Tuesday, 25 February 2014, Pages 875 - 880, Penelope, Episode 18

Today we reached the end of the "first sentence" in Molly's monologue: "... hang a woman surely are they". Gabler (18.245), Penguin (880.30)

As Bloom sleeps, Molly is apparently awake. Thinking random thoughts, jumping from one memory to another, remembering all kinds of associations. Many of her thoughts are triggered by what Bloom has described to her of his day, and some of them have to do, though, with the time she has spent with Boylan.

Quite a bit of the passage we read today is about having sex. Molly comes across as being quite 'modern', quite 'uninhibited', something remarkable during the early 20th century Catholic Dublin. She is also in a way 'matter of fact', when she thinks '... with all the talk of the world about it people make is only the first time after that its just ordinary do it and think no more about it...". She thinks of the confession she used to go to when Father Corrigan would question her quite probingly about where exactly she was touched, etc. From Father Corrigan, her thoughts wander to Boylan, who was smelling that afternoon of some kind of drink not whisky or stout (in fact Boylan had a sloegin in the bar at Hotel Ormond; see the chapter, Sirens), who had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after they took the port and potted meat, crumbs of which Bloom had found on the bed. In fact Molly confesses to herself that she too fell asleep soundly till the sound of the thunder (think of the thunderstorm that struck when Bloom was at the maternity hospital in Holles Street / Chapter, Oxen in the Sun) woke her up, prompting her to say a Hail Mary just as she used to when it used to thunder in Gibraltar, which would make her feel as if the world was coming to an end.

Molly's thoughts then turn to God, church, soul - and Bloom's scoffing at the idea of the existence of the soul and saying, "... you have no soul inside only grey matter." She now thinks he doesn't know what it is to have one, when thinking of the 'one', her thoughts turn to Boylan again. What follows is a detailed description of the 'anatomy' of Boylan, and the time she spent with him in the afternoon, ending with the thought, "... nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch of it...". This 'it' refers to the pains of child birth, and leads automatically to Mina Purefoy (who had given birth a few hours ago), her useless husband and their many children.

The courtship with Bloom, mutual jealousy felt at that time between Josie Powell (current Mrs. Breen, whom Bloom had met the previous morning, and obviously told Molly about the meeting) and herself, the gifts Bloom gave to her at that time (Byron's poems and three pairs of gloves) are some of the memories that come back to Molly. Thinking of Mrs. Breen, she also thinks of her dotty husband, who used to go to bed with his muddy boots on. Musings on husbands and wives such as the Purefoys, Breens and she and Bloom reminds her of Mrs Maybrick who was convicted (whose death sentence was commuted later) of poisoning her husband with white Arsenic. We left this session of reading with Molly wondering why they call it Arsenic (Arse + nic)!

Molly's monologue must be listened to (or read aloud). It is only then one can greatly appreciate what Joyce has created in this chapter. While reading, it helps to know that every 'yes' Molly says heralds a new stream of thought. The innumerable 'he's in this stream of consciousness can only be understood if one can follow the context of Molly's thoughts.

Tuesday, 20 February 2014, (Post b), Pages 871 - 875, Penelope, Episode 18

As an exception, there will be two posts on today's reading. (We finished the chapter Ithaca and started the next, Penelope. To know where exactly we stopped today, please refer to post a.)

Unlike the previous chapter which should have ended, according to Joyce, with a fat full stop, this chapter of Molly's monologue has no full stops at all. It consists of eight sentences with no punctuation, no paragraph spacing. Joyce wrote the following to his friend, Frank Budgen:

"["Penelope"] begins and ends with the female word yes. It turns like a huge earthballslowlysurelyandevenly round and round spinning, its four cardinal points being the female breasts, arse, womb and cunt expressed by the words because, bottom (in all sense bottom button, bottom of the class, bottom of the sea, bottom of his heart), woman, yes. Though probably more obscene than any preceding episode it seems to me to be perfectly sane full amoral fertilisable untrustworthy engaging shrewd limited prudent indifferent Weib (Scott, 1984, 158)."

and

"... Though probably more obscene than any preceding episode it seems to me to be perfectly sane full amoral fertilisable untrustworthy engaging shrewd limited prudent indifferent Weib. "Ich bin der Fleisch der stets bejaht" (letter from Joyce to Frank Budgen, 16 August 1921)."

