The reading stopped today at "... both our lives." Penguin (177.16), Gabler (7.765)
Thanks to input from Sabrina!
Thanks to input from Sabrina!
Tuesday 25 November 2014
Wednesday 19 November 2014
Tuesday, 18 November 2014, Pages 156 - 168, Aeolus, Episode 7
We stopped at a recurring phrase, an echo of an earlier thought of Stephan, at "Bullockbefriending bard." (Gabler 7.528) (Penguin 168.7)
Yes. Stephen reappears. We had left him at the end of the third episode, though we did have a glance of him when Bloom and others were going in a carriage to Dignam's funeral (Penguin /p.109). We meet many others too on these pages, many of them characters we know from The Dubliners.
Bloom has left the typesetting/printing room and has entered softly the office of the Evening Telegraph. His entrance is marked only by professor MacHugh, who murmurs - biscuitfully to the dusty windowpane -, 'The ghost walks.' (According to Gifford (7.237), this is a theatrical and journalistic slang for 'salaries are being paid.') The other two - Ned Lambert and Simon Dedalus - in the room do not pay any attention to Bloom. They are busy having delightful fun, reading a passage by Dan Dawson in that day's newspaper. The professor, eating a biscuit - a water biscuit ( i.e., a cracker) - does not want to hear any more of that stuff. Bloom stands aside, having his own thoughts about J. J. O'Molloy, who has by then come in, and about Dan Dawson, who is referred to as Doughy Daw by MacHugh.
Finally thinking that life is too short (to spend reading such articles as by Dawson), Simon Dedalus whisks Ned Lambert away to have a drink. Myles Crawford, the editor, who has come out of his inner office, is not ready to join them just then. Seeing the coast (being) clear, Bloom moves to the inner office, saying, "Just a moment, Mr. Crawford... I just want to phone about an ad." Obviously there was just one telephone there, in the editor's office. We get to hear Bloom's making the telephone when there are silent interludes in the room; 'Twentyeight..... No, twenty.... Double four.... Yes.' Soon Bloom leaves the office of the Evening Telegraph and goes in search of Keyes to fix up the ad.
Meanwhile Lenehan has also come out of the inner office, and is his usual jocular self. He manages to get a cigarette from J. J. O'Molloy after he lights his and MacHugh's cigarettes. Just as Lenehan starts to pose a riddle* that nobody seems to want to hear, enter Stephen and Mr O'Madden Burke. Stephen has brought the letter, which Mr. Deasy had given him that morning. It is on on the foot and mouth disease. Sitting on the rocks at the beach that morning, Stephen had thought of a poem, and having had no paper to jot it down, had torn of a piece of paper from that letter. As the editor notices the torn part, the poem comes back to Stephen's mind.
On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, Pale Vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
As MacHugh peers over the letter and notices that it is about the foot and mouth disease, and asks "Are you turned....?", Stephen recalls what he had thought that morning as he got the letter from Mr. Deasy: "Mulligan will dub me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard." (Penguin/ p.44)
Joyce, having given the name Aeolus to this episode, has included in this episode lots of references to wind: gale, windfall, whirlwind, hurricane, ... The episode has many references to features of languages and literature: doric, cretic,... (doric is a Scottish dialect, cretic is a meter.) The meanings of the subtitles are sometimes obvious, sometimes not. It is, in any case, a noisy episode with lots of interruptions but is also a very graphical, a very visual episode. Almost cinematic in nature.
*Lenehan's riddle: What opera resembles a railway line?
Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply.
Yes. Stephen reappears. We had left him at the end of the third episode, though we did have a glance of him when Bloom and others were going in a carriage to Dignam's funeral (Penguin /p.109). We meet many others too on these pages, many of them characters we know from The Dubliners.
