We read 10 pages today, stopping at "... flowers of its froth." (Gabler 5.317) (Penguin 97.31)
The highlights of these pages is Joyce's use of the technique of the stream of conciousness. This is especially obvious when the thoughts of Bloom intermingle with the talk of M'Coy. (See for example, the paragraph starting with 'Doran, Lyons in Conway's.' Gabler (5.309), Penguin (89.33)). Reading the text aloud helps one to separate the thoughts from the spoken words.
On these pages, we also get to know Bloom a bit more: he has been carrying on a letter-liason with Martha, a person whom he has not met, and who thinks that his name is Henry Flower - well, 'Bloom' is quite close to 'Flower' -; he has a penchant to eye women, specially when they get on or off from a vehicle; he knows some famous arid; his father had committed suicide. And he is still kind of haunted by the torn envelope & by Love's Old Sweet Song! On the whole, these pages act as mirrors to the daily happenings in the life of a not-so-out-of-the-ordinary person. He saunters across acne, crosses roads, meets an acquaintance, a couple get on to a horse-drawn carriage, looks at advertisements, hoardings and bill boards, passes over a hopscotch court, and on seeing a cat sleeping is reminded of a legend about Prophet Mohammed.
Still thinking about the effect of the force of gravity and the value thirty two feet per second per second (value of the acceleration due to gravity at sea level on earth), Bloom enters the post office, produces a visiting card (made under a false name, Henry Flower) that he had hidden in his hat, and asks whether there are any letters for him. This is the first indication we have that he has been carrying on a liason with somebody. As he starts tearing open the envelope to which something is pinned on, he sees M'Coy. Not realizing that Bloom has no interest in stopping for a chat, M'Coy starts small talk. Bloom's attention is divided between the letter he is yet to read, and the sight of a woman and a man about to enter a horse-drawn carriage. He wonders, "which side will she get up?" M'Coy continues to talk as Bloom moves a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head to have a clear view. But just them a heavy tramcar honking its gong slews between. Poor Bloom. Whenever the sight of a girl/woman tantalizes him, something comes in between and blocks his view!
After promising M'Coy that he will make sure to enter his name in the mourners' list at Paddy Dignam's funeral - in case M'Coy is unable to attend the same - Bloom strolls on towards Brunswick street. At the corner, his eyes wander over the multicolored hoardings. Among them was the announcement of that night's play, Leah, starring Mrs. Bandmann Palmer, who had appeared on the previous night as Hamlet. (She was not the only actress to have played the role of Hamlet.) That realization leads Bloom to wonder, perhaps he (Hamlet) was a woman. (Is that) why Ophelia committed suicide.
Passing a horse carriage stand, (where the horses were - their noses in a nosebag - busy munching oats), and the cabman's shelter, Bloom hums an aria from Don Giovanni and turns into Cumberland street. Treading carefully, he passes over a hopscotch court, sees a child playing marbles, and a tabby (cat) blinking, watching from her warm sill. Bloom's thoughts that it is a pity to disturb them (sleeping cats), reminds him of a legend from Islam, about Mohammed. It is said that once Mohammed on trying to get up as he hears the call for prayer, notices that his cat, Muezza, was sleeping on the sleeve of his prayer robe. Instead of disturbing the sleep of the cat, he decides to tear of the sleeve, and goes to the mosque in a torn robe.
Having found a quiet spot where he can read the letter unobserved, he opens it inside the newspaper (where he has been hiding it), finds that what was been pinned on to it is a yellow flower (which prompts him to conclude that Martha is not annoyed after all) and reads it. This is a typed letter written in a somewhat patchy, shaky style and with a couple of (intentional, on Joyce's part) mistakes in it (e.g. Martha types "world" instead of "word" or "wrote" instead of "write", easy mistakes to make on a typewriter). Bloom seems to feel somewhat ironic about his correspondent, but he reads the letter again, this time punctuating or interspersing it with various types of flowers in several places, thereby rendering an interpretation of what he's reading: "Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume" (5.264-6). On his continued walk, Bloom puts the flower into his heart pocket, tears up and throws away the envelope and also throws away the pin.
Although he shows no intention of becoming involved any more closely with Martha (he's been thinking "no roses without thorns" earlier but has just thrown away the pin that held this particular flower, maybe preferring the rose without the thorn here) he decides to "go further next time", possibly thinking about becoming more daring and erotically outspoken in his next letter to her.
We may note here that this chapter is full of the pleasantness of the drowsy and the narcotic. Problems are kept at a distance, phantasies are of inebriating, soothing scenes and Blooms seems more interested in letting himself be enveloped by the painless rather than to face the harshness of reality. In this vein, we closed our reading on the description of an image that goes through Bloom's head, one of barrels full of porter, rolling about, then bursting open and a "lazy pooling swirl of liquor" with a froth of flowers washing over everything.
