Sunday 28 December 2014

Tuesday, 23 December 2014, Pages 200 - 205, Lestrygonians, Episode 8

(Important info: The reading group will meet next on Tuesday, 6 January 2015. )

We read as far as "No gratitude in people." (Gabler 8.399) (Penguin 205.10)

Mr Bloom is still talking to Mrs Breen, whom he thinks of as being shabby genteel, as he observes her blue serge dress (she had that on two years ago) and the contents of her untidy bag. Deciding to change the subject (from U.P.:up), Bloom asks her whether she had seen anything of Mrs Beaufoy. Actually he had meant to ask about Mrs Purefoy but the name he utters is Beaufoy. This is an echo of what had happened that morning after Bloom had prepared and had breakfast. Asquat on the cuckstool, he had opened the newspaper in which there was that days's prize story, Matcham's Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers' club, London. Being aware of why he said Beaufoy instead of Purefoy, Bloom wonders whether he had pulled the chain after he finished his act. He remembers that he indeed had pulled the chain. (Read more about that episode here.)

Mrs Breen tells Bloom that Mrs Purefoy is in the lying-in hospital (maternity hospital) in Holles street. She has been in labour since three days. Bloom feels sorry to hear the news. As a known-figure, an eccentric of Dublin, whom Bloom says is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, passes them by, Mrs Breen notices her husband shuffling out of Harrison's, and hurries off to catch up with him. Bloom tells to himself, "Meshuggah". (Yiddish: eccentric, crazy; Gifford 8.314) Does he refer to Denis Breen or Cashel Farrell?

As Bloom passes the building of Irish Times on Westmoreland Street, he thinks of the advertisement he had placed in the paper: 'Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work.'

Source: http://www.joyceimages.com/chapter/8/?page=7
Though he thinks that there might be other answers (to his ad) lying there, Bloom is in no mood to check on them as he already has gone through fortyfour answers. That is how he had come in contact with Martha Clifford, from whom he had received a letter - with lots of questions - that morning. The other answer he thinks of is from Lizzie Twigg, who had recommended herself saying that her work had met the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (aka George Russell)

The paragraph that follows (Penguin 202.27ff) is full of ads that Bloom recalls. (It is not clear whether he is just remembering reading them or is actually reading them in the window of Irish Times.) As Bloom continues to walk, he thinks of poor Mrs Purefoy, and of her methodist husband. The word methodist rings in thoughts about the food they eat, the rules they have to keep, the many kids the Purefoys have (hardy annuals he presents her with), Mrs Purefoy groaning on a bed for three days, etc. Dreadful simply! Bloom is thankful that Molly got over lightly the delivery of Milly. Bloom thinks that they ought to invent something to stop that, of Twilight sleep idea (a partial anesthetic that had recently come into use), of Queen Victoria trying the same, and so on. Investing time to find such a solution would be - according to Bloom - much more useful than writing articles like the one Ned Lambert was reading loudly that morning in the Newspaper office (the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence).

Bloom thinks of Molly again. Of Molly with Mrs Moisel. (Mrs Moisel was a neighbor, and was pregnant at the same time as Molly.) He thinks of snuffy (sulky) Dr Murren. Of how people knock on doctors' doors at all hours. But keep them waiting months for their fees. No gratitude in people.

This post brings us to the end of 2014. We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your positive feedback about this blog, and to wish you all a great beginning to 2015!
Ch+Sa


Wednesday 17 December 2014

Tuesday, 16 December 2014, Pages 193 - 200, Lestrygonians, Episode 8

We read as far as "Change the subject." (Gabler 8.275) (Penguin 200.20)

Last week when we left Bloom, he had finished feeding crumbs of Banbury cakes (two for a penny) to gulls, had wondered why the saltwater fish were not salty, and had just noticed an anchored rowboat carrying an advertisement for Kino's trousers. On these pages, Bloom's wanderings continue. During its course, he wonders about the kinds of advertisements that would be effective (and not effective), thinks fondly of his wife Molly and daughter Milly, catches the smell of food from Harrison's, and meets Mrs. Breen, the former Josie Powell.