There is no real equivalent for this chapter in Homer's Odyssey. But with Penelope, we get an alternative weaving of text (cf. Penelope the weaver and un-weaver in Homer): what she thinks sometimes overlap with, sometimes contradicts what we have read before (e.g. what Bloom thought, what Stephen said), i.e. we have a different sort of text, a parallax view of the text as a whole (an alternative view, a re-writing)

Molly's monologue is fluid, pre-articulation, pre-punctuation; her "because" often explains nothing, her "yes" does not seem to refer to or answer much (pointedly so: the opening - we don't know what she is talking about, we start in the middle of her trains of thought); her syntax is double-faced (e.g.: ... I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur ... > Are the units 'get shut of her dog'? 'her dog smelling my fur'?); Her pronouns are sometimes ambiguous (e.g. shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool)

Molly also has a lot of "but", "still" etc., i.e. she veers left and right (e.g. from being ruthless in her judgements to taking a more lenient view of the same person, as she does with Mrs Riordan at the opening of the chapter. 

The chapter starts with Molly's monologue on Bloom. She dissects his behavior, the acts he comes up with in order to attract female attention (such as that of Mrs. Riordan (who was pious because no man would look at her twice), of the servant Mary they had in Ontario terrace (about whom Bloom had proposed that she could eat at our table on Christmas if you please O no thank you not in my house), the letter she caught him writing when she came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the paper, ... She wonders where he actually was that night, not believing a wee bit his telling her that he had supper at Wynn's Hotel in Lower Abbey Street (Gifford, 18.36-37).

Tuesday, 18 February 2014 (Post a), Pages 869 - 871, Ithaca, Episode 17

Today we stopped at: "... making him worse than he is ..." (Penguin p. 875.3) i.e., we finished the chapter Ithaca and have moved on to Penelope, the last chapter in Ulysses. Thus there will be two posts on today's reading!

Ithaca ends with Bloom musing over his marital relationship with Molly and at the same time telling her about how his day was. Bloom is too well aware of the fact that he and Molly have reached a point in their marriage where there are unmistakable signs of estrangement - both physical and mental - in their relationship. In fact they have not had proper sexual relationship for 10 years, 5 months and 18 days (ever since Milly had her first periods).  Joyce describes in some detail the physical act of sex using a tone that is so dry that one is reminded of the ruling in the case, United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses, in which Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic—that nowhere in it was the "leer of the sensualist". 

Slowly though it is time for Bloom, lying in the direction of N.W. by W., to rest. He has travelled a lot that (nay, previous) day and night. As he drifts off into sleep, his thought about his having travelled a lot reminds him of another famous traveler, the incomparable Sindbad the Sailor. Names - distortions of Sindbad the Sailor (for example, Sinbad the Sailor, Tinbad the Tailor, Jinbad the Jailor, ...Xinbad the Phthailer) - float in and out of his mind lending a touch of Orient to this version of Odyssey. He even thinks of the Arabian mythical bird roc's egg that Sindbad once used to escape.  The last thought he has is  "Darkinbad the Brightdayler" (dark in bed, the day is bright or not far away), which is a foreshadow of the language of Finnegans Wake. 

"roc's auk's egg": cf. bird on Sindbad the Sailor poster

Thus we came to the end of a remarkable chapter. A chapter devoid of any emotion, a chapter in which Bloom spends some time with Stephen, sees unmistakable signs of his wife's affair with Boylan, ends up in the same bed as his wife, and a chapter which still screams of loneliness. (In fact, Ulysses in general is a lot about loneliness.)