The highlights of these pages is Joyce's use of the technique of the stream of conciousness. This is especially obvious when the thoughts of Bloom intermingle with the talk of M'Coy. (See for example, the paragraph starting with 'Doran, Lyons in Conway's.' Gabler (5.309), Penguin (89.33)). Reading the text aloud helps one to separate the thoughts from the spoken words.
On these pages, we also get to know Bloom a bit more: he has been carrying on a letter-liason with Martha, a person whom he has not met, and who thinks that his name is Henry Flower - well, 'Bloom' is quite close to 'Flower' -; he has a penchant to eye women, specially when they get on or off from a vehicle; he knows some famous arid; his father had committed suicide. And he is still kind of haunted by the torn envelope & by Love's Old Sweet Song! On the whole, these pages act as mirrors to the daily happenings in the life of a not-so-out-of-the-ordinary person. He saunters across acne, crosses roads, meets an acquaintance, a couple get on to a horse-drawn carriage, looks at advertisements, hoardings and bill boards, passes over a hopscotch court, and on seeing a cat sleeping is reminded of a legend about Prophet Mohammed.
Still thinking about the effect of the force of gravity and the value thirty two feet per second per second (value of the acceleration due to gravity at sea level on earth), Bloom enters the post office, produces a visiting card (made under a false name, Henry Flower) that he had hidden in his hat, and asks whether there are any letters for him. This is the first indication we have that he has been carrying on a liason with somebody. As he starts tearing open the envelope to which something is pinned on, he sees M'Coy. Not realizing that Bloom has no interest in stopping for a chat, M'Coy starts small talk. Bloom's attention is divided between the letter he is yet to read, and the sight of a woman and a man about to enter a horse-drawn carriage. He wonders, "which side will she get up?" M'Coy continues to talk as Bloom moves a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head to have a clear view. But just them a heavy tramcar honking its gong slews between. Poor Bloom. Whenever the sight of a girl/woman tantalizes him, something comes in between and blocks his view!
After promising M'Coy that he will make sure to enter his name in the mourners' list at Paddy Dignam's funeral - in case M'Coy is unable to attend the same - Bloom strolls on towards Brunswick street. At the corner, his eyes wander over the multicolored hoardings. Among them was the announcement of that night's play, Leah, starring Mrs. Bandmann Palmer, who had appeared on the previous night as Hamlet. (She was not the only actress to have played the role of Hamlet.) That realization leads Bloom to wonder, perhaps he (Hamlet) was a woman. (Is that) why Ophelia committed suicide.
Passing a horse carriage stand, (where the horses were - their noses in a nosebag - busy munching oats), and the cabman's shelter, Bloom hums an aria from Don Giovanni and turns into Cumberland street. Treading carefully, he passes over a hopscotch court, sees a child playing marbles, and a tabby (cat) blinking, watching from her warm sill. Bloom's thoughts that it is a pity to disturb them (sleeping cats), reminds him of a legend from Islam, about Mohammed. It is said that once Mohammed on trying to get up as he hears the call for prayer, notices that his cat, Muezza, was sleeping on the sleeve of his prayer robe. Instead of disturbing the sleep of the cat, he decides to tear of the sleeve, and goes to the mosque in a torn robe.
Having found a quiet spot where he can read the letter unobserved, he opens it inside the newspaper (where he has been hiding it), finds that what was been pinned on to it is a yellow flower (which prompts him to conclude that Martha is not annoyed after all) and reads it. This is a typed letter written in a somewhat patchy, shaky style and with a couple of (intentional, on Joyce's part) mistakes in it (e.g. Martha types "world" instead of "word" or "wrote" instead of "write", easy mistakes to make on a typewriter). Bloom seems to feel somewhat ironic about his correspondent, but he reads the letter again, this time punctuating or interspersing it with various types of flowers in several places, thereby rendering an interpretation of what he's reading: "Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume" (5.264-6). On his continued walk, Bloom puts the flower into his heart pocket, tears up and throws away the envelope and also throws away the pin.
Although he shows no intention of becoming involved any more closely with Martha (he's been thinking "no roses without thorns" earlier but has just thrown away the pin that held this particular flower, maybe preferring the rose without the thorn here) he decides to "go further next time", possibly thinking about becoming more daring and erotically outspoken in his next letter to her.
We may note here that this chapter is full of the pleasantness of the drowsy and the narcotic. Problems are kept at a distance, phantasies are of inebriating, soothing scenes and Blooms seems more interested in letting himself be enveloped by the painless rather than to face the harshness of reality. In this vein, we closed our reading on the description of an image that goes through Bloom's head, one of barrels full of porter, rolling about, then bursting open and a "lazy pooling swirl of liquor" with a froth of flowers washing over everything.
