Full Circle

It’s interesting to note (or maybe just interesting for me to note to myself) that I have come full circle on my approach to reading this book. At first, I was determined to try and let the thing stand on its own and was consulting very little, if any, outside resources. Now I find myself seeking out and reading anything I can get my hands on, before, during, and after I read each episode. This has been working well in that, as I probably stated earlier, understanding this book without some such support is, in my humble opinion, impossible. If I were to recommend anything to anyone trying to read this thing I would tell them this.

Thumbs Up for Episode 13

So far, Episode 13 is my favorite. I liked the characterizations, style, and structure and really began to feel like I was finally “getting” it. And yes, this episode is totally prurient and salacious like they said it would be but, as is the case with all good writing, it isn’t “obscene” in an sensational way but rather in a way that forwards the themes and ideas of the book. The section starts with a group of young people hanging out on the beach, with the thoughts and desires of Gerty MacDowell front and center. The prose is styled as “Romantic” (think Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen) and in the third person (as such, is easy to follow and I did not find myself referring to the annotations much in this episode, which was a nice break). There is a nice flow and progression to this episode, even when the narrative switches later to a more typical, stream-of-consciousness style found earlier in the book (this time, Leopold Bloom’s thoughts). I don’t know, I guess I don’t have much to report here except for the fact the Episode 13 is great.

Weblog Inventor Guy

So, the web resource I cited on Monday the 19th is discovered to be, after some Wikipedia reading, the weblog of none other than Jorn Barger, the guy who pretty much invented blogging. Small world, eh? Seems he's a huge Joyce expert. So there it is.

Joyce Quote

"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

-James Joyce

Episone 13, Nausicaa

I am a few pages into Episone 13, Nausicaa. Apparently this was the episode that caused the serializations to stop because the censors found it so offensive. For readability, it is very straightforward so far, being a direct, percise, and somewhat over-written (on purpose) account of a few young women contemplating their lives.

In other, related news, I found a really great web resource. I will be referring to the site often for help as it appears to cover pretty much everything related to the book. I like the little "things you should know about Ulysses" list on the site:

• It takes place in a single day, 16 June 1904 (Bloomsday).
• The main characters-- Leopold and Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus-- correspond to Homer's Odysseus (aka Ulysses), Penelope, and Telemachus.
• Joyce first thought of the idea in 1906 as a story for Dubliners.
• He quickly realised it should be the sequel to his autobiographical novel, Stephen Hero (which he rewrote with this in mind, as A Portrait).
• Each of the 18 chapters corresponds to one of Odysseus's (or Telemachus's) adventures.
• Each chapter is written in a different style, with symbolism appropriate to the corresponding adventure. These patterns were hinted by Joyce in privately-circulated schemata.
• Joyce included hundreds of puzzles that can only be understood by very careful reconstruction of exactly what each character is thinking and doing.
• Because the book was so complex, no one has ever managed to create an authoritative 'corrected' edition.
• The most useful companion-volume is Gifford's Ulysses Annotated.
• Harold Nicolson claimed that Joyce pronounced it 'oolissays'.

Hey, I knew that part about the Gifford annotations!

Listening to Long Lists

Joyce includes some really long lists in Episode 12, such as names of people, or places, or things. Interestingly, I sometimes find myself reading these lists out loud so as to feel their rhythm. It seems to work in that it makes the words more real somehow. I’m not sure what the greater meaning of including such long lists in the text is, but I think my instinct here is good. What is the role of the reader and how are they expected to participate? Is this book meant to be heard? Perhaps. It is true that one of the more popular activities on Bloomsday is to participate in a live reading of the book. Maybe I’ll check it out.

Conversational Prose

I am now in the middle of Episode 12, Cyclops. Now this is more my speed. A bunch of guys in a bar shooting the shit. Now this I can get. Actually, I am enjoying this section quite a bit. There is some really great prose in here. Like this: “Hard by the block stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously.” Actually, there is a whole bunch of fine, descriptive prose in this episode, like the passage above, stories told between the pubgoers. And I like the way it is presented. Joyce tells the reader what is going on in a sort of after-the-fact, third-person narrative. Like this: “So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease…” or “So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs. Dignam he was sorry for her trouble…” And so on. It’s like listening in on a conversation. He captures the casual, back-and-fourth socializing we all do, between ourselves, all day, everyday. It’s how it is.

Orpheus and Eurydice

There were a number of cool references to a really great Greek myth in Episode 11 that I forgot about, namely the one about Orpheus and Eurydice. Remember this one? Orpheus, the celebrated poet-musician, heads down into Hades to retrieve his dead wife. He almost succeeds, being told that he can bring her back to life but that if he turns around to look while leading her out of Hades she will disappear back into the depths of the underworld. He gets right to the edge, right on the boundary, and has to look back of course, which ruins everything. What I forgot about this piece of Greek lore is what happened to old Orpheus afterwards. Apparently he was so grief-stricken by this second loss that he began to treat the Thracian women with contempt which really doesn’t work out so well for the guy. According to my annotations, the Thracians are so angered by his behavior that “they revenged themselves by tearing him to pieces in a Bacchanalian orgy.” And so it goes.

Onomatopoeia

Episode 11. Sirens. Just finished it. Not a big fan. This one is just really hard to follow. One of my main complaints is the theme of the episode (or “Art,” according to Joyce’s Linati schema) and the way Joyce tries to honor that theme, namely by attempting to “record” sounds on the page. He appears to be trying to capture sound in written words and it just comes across as totally intelligible. I appreciate the effort but most all words (except onomatopoeia) are words, not sounds.