Bloom has left the typesetting/printing room and has entered softly the office of the Evening Telegraph. His entrance is marked only by professor MacHugh, who murmurs - biscuitfully to the dusty windowpane -, 'The ghost walks.' (According to Gifford (7.237), this is a theatrical and journalistic slang for 'salaries are being paid.') The other two - Ned Lambert and Simon Dedalus - in the room do not pay any attention to Bloom. They are busy having delightful fun, reading a passage by Dan Dawson in that day's newspaper. The professor, eating a biscuit - a water biscuit ( i.e., a cracker) - does not want to hear any more of that stuff. Bloom stands aside, having his own thoughts about J. J. O'Molloy, who has by then come in, and about Dan Dawson, who is referred to as Doughy Daw by MacHugh.
Finally thinking that life is too short (to spend reading such articles as by Dawson), Simon Dedalus whisks Ned Lambert away to have a drink. Myles Crawford, the editor, who has come out of his inner office, is not ready to join them just then. Seeing the coast (being) clear, Bloom moves to the inner office, saying, "Just a moment, Mr. Crawford... I just want to phone about an ad." Obviously there was just one telephone there, in the editor's office. We get to hear Bloom's making the telephone when there are silent interludes in the room; 'Twentyeight..... No, twenty.... Double four.... Yes.' Soon Bloom leaves the office of the Evening Telegraph and goes in search of Keyes to fix up the ad.
Meanwhile Lenehan has also come out of the inner office, and is his usual jocular self. He manages to get a cigarette from J. J. O'Molloy after he lights his and MacHugh's cigarettes. Just as Lenehan starts to pose a riddle* that nobody seems to want to hear, enter Stephen and Mr O'Madden Burke. Stephen has brought the letter, which Mr. Deasy had given him that morning. It is on on the foot and mouth disease. Sitting on the rocks at the beach that morning, Stephen had thought of a poem, and having had no paper to jot it down, had torn of a piece of paper from that letter. As the editor notices the torn part, the poem comes back to Stephen's mind.
On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, Pale Vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
As MacHugh peers over the letter and notices that it is about the foot and mouth disease, and asks "Are you turned....?", Stephen recalls what he had thought that morning as he got the letter from Mr. Deasy: "Mulligan will dub me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard." (Penguin/ p.44)
Joyce, having given the name Aeolus to this episode, has included in this episode lots of references to wind: gale, windfall, whirlwind, hurricane, ... The episode has many references to features of languages and literature: doric, cretic,... (doric is a Scottish dialect, cretic is a meter.) The meanings of the subtitles are sometimes obvious, sometimes not. It is, in any case, a noisy episode with lots of interruptions but is also a very graphical, a very visual episode. Almost cinematic in nature.
*Lenehan's riddle: What opera resembles a railway line?
Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply.
Wednesday 12 November 2014
Tuesday, 11 November 2014, Pages 149 - 156, Aeolus, Episode 7
Read as far as "He entered softly." (Gabler 7.235) (Penguin 156.25)
News and the printing of newspapers are the subjects we read about on these pages.
Bloom and Red Murray are watching William Brayden, owner of the newspaper, go up the stairs. Rather Bloom watches the fat folds of the neck of Brayden. Red Murray is obviously full of respect for Brayden. He not only whispers, "Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour?" but he also says gravely: "His grace phoned down twice this morning." It is not clear who "His grace" refers to? To Brayden, to the Archbishop of Dublin, ...? This kind of respect is lost on Bloom. On hearing "Our Saviour" he thinks that he (Jesus?) rather looks like the Italian tenor Mario.
Bloom leaves Red Murray, and goes to meet Nannetti. (Joseph Patrick Nannetti was an Irish-Italian master-printer, who was also the Lord Mayor of Dublin.) He meets there Hayes, who has come to Nannetti to print the obituary notice of Dignam. Bloom is reminded of Dignam buried under the earth, and the old grey rat that was running around the gravestones that morning.
News and the printing of newspapers are the subjects we read about on these pages.
Bloom and Red Murray are watching William Brayden, owner of the newspaper, go up the stairs. Rather Bloom watches the fat folds of the neck of Brayden. Red Murray is obviously full of respect for Brayden. He not only whispers, "Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour?" but he also says gravely: "His grace phoned down twice this morning." It is not clear who "His grace" refers to? To Brayden, to the Archbishop of Dublin, ...? This kind of respect is lost on Bloom. On hearing "Our Saviour" he thinks that he (Jesus?) rather looks like the Italian tenor Mario.