For Bloom, the advertisement procurer, placing an ad on the rowboat is a good idea. All kinds of places are good for ads.  Like the ad of Dr Hy Franks for claps (venereal diseases) in the greenhouses (public urinals). Like the self advertisement of the dancing master, Magninni (actually Magninnis, the dropping of the 's' makes the name sound more Italian. Naturally.)

By then Bloom sees somebody, thinks that he recognizes him, but is not sure that it is in fact the person who he thinks it to be. Decides not to think any more about it, and moves forward. (Is the person Bloom thought he saw was Boylan?) The position of the timeball on the ballastoffice shows that the time is after one in the afternoon. (A 'time ball' is a ball on a pole rigged to drop at a specific time, so that ships' chronometers could be checked / Gifford* 8.109. Read more about the time ball of the Ballast Office here.) Thinking of time, Bloom is reminded of one of the books he admires, the book, The Story of the Heavens, (download the book here) by the astronomer royal, Sir Robert Ball (1840 - 1913). He is also made aware of the fact that he does not understand exactly what 'parallax' means. This kind of 'not understanding', leads his thoughts to Molly, to whom he had tried to explain that morning the meaning of the word metempsychosis.

The art of advertising becomes the topic of Bloom's thoughts once again as he sees a procession of sandwichmen (men who are carrying advertisements hung from their shoulders) carrying the letters H. E. L. Y. S.
A Sandwich man
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30937/30937-h/30937-h.htm

Bloom does not think much of this kind of advertisement. He had suggested instead to Hely, the stationer, another modern kind of advertisement with smart girls in a transparent showcart. He knows that people, women too, would be curious at such an advertisement. They would stare, look back too. 'Looking back' makes Bloom think of the Genesis story of Lot's wife, who by looking back turned into a pillar of salt.

Bloom had worked in the past for the Hely's collecting accounts. That was a devil of a job, particularly collecting money from the convents, like the Tranquilla convent in Rathmines, south of Dublin. Convents, nuns, Pat Claffey, the daughter the pawnbroker, who became a nun... each thought leads to the next.

The sight of the Rover Cycleshop on Westmoreland street is a cue to think of races, of him attending The Glencree dinner with Molly, who was then wearing an elephantgrey dress with braided frogs. It was the year Phil Gilligan died. It was ten years ago: ninetyfour he died. (This last sentence is the first hint that the day of Bloom's wanderings is set in the year 1916.)

Braided frogs
Source: http://bennosbuttons.com/fr-1104-braided-frog-closure.html
As he walks on reminiscenceing about Molly, Bloom meets Mrs. Breen, formerly Josie Powell. They converse for a while, doing small talk. Mrs. Breen wants to tell Bloom about her husband, and rummages in her handbag. Bloom's keen eyes observe all the things the handbag contains. Finally Mr. Breen fishes out a postcard with the words U.P.: up. (One of the many explanations Gifford* (8.258) gives for U.P.:up is that in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, chapter 24, this expression is used by an apothecary's apprentice to announce the imminent death of an old woman.)  Though there was no name of the sender on the card, her husband was very upset at receiving the card, and was at that moment going to Mr. Menton's office to take an action for ten thousand pounds.  For libel.

While Mrs. Breen folds the card into her untidy bag and snaps the catch, with Bloom observing how unkempt she looks- Shabby genteel - pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny soup smell assails his nose. He realizes he is hungry too. It is lunch time.

*Ulysses Annotated, Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses by Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman. University of California Press, 1988

Thursday 11 December 2014

Tuesday, 9 December 2014, PART B, Pages 190 - 193, Lestrygonians, Episode 8

We stopped at "Kino's    11/-   Trousers." (Gabler 8.92) (Penguin 193.19)

It is lunch time! Bloom is once again the main protagonist of an episode!

After having been bad-mouthed by the editor, Bloom is walking again, and is nearing the sweet shop, Graham Lemon's. (Actually Lemon & Co., Ltd.). Seeing a sugarsticky girl (sticky handling all those sweety stuff such as pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch..?) shoveling scoopfuls of creams for a boy(?) from the school run by the Christian Brothers, Bloom thinks how bad it is for their tummies. The board in front of the shop proclaiming 'manufacturer to His Majesty the King', makes Bloom imagine the king sitting on his throne, sucking red jujubes.

