is an Irish novel in the most literal sense.


Not far behind are the themes of fatherhood (that legal fiction according to Stephen), religion (often via the holy trinity), and the English 'occupiers' (as contrasted against a free Ireland). And of course there are those Homeric parallels. To be sure, there are so many more things that go into the mix, but these should help us begin the process of piecing together what we currently know.


Okay, I realize this is a complicated mix of elements so let me try an experiment with you. Taking into consideration what you already know, how do you see this story playing out? Conjecture as to how this thing wraps up. Write an ending to this story. Don't read any further until you do so. It doesn't have to be long, just a simple (though educated) guess at how and why these two lone men meet, and what is accomplished by their meeting.

**************************************

Done? Okay.
Whatever you came up with, you're wrong. But that hardly matters. What matters is you're thinking about the story. You are actively engaging with the information, and that is vital to gaining some understanding of what you are reading. From this point on you should be regularly trying to venture a guess as to where this story is leading. I suggest doing it after each episode, assimilating the new information into your thinking. A the episodes get progressively longer and more difficult from here (yes, that is possible, believe me) this will not be an easy task, but it will hopefully help provide some context for you.


Raw Notes


The mid point. The omphalos? A day in the life of dear, dirty Dublin. The meanderings and doings of the city. Orchestrated waltz of the Dublin citizenry.

• "He can never be a poet. The joy of creation..."

• "Does he write anything for your movement? —Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write something in ten years."

• "If I had served my God as I have served my king..."

• "a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin."

• "...A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey..."

• "Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion?"

• "The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt."

• "The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal cavalcade."

• "A darkbacked figure scanned books on the hawker's cart.

• —There he is, Lenehan said.

• —Wonder what he's buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind. —Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye, Lenehan said."

• "He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one of your common or garden... you know... There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom."

• "Who has passed here before me?"

• "Do others see me so?"

• "She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will drown me with her, eyes and"

Book Two Episode Nine: Scylla and Charybdis

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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..."