Tuesday, 24 June 2014, Pages 24 - 28, Telemachus, End of Episode 1

Note: there will be no reading on Tuesday, 8 July 2014.

We finished chapter 1 today, which saw the three young men walking down to the beach, where Mulligan is going to have a swim. He chats with an acquaintance, who is already in the water and gossips with him about young Seymour, who seems to have dropped out of his medical studies, is back in town, and is seeing a red-haired girl named Lily (to which Mulligan's comment is, in character, "Redheaded women buck like goats" (1.706)). Stephen and Haines aren't joining Mulligan in swimming but the three arrange to meet at the pub, The Ship, later that day. Haines and Stephen talk about Irish and English history, and a couple of typical themes (which we will encounter again in the book) turn up: that of master and servant (England and Ireland) and that of Ireland's two masters, i.e. the state and the church (British rule and the rule of the Roman church). The double rule was already lightly hinted at in the phrase we encountered in the opening sentence of the book: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed" (1.1). There is also mention of a recent drowning case nearby. Stephen imagines the body turning up soon (the popular belief was that a drowned body would resurface after nine days). Indeed, we find ourselves more and more in Stephen's mind, his interior monologues getting longer and longer. But it is not always possible to keep apart what belongs to Stephen's thoughts and what is reported like in a narration. These two voices blend.

The closing word, "Usurper", it may be safely assumed, is what's going though Stephen's mind — a term that may apply not only to the British but, in this case, to Mulligan, who seems to take everything over in Stephen's view: e.g. Stephen would like to be a writer, but Mulligan is coming out with all the clever turns of phrases. Note how he never states anything simply but always makes a theatrical act of what he's saying (accompanying it by quotations like, "Thus spake Zarathustra" (1.727) or "Make room in the bed" (1.713)). From this point of view, Mulligan may be seen to have something in common with the suitors in Homer's Odyssey, who eat up what is in Odysseus home and try to usurp it from him.

Summarizing, we see in chapter one three young men living in a tower near a beach; Stephen appearing grumpy and brooding; Mulligan exuberant, playacting a lot and full of spirits, although he may become rather repetitive in the long run, his jokes a little stale:

- O, Haines said, you have heard it before?
- Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily. (1.609)

and Haines, the Englishman taking an anthropologist's interest for the Irish, which comes across having a rather patronizing air. Politics are hinted at too (Ireland oppressed and under British rule; Ireland seeing times of revival and of cultural renaissance; the rule of the Church), but such themes are generally kept under the surface and only break through in hints occasionally.

Indeed, we often can't follow everything we read straight away. Some of it will become clear eventually (some won't though!). Very often in Ulysses, details turn up and we don't know what is worth remembering: some of it will come back, some won't. The reader needs to have the patience to wait and see.

Note about Tuesday, 24 June

On Tuesday, 24 June the celebrations for Fritz Senn's having been awarded the Festspiele prize will take place at 8 p.m. The reading will still be held but probably finish early.

Just a reminder!

Today, 16th June, is Bloomsday!
Dubliners was published exactly one hundred years ago, yesterday!

Tuesday, 10 June 2014, Pages 15 - 24, Telemachus, Episode 1

We stopped at "That was in his eyes." (Gabler 1.632), Penguin (24.7)

Please note that there will be no reading on Tuesday, 17 June.

Buck Mulligan, Stephen and Haines enjoy the rich white milk brought by the old woman. Mulligan continuous to be flippant, Stephen serious, and Haines, who has come to Ireland to study Irish, talks to her in that language. The old woman, who asks him whether he is talking in French, says - on being told that it is Irish -,  "I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows." Haines brings up the topic of paying the old woman. The bill for the past 10 mornings comes to two shillings and two pence. Mulligan manages to produce a florin, and sends her off. On the topic of having a wash, Stephen comes up with yet another serious statement of his: All Ireland is washed by the gulf stream. Haines is impressed by Stephen's grand statements and would like to note them down, if he will let him. The three leave for a swim. Stephen locks the slow iron door and puts the huge key in his inner pocket. He thinks that Mulligan will want to have the key, saying: "It is mine. I paid the rent." Stephen, who is obviously poor could not have afforded to pay in advance the yearly rent of 12 quids (pounds) for the tower. Buck Mulligan is still playacting, reciting, what Stephen calls, The Ballad of Joking Jesus, before he jumps into the water. That recitation makes Haines ask Stephen whether he is a believer, to which Stephen replies: "You behold in me ... a horrible example of free thought."

The milkwoman here is thought of as the messenger by Stephen linking Ulysses to Odyseey as Athena in disguise appears as a messenger to Telemachus at the beginning of the epic. The old woman also reminds Stephen of the fate of his country. Silk of the kine (the most beautiful of cattle) and the poor old woman (The Shan Van Vocht) are allegories for Ireland. Stephen thinks of the poor old woman as serving the conqueror (Haines/the British) and her gay betrayer (Buck Mulligan/The Irish).  That the milk woman does not understand the language Haines speaks (Is it French you are talking, Sir?) is Irish shows the state of the Irish language at that time.

