Tuesday, 26 November 2013, Pages 785 - 794, Ithaca, Episode 17

Today we read as far as: "Dunbar Plunket Barton", 17.445 (Gabler), p. 794 (Penguin)

After Bloom, while filling the kettle with water from the tap, muses - on nearly two pages - over its (water's) universality, properties, chemical composition, various states of aggregation, usefulness etc - and after hearing about Stephen's distrust of the aquacities of thought and language, he suppresses his natural desire to counsel Stephen about his washing and eating habits. He refrains from the former, as he realizes the incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. 

Meanwhile the water in the kettle boils. This is explained in yet another longish passage in still convoluted manner. A beautiful example of how Joyce mocks writing styles is the way he explains how one knows when water starts to boil. Anybody else would have written, most probably, that steam starts to escape from the kettle when water boils. Not Joyce. He writes: "A double falciform ejection of water vapor from under the kettle lid at both sides simultaneously".

What has Stephen been doing all this time? Perhaps he looks around in the kitchen, noticing things albeit unconsciously. In any case Joyce comes up with a long list of household goods and food distributed on the three shelves of the kitchen dresser. At the same time, Bloom's attention is drawn to two torn pieces of tickets lying on the dresser. Joyce uses this detail to create another list which should help our memory in reconstructing the various events of the day. 

Bloom prepares two cups of cocoa. Stephen continues to be uncommunicative. Bloom concludes by inspection though erroneously that his silent companion was engaged in mental composition, he (Bloom) reflected on the pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement... These thoughts lead him to remember the verse he had written when he was just 11, and to the four separating forces between his temporary guest and him: name, age, race, creed.

Joyce's attempt to make this chapter come out dry and factual becomes a mockery of scientific writing. Facts become, very often, gross exaggerations. Conciseness is sacrificed to verbosity. This, in a way, is the exact attraction of this chapter. Ithaca, is a very funny chapter. There is much here that makes us, the readers, smile.

(Note: Read here an essay on the literary style of this chapter, Ithaca, by the Modernism lab at Yale University.)

Tuesday, 19 November 2013, Pages 776 - 785, Ithaca, Episode 17

Today we read as far as "distrusting aquacities of thought and language", 17.240 (Gabler), p. 785 (Penguin)

We follow the " keyless couple" Bloom and Stephen on their way home to Bloom's house. They are both "keyless" because Stephen has given his to Mulligan and Bloom has left his in another pair of trousers' pocket. They virtually end up breaking into Bloom's home by climbing over the railings in front of the house. We follow them closely through accurate descriptions of even the most mandane and familiar movements (common actions one would never think about with such awareness) like searching a pocket or turning on a tap.

Accuracy and precision are going to be some of the leading motives of Ithaca. It is written in a question-and-answer form, reminiscent of that of the Catechism (the way the Catholic church dishes out its truths). It also has a scientific touch, nearly mathematical in its attempt to be exact. Everything is treated as if it were of equal importance (a dust bucket seems as important as a tree or the Roman Catholic Church). Things are described neutrally, precisely, exhaustively and from a detached point of view, in an objective language - the kind you would use for instructive texts or legal documents, focusing on accuracy, and at the cost of brevity. (Joyce told his friend Frank Budgen that Ithaca was "the ugly duckling" in the book.)

And yet, things get out of hand, again. Though Ithaca seems to want to get a grip back on things and to regain control, the striving for precision and exhaustiveness defeats its purpose. See, for example, the wonderful, long list of what Bloom admires in water: the list grows and grows, but the longer it gets the more things are likely to have been left out, in a way. The more detailed the lists, the more things are likely be missing. 

Tuesday, 12 November 2013, Pages 771 - 776, Eumaeus, Episode 16

Today we stopped at: "less than the arc which it subtends."