Much  has been written about the style of the chapter. It is said that Joyce utilized scientific, technical style  in this chapter. One knows that Joyce wrote to Frank Budgen, "I am writing Ithaca in the form of a mathematical catechism..." With much respect to Joyce, I cannot help remarking here that mathematics is a very precise and a very concise language, something this chapter does not aspire to be!

The chapter ends - in the Penguin edition - with a question mark contrary to Joyce's instructions to the printer that the chapter should end with a fat full stop, printed in large font (larger than the text's font). 

The full stop is precisely what is missing from the next chapter, Penelope.

Tuesday, 11 February 2014, Pages 861 - 869, Ithaca, Episode 17

We read as far as "... complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed."
Penguin (869.28)

Last week we had left Bloom mulling about the imperfections of the day, which were many indeed: not being able to obtain the renewal of an advertisement, not being able to obtain a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan, not being able to make sure whether or not the Hellenic female divinities in the National Museum had posterior rectal orifices, not being able to obtain admission to the Gaiety Theater, ...

We had in fact left Bloom in his living room, but unbeknown to us he has entered his bedroom. We had seen the previous morning how Molly carelessly discards her clothes (Penguin, 75.1). It is so even now. Bloom notices a number of her clothes lying haphazardly on top of a rectangular trunk. (The trunk bearing the letters B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy) makes him think of his father-in-law.) Bloom's eyes also catch sight of many other objects - some a bit damaged - dispersed in the room. Bloom sheds his clothes, deposits them on a chair, gets into a nightshirt by inserting his head and arms into the proper apertures, prepares the bedlinen, and finally gets into the bed.

What catches his attention immediately? New bedlinen, presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, AND  crumbs of potted meat. 

What is home without

Plumtree's potted meat?

Incomplete

With it an abode of bliss.

(Penguin, 91. 10)

This unmistakable proof in the bed (that certainly makes one question the assertion in the above advertisement of a home with Plumtree's potted meat being an abode of bliss) of the happenings of the afternoon starts off in his mind a list, a series, of possible suitors of Molly, starting with Mulvey, her first boy friend, and ending with Boylan. (This long list must naturally be taken with a big pinch of salt!) Bloom, who considers Boylan to be a bounder, a bill-sticker (Penguin, 711.19), a bester and a boaster, feels envy, jealousy, abnegation, and equanimity at the thought of his having been the last occupant of the bed.

The paragraph (Penguin, 865.7) that describes why/how Bloom feels equanimity is for me one of the best paragraphs of the novel. These reflections /descriptions elevate Bloom (the eternal outsider, the naive, the one to whom hardly people listen to, the one who truly cares not only for Stephen but also for a Mrs. Purefoy in labour, the one who cares more for science than for nationalism,...) to a special level, differentiating him from ordinary mortals! The adultery Molly commits with Boylan is for him an act that is very natural, that is more than inevitable. He reflects on various kinds of crimes that one could commit, that are more heinous than adultery in the world. Bloom reminds himself of the apathy of the stars, i.e., he knows that it matters little to the world if Molly commits adultery. He would have smiled if he indeed would have smiled thinking of the inanity of extolled virtue, of the silliness of enthusiastically praising virtue. 

Bloom's kissing (as an act of quiet acceptance of what had happened?) the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, wakes up the sleeping Molly, who asks him how his day was. (Note that Bloom does not ask her the same question!) In answering the question, Bloom, careful to leave out unsavoury details - his clandestine correspondence with M.C., the altercation with the Citizen in Kiernan's pub, his behavior caused by the exhibitionism of Gerty on the beach - tells her only about the nice things that he experienced that day, including meeting Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.

