Wednesday 28 May 2014

Tuesday, 27 May 2014, Pages 1 - 5, Telemachus, Episode 1

This would be the first post of the current Tuesday Ulysses Reading Group. The blog was started on 17th September 2013 with Eumaeus, chapter 16. Thus the posts so far have all been about the third  part of Ulysses. And now we make up for what we have not yet written about, and start with page 1, part 1! Naturally your comments are most welcome! As always!

The blog has two purposes: (a) to inform how far we have read at each session, (b) to summarize the main points of the reading of each session.

Today we stopped at, "It asks me too." Penguin (5.33), Gabler (1.137)

The beginnings of James Joyce's Ulysses may look at the first reading to be utterly simple. All that happens in the five pages we read today is Mulligan's coming up the staircase with a mirror, a razor and a bowl of lather, calling to Stephen who joins him on the tower, Mulligan's shaving act, and their talking about Haines who had had a nightmare the previous night and was raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther, an incidence which obviously made Stephen so uncomfortable as to say, "If he stays on here I am off."

But if one believes that Joyce's Ulysses is simple and easy to read, one is deceived. The first pages use these three characters - Mulligan, Stephen and Haines (British) as symbols of the complex history of Ireland and Irish people. It also contains many a reference to religion/priestly acts/Christianity.  By his choice of adjectives, Joyce traces the characters of Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus distinctly and clearly. Malachi Mulligan is stately and plump (perhaps the only literary character who is plump but still looks stately), he is a talker, is loud, is lively, has money (has gold fillings in his teeth, has lent Stephen his trousers, offers to give him a shirt and a few noserags), knows literature (Isn't the sea what Algy - Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909) - calls it; the loveliest mummer of them all (echo of the last speech of Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caeser: "the noblest Roman of them all")), makes fun of the church/priestly acts (Introibo ad altare Dei), playacts almost always, takes apparently nothing seriously (For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine...) . Stephen on the other hand is morose, is poor, says little, does not respond to Mulligan's exhuberance. The adverbs/adjectives Joyce uses with respect to Stephen are displeased, sleepy, wearily, quietly, gloomily. The incidence of his not praying to please his mother at her deathbed is still gnawing at Stephen's soul.

There are on these pages quite a few references to Homer's Odyssey: Mulligan's uttering at the beginning reflects the invocation at the beginning of the epic. He uses the phrase Epi oinopa ponton to describe the sea, a phrase that is used often by Homer in Odyssey. (Both Mulligan and Stephen are on top of a tower overlooking the sea at Dublin Bay.) But Stephen, one of the two heroes (major characters) of the book, says, "I'm not a hero.", making one ponder not only about the title of the book but also about the meaning of the word, hero.

Joyce uses the technique of interior monologue, one of the major features for which this novel is famous for, already on the first page, when Stephen thinks of Chrysostomos as he sees Mulligan's white teeth glistening her and there with gold points. He uses it again on page 5, when Stephen peers at the mirror and looks at his own image, thinking to himself, "As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too."

It is also interesting to decipher the meanings of the colors - especially the color 'yellow' - mentioned on these pages. The very second sentence starts with "A yellow dressing gown...", referring to how Buck Mulligan is dressed as he comes up the stairhead.

Chandra



Friday 9 May 2014

New start: Tuesday, 27 May 2014

The reading group is starting again from chapter 1:

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Time: 5.30-7.00 p.m.