Source: http://palazzodecandia.it/eng/tenor.html
Source: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp128375/joseph-patrick-nannetti
Watching Nannetti, Bloom thinks of the many kinds of headlines/news that would help a newspaper sell. Meanwhile the machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. (There is lots of 'sound' on these pages. Machines go thump, thump, sllt, sllt,... Doors go ee, cree...) As Hynes is leaving, Bloom reminds him that he should draw money from the cashier, hinting - for the third time that day - of the three bobs (shillings) Hynes has borrowed from him.
Bloom talks to Nannetti about the advertisement Alexander Keyes wants but knows not to say too much. Better not teach him his own business. Bloom is told that they could insert a par (paragraph) in the paper about Keyes if the latter agrees to give a three months' renewal. As no more attention is paid to Bloom, he stands watching the typesetters, and thinks of their work admiringly. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. This line of thoughts make Bloom think of his father, of his reading his hagadah (Haggadah), and of the stories therein. Regarding the story, "And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat", which has been interpreted as the history of successive empires that devastate and swallow one another - Egypt, Assyria, ... (Gifford, 7.213), Bloom feels it sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. "
Bloom leaves and goes down the house staircase. He takes out his handkerchief which smells of the lemon soap he had in his pocket. That smell reminds him of Martha's letter that he received that morning. "What perfume does your wife use?" While debating whether he should go home, he hears laughter from the Evening Telegraph office. Recognizing Ned Lmbert's voice, he entered softly, the office of the Telegraph.
Finally, Martin Cunningham's spelling bee conundrum reads: "It is amusing to view the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar while gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall." A conundrum is a riddle. Such conundrums are/were used to test whether one is able to correctly spell the words (with single ars, double ars, double esses, etc.)
Thursday 6 November 2014
Tuesday, 4 November 2014, PART B, Pages 147 - 149, Aeolus, Episode 7
We stopped at "Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck." (Gabler 7.48) (Penguin 149.11)
This episode has a different feel, different look compared to the previous one. It has relatively short sections, with each section having a title, just like a newspaper with sub-headings. It is all about urban life. As we get further into the episode, it becomes quite windy with words, often hollow words. Just like some newspapers!
The episode starts with the heart of Dublin, the clanking of trams on their way before Nelson's pillar. This is followed by a description of activities at the nearby General Post Office. Then we meet Bloom talking to Red Murray, a porter, who cuts out an advertisement (of Alexander Keyes - Bloom was trying to get the ad extended) from a newspaper. As Bloom prepares to leave with the cut out to go to the offices of Evening Telegraph, Red Murray calls his attention to the entrance of Brayden, the editor of the newspaper, Freeman's Journal. As Bloom looks at the stately figure, he thinks of his fat folds of next, fat, neck, fat, neck.
This episode has a different feel, different look compared to the previous one. It has relatively short sections, with each section having a title, just like a newspaper with sub-headings. It is all about urban life. As we get further into the episode, it becomes quite windy with words, often hollow words. Just like some newspapers!
The episode starts with the heart of Dublin, the clanking of trams on their way before Nelson's pillar. This is followed by a description of activities at the nearby General Post Office. Then we meet Bloom talking to Red Murray, a porter, who cuts out an advertisement (of Alexander Keyes - Bloom was trying to get the ad extended) from a newspaper. As Bloom prepares to leave with the cut out to go to the offices of Evening Telegraph, Red Murray calls his attention to the entrance of Brayden, the editor of the newspaper, Freeman's Journal. As Bloom looks at the stately figure, he thinks of his fat folds of next, fat, neck, fat, neck.
Tuesday, 4 November 2014, PART A, Pages 141 - 147, Hades, Episode 6
Today we completed episode 6, and moved on to episode 7. Thus this post will be in two parts. This part, PART A, deals with the conclusion of episode 6. PART B deals with the episode that follows.
