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."
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."
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?