17.10 (Gabler), p. 776 (Penguin)

Bloom and Stephen have to stop in the road for an old horse which is dragging a sweeper. Bloom feels sorry for it and wishes he had a lump of sugar. Stephen is singing, which prompts Bloom to say that he'd have a lot in common with his wife, who is a lover of music too, and starts imagining plans for having Stephen's voice trained and establishing him as a successful singer. This would have the benefit of bringing in some money and of lifting Dublin's musical life to a more distinctive taste, and Stephen could still devote himself to literature in his spare time. Another piece of advice Bloom gives to Stephen is to cut away from Mulligan, who has no qualms about talking about him behind his back. The horse deposits three steaming turds on the road (a scene described with attempts to lift, on a stylistic level, what is evidently dropping). Stephen carries on singing as he and Bloom walk away into the distance. 

At this point, a shift in perspective occurs and the scene is perceived from the driver of the sweepercar's position, who (though he can't hear what they're saying) watches the two men walking away side by side. Bloom and Stephen walk into the distance (a cinematic scene, in a way), linked in companionship but apart from each other mentally.

We talked about the voice in this chapter, since it seemed to some that it couldn't really be Bloom's, he seems so different from how we know him. Maybe the chapter, particularly its ending, invites us to see the voice as detaching itself from the characters (though it may originate from what they say and do) - like something that lays itself over the events, or something into which the events are transposed but that claims existence in its own right.

One last time, an example of what we have come to enjoy as typically (and funnily) Eumaean, with its deliberately awkward style, the metaphors that don't go well together, then taking over and getting out of hand completely:

Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he parenthesissed, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life

In Ithaca (the next chapter, on which we started) it's rather the precision which gets out of hand. It is written in a pattern of question and answer, it strives to be exact (almost mathematically so), as if it were trying to get back the hold that's been missing (viz. the looseness and laxness of the previous chapter). But, again, the effort seems to defeat its purpose.

Tuesday, 5 November 2013, Pages 762 - 771, Eumaeus, Episode 16

Today we stopped at "who made toys or airs and John Bull" 
16.1769 (Gabler), p. 771 (Penguin)

Bloom is still silently enjoying, with some self-satisfaction, the retort he snapped at the fanatical nationalist in Cyclops. He dislikes the way the cabmen talk about and laugh at Parnell, though, and he also regrets that Stephen should waste his time in brothels and risk catching venereal disease. Many of Bloom's thoughts about Stephen and his words to him are inspired by his mistaken interpretation of him, though. We continue to see and enjoy various (failed) attempts by Bloom (but also by Stephen) to sound original, as e.g. in the following muddles:

But something substantial he certainly ought to eat, were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.

(Bloom's inventive wording for "egg")

-- At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired though unwrinkled face.

(Bloom's alternative to a simple "when?")

Stephen:

-- One thing I never understood, he said, to be original on the spur of the moment, why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside down on the tables In cafes.

Bloom:

At least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet.

(Bloom's muddle out of as warm as toast and as right as a trivet)

It gets late, time to retire, Bloom would like to take Stephen home with him but doesn't know how to word his invitation and turns around various possible phrasings in his head (and he also remembers that, the last time he took a lame dog home for the night, Molly got rather angry). He would also like to help Stephen materially. Finally, he manages to make him leave the shelter with him in what is made to look like a mysterious, high tension, gangsteresque paying-for-the-drinks-and-leaving-swiftly-scene.

Outside, talk turns to the subject of music and Stephen, who has been rather silent, loosens up a little. He is not very firm on his legs, though, and Bloom goes to his side to support him. He says to him, "The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. It's not far. Lean on me". He passes his arm in Stephens and leads him on. Stephen replies "Yes", uncertainly, "because he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that". Stephen, who rather dislikes physical contact, does feel a different man, but that different man is Bloom. Bloom and Stephen are talking at cross purposes all the time here - Bloom wanting to show that he knows, Stephen talking without explaining or caring. Incidentally, "sinewless" and "wobbly" are adjectives that would describe rather well the way in which this chapter is written.