Patrick Dignam's burial is almost over. The funeral party moves away. Bloom and others walk through the cemetery, looking at tomb stones and other such embellishments. Bloom is brusked by John Henry Menton, when Bloom makes him aware that his hat is a little crushed. Bloom, chapfallen, moves on reflecting over Menton's behaviour: "Thank you (indeed). How grand we are this morning!" Thus the episode of Dignam's burial ends with an unexpected remark.
The clay fell softer. Bloom thinks that Dignam will soon be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. While Hynes starts noting down the names of the people who came to the funeral, he approaches Bloom to know his christian name. This is another small, apparently insignificant detail that gains significance as it shows that Bloom is an outsider in the Dublin society. People call him 'Bloom' and not by his first name. Bloom supplies names of two other people to the list, a real one - M'Coy whom he had met that morning, and - inadvertantly - a 'wrong' one, Macintosh,. When Bloom says 'Macintosh', he just means a man wearing a macintosh but Hynes understands it being the name of that man.
As the mourners move away, Hynes says, "Let us go round by the chief's grave."
Patrick Dignam's burial is almost over. The funeral party moves away. Bloom and others walk through the cemetery, looking at tomb stones and other such embellishments. Bloom is brusked by John Henry Menton, when Bloom makes him aware that his hat is a little crushed. Bloom, chapfallen, moves on reflecting over Menton's behaviour: "Thank you (indeed). How grand we are this morning!" Thus the episode of Dignam's burial ends with an unexpected remark.
The clay fell softer. Bloom thinks that Dignam will soon be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. While Hynes starts noting down the names of the people who came to the funeral, he approaches Bloom to know his christian name. This is another small, apparently insignificant detail that gains significance as it shows that Bloom is an outsider in the Dublin society. People call him 'Bloom' and not by his first name. Bloom supplies names of two other people to the list, a real one - M'Coy whom he had met that morning, and - inadvertantly - a 'wrong' one, Macintosh,. When Bloom says 'Macintosh', he just means a man wearing a macintosh but Hynes understands it being the name of that man.
As the mourners move away, Hynes says, "Let us go round by the chief's grave."
As they talk about Parnell, Bloom walks on. The sight of the saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands makes him feel that such embellishments are of little use. More sensible to spend money on some charity for the living. He recalls that he will be visiting his father's grave on the twentyseventh.
The engravings on the gravestones bring to his mind the immortal poem, An Elegy written in a country churchyard, by Thomas Gray. Typical of Bloom, he calls it Eulogy in country churchyard, and attributes the poem to Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. The many a grave in the cemetery make Bloom wonder: "How many! All these here once walked round Dublin." He comes up with ways to remember the dead people. For example, to recall the voice, use gramophone. (It was invented already in 1877 by Thomas Edison.) As he ponders over how the recorded voice of a poor old greatgrandather would sound, he notices a grey rat toddling along the side of the crypt, and disappearing under the plinth.
Bloom thinks of the various ways - apart from burial in the ground - available for disposing of a dead body: cremation, Parsee tower of silence, burial in the sea... (By the way, it is because the Parsees consider earth, fire and water to be sacred and must not be polluted, they use the Tower of Silence to dispose of their dead, which are then eaten by birds.)
Soon the gloomy thoughts leave Bloom. He feels that there is plenty to see and hear and feel yet. By then Martin Cunningham and John Henry Menton appear. Bloom was acquainted with Menton, having won once a bowling game against him. Perhaps that was why Menton had taken a dislike of Bloom. When Bloom tells him that his hat is a little crushed, he is acknowledged curtly, with just a Thank you!
"Thank you. How grand we are this morning!"
Note: This last incidence has a Homeric echo. At the end of Book 11, Odysseus encounters in the underworld the shades of several of his former comrades in arms, including Ajax, who refuses to speak to Odysseus because he is still "burning" (angry) over the fact that in the contest over who was to bear Achilles' arms after his death, the Lady Thetis and Athena awarded the honor to Odysseus. (Don Gifford, 6.1025)
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