Mulligan's flowery - and not so honest - character is painted well on these pages. He makes jibes at Stephen, once when he says "The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month", and again when he tells him, "Come out, Kinch. You have eaten all we left." He (Mulligan) tries (Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines) to make Haines feel that he can benefit from knowing Stephen with the intention of getting some money out of him (Haines). He makes grand announcements about his own actions: "Mulligan is stripped of his garments", "And going forth he met Butterly" (this latter phrase being a take off on the biblical phrase, And he went out and wept bitterly.)  He is after all Mercurial Malachi, both in the sense of the element mercury that has no fixed shape and as the one who as a Roman God is the patron - among other things - of eloquence and poetry.  True to how he refers to himself, he recites the somewhat blasphemous poem, referred to by Stephen as The Ballad of Joking Jesus, which in fact is the poem, The song of the Cheerful (but slightly Sarcastic) Jesus, by Oliver Gogerty,  a poem that Joyce freely made use of.

Thus there are allusions to Irish history on these pages. Allegories, images and phrases used hint to Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth, and of course to the Bible.

Sometimes the same sentence/section can be interpreted in differing manner. For instance, let us look at what Stephen thinks when Mulligan announces that they should go for a swim. He tells himself, "Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. Yet here's a spot." The last sentence is taken from the famous soliloquy of Lady Macbeth. Scholars think that Stephen is referring here to his guilty conscience at his not kneeling at this mother's deathbed. Accordingly, Stephen is thinking that he can wash and scrub as much as he wants but the guilty conscience (Agenbite of inwit / remorse of conscience) is unwashable like the spot on Lady Macbeth's hands. But it can also be interpreted as follows. Especially when we pay attention to what happens just before these thoughts of Stephen surface. Haines tells him, "I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me." Accordingly it is equally plausible that Stephen thinks the British, the current rulers of England, can flatter and cajole as much as they want, but the fact remains - like the unwashable spot on Lady Macbeth's hands - that they are the rulers of the Irish. All I can say is, in Joyce's own words, "I don't know, I'm sure." (Penguin 18.32)

Chandra

Tuesday, 3 June 2014, Pages 5 - 15, Telemachus, Episode 1

Stopped at "collector of prepuces." Penguin (15.14)

Last week we had left Stephen lost in his thoughts looking at his own image in Buck Mulligan's cracked mirror. Now we find both the friends still on top of the tower overlooking the sea.  Mulligan who is aware of Stephen's moroseness makes an attempt to find out its reason, but really cannot comprehend it even when Stephen comes out with it. Mulligan tries to patch it up, and goes down the staircase for breakfast, asking Stephen to come down too and to give up the moody brooding. Stephen is still consumed with memories of his mother.  We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. There is bread, butter, honey and thick black tea. But no milk. Just then an old woman enters with a milk jug.

Many writers - Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Shakespeare - Irish folk stories and poems, as well as plays staged in the Dublin theaters are referred to on these pages.

Oscar Wilde's words that life imitates art, and that genius is reduced to the position of a cracked looking glass is alluded to by Stephen, when he bitterly refers to the cracked mirror as the symbol of Irish art. Incidentally Mulligan also quotes Oscar Wilde saying "the rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror" (from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray), but relents soon.  Either he genuinely feels that it is not fair to tease Stephen like that or he is not totally comfortable with the serious mood of his friend.

Mulligan makes an overture of friendship to Stephen asking him, "Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me?" A bit of poking by Mulligan results in Stephen revealing the background for his aloofness. Stephen had overheard, during a visit to Mulligan's house, Mulligan telling his mother referring to his friend, "it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead." Even after being reminded of his words, Mulligan does not see why they should offend Stephen. He does not understand that whereas he himself encounters death often being a medical student, the mother's death was Stephen's first confrontation with death, and that his words could sound as being irreverent and offensive to Stephen. Before going down for breakfast, Mulligan attempts to soothe Stephen's feelings, pointing to the sea and saying, "Look at the sea. What does it care about offenses?" Clearly he still does not get how and why he has offended Stephen.

As Mulligan disappears down the stairs, singing lines from Yeats's "Who goes with Fergus", Stephen still dallies on top of the tower, thinking of his mother. How she wanted to hear his music (to his singing the above poem), how she had come after her death, silently, in his dream. That incidence had wrenched out a cry from Stephen's heart: "No, Mother. Let me be and let me live." Stephen wants to live without the memory of the deathbed scene. But at this time he is a haunted young man. Stephen finally goes down, carrying Mulligan's shaving-bowl. This simple act links Ulysses to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as Stephen recalls his carrying the boat of incense at Clongowes.

(Source: http://www.crsbooks.net/personal/local/kildarepages/clongowes.html)

We meet Haines for the first time at the breakfast table. He has come to Ireland to study Irish folk arts. There is bread, butter, honey and fry prepared by Mulligan for breakfast. And there is thick black tea with sugar. The milk woman is late. When Haines says, "Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?", Mulligan jokes - yet again - saying, "When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water." Don Gifford notes that mother Grogan appease as a character in an anonymous Irish song, "Ned Grogan" (1.357) but that song does not contain these lines, neither is it spoken of in the Mabinogion (Welch folk tales) nor in the Upanishads (Indian philosophical works)!

Chandra