Tuesday, 4 February 2014, Pages 853 - 861, Ithaca, Episode 17

Stopped at "... 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street."  (Gabler (17.2080), Penguin (861.5)

Last week we had read about Bloom's reminiscing about his father, about the letter from his father which was stored in the second drawer. about his father's suffering from progressive melancholia that finally had led him to commit suicide. Now Bloom thinks of a conversation he had had with his father regarding the various stations he (the father) had passed through before settling down in Dublin. He fondly remembers a couple of idiosyncrasies of his father - such as drinking voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Bloom also remembers the money he had inherited, consoling himself that things could have been far worse than they currently are. For example, he could sink in poverty, descending slowly but definitely from being an outdoor hawker to an inmate of Old Man's House Kilmainham. One of the indignities he would certainly suffer from - if he does end up as a pauper - would be the unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females!  

Bloom's thoughts catapult him into thinking that going away would be one way to escape from such a fate. But then there are pros and cons of such a departure. What follows is a description of places  in Ireland and abroad that would be attractive destinations. True to the nature of this chapter, Ithaca, thinking of each place leads Bloom to other associated thoughts. For example, when he thinks of Ceylon, he cannot avoid thinking of supplying tea to Thomas Kernan; straits of Gibraltar are special, being the unique birthplace of Marion Tweedy. It is while thinking of the possible modes of travel that Bloom transforms (in his thoughts) into a heavenly body so that he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit.... and somehow reappear reborn...

On my first reading, this nocturnal brooding came across to me as somewhat forced and overdone. Then I 'discovered' the following: Almost 93 years ago, on 28 February 1921, James Joyce wrote to his friend, Frank Budgen: "I am writing Ithaca in the form of a mathematical catechism. All events are resolved into their cosmic physical, psychical etc. equivalents, e.g. Bloom jumping down the area, drawing water from the tap, the micturition in the garden, the cone of incense, lighted candle and statue so that not only will the reader know everything and know it in the baldest coldest way, but Bloom and Stephen thereby become heavenly bodies, wanderers like the stars at which they gaze."

(Source: http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/notes/jj17.html)

It is heartening to know that (despite the intention of Joyce :-)) Bloom does not become a wanderer literally like the starts he gazes at! Because it is late, very late, in the night, and because of the proximity of an occupied bed, with the anticipation of warmth (human)... He starts to rise in order to prepare to go bed. Before rising, he recapitulates - once more - the happenings of that eventful day. 

The paragraph (6th on p. 859, Penguin) devoted to this recapitulation is a very special one. It lists, in order, all that happened to Bloom that day. But Ulysses would not have been Ulysses if Joyce had resisted the temptation of adding a rich layer to these seemingly banal events. Adding words in parentheses to the events of the day, (which he apparently did very late, while proof reading the work just before print, probably driving his publishers mad with yet more last-minute additions) Joyce transforms the day into a quasi-schematic Jewish liturgical calendar, as he had reviewed the day previously in the form of a Roman Catholic litany in the chapter Circe (Penguin, p. 618). (Words in italics are by Don Gifford.  See comment 17.2044, page 60 in Gifford's Ulysses Annotated.) Two among these references intrigue me: (1) The word holocaust used in association with the event: the altercation with a truculent troglodyte in Bernard Kiernan's premises. (2) The word atonement associated with the event: nocturnal perambulation to and from the cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge.

The event in Bernard Kiernan's premises refers to the chapter Cyclops where there is altercation between Bloom (Penguin, p. 380) and the Citizen. Holocaust is said to mean literally, a burnt offering, total sacrifice, and figuratively to the ceremony that commemorates the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.  (Gifford, comment 17.2051). It would be interesting to explore further these associations and to draw parallels between the altercation Bloom has with the Citizen and (a) the concept of total sacrifice, and (b) the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. 

Similarly, the word atonement means righting the wrong, to make amends. What is being atoned for here? Did Bloom take it upon himself that night to atone for the 'wrongs' that had happened in Stephen's life when he brought him home via the cabman's shelter, made him a hot cup of cocoa and offered him a bed to sleep?