A young man from Y.M.C.A. hands over a flyer to Bloom. Bloom walks towards the river, reading - (He, not his slow feet that walked him riverward, is reading the flyer) - about the 'coming' of Dr John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the church in Zion ( a place in Illinois). The flyer's fiery tone makes Bloom think not only of all sorts of things where blood is made to flow (God wants blood victim) but also of an ad he had seen of luminous crucifix (Wake up in the dead of night and see him - Our Saviour - on the wall, hanging).  Bloom would not be Bloom, if he would not think of what causes such luminescence. His thought lead him again to his wife and to the memories of Rudy.

Further on Bloom notices Simon Dedalus' daughter, still standing outside Dillon's auctionrooms. He feels sorry for the motherless girl in tatters, whom he had already seen in the morning. Naturally he does not hold much of the doctrine, increase and multiply.

On the O'Connell bridge, he notices a brewery barge carrying export stout for England. Bloom's thoughts move on to the brewery, of getting a free pass from Hancock (an acquaintance?) to visit the brewery, of vats of porter, of rats that perhaps get into the vats!

(Source: https://geolocation.ws/v/P/20251426/oconnell-bridge-dublin/en#)
Looking down, and seeing gulls flapping their wings, Bloom thinks of how Reuben J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage when he fell over the wall into the water of Liffey, and of Simon Dedalus' comments that morning on the way to the funeral about Reuben J paying one and eightpence too much to the fisherman who fished out the son from the water.

Seeing the gulls, Bloom crumples the flyer and throws it to the gulls. Only part of the words, Elijah is coming, can still be seen. But the gulls are really not so gullible as to go after a ball of paper. Appreciating their wits, Bloom buys two Banbury cakes for a penny from the old apple woman close by, crumbles them up, throwing the crumbles to the gulls. The gulls swoop silently two, then all, from their heights, pouncing on prey. (Fritz Senn's comments: These gulls must be Zürich gulls. The Dublin ones are too fat to swoop down so!) They wheel around, flapping weakly. But Bloom is not going to feed them anymore. After all he does not get even a caw from them. As thanks.

Bloom's eyes move on to a rowboat, rocking at anchor, carrying an advertisement:
Kino's
11/-
Trousers.

Tuesday, 9 December 2013, PART A, Pages 186 - 189, Aeolus, Episode 7

Today we completed episode 7 and started 8. Thus this week's blog posting will be in two parts.  This, PART A, will deal with the concluding pages of the episode 7, whereas PART B will deal with the beginning of episode 8.

Last week, we had left Stephen and Professor MacHugh walking to the boosing shed (pub), Mooney's. They were followed by the editor, Myles Crawford and J.J. O'Molloy. Stephen was telling the professor about two Dublin vestals (elderly women), climbing up the Nelson's pillar. Bloom has rushed back - just as Odysseus is driven back to the island of Aeolus (Gifford 7.962) - after meeting with Keyes. His effort at catching the attention of the editor regarding the advertisement only elicits highly rude remarks from Myles Crawford.


The photo at left shows how the Nelson's pillar looked before it was blown up (photo at right) in 1966.
(Source: http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/thread/2359314/Forgotten-Architecture-Nelsons-Pillar-Pics/?pc=6)

The editor tells J. J. O'Molloy that there is no way (Nulla Bona) that he can give him any money. Just as they catch up with MacHugh and Stephen, they hear Stephen telling the professor about the two ladies who sat on top of the pillar eating the brawn and bread and wiping their twenty fingers (4 hands x 5 fingers each!) Myles Crawford makes fun of the women saying, 'out for the waxies Dargel." (Dargel was a favored picnic spot of the rich. Waxies (= cobblers/shoemakers) Dargle is the picnic spot frequented by the poor.)

Stephen finishes his story and lets out a sudden loud young laugh. The professor, obviously impressed by Stephen, tells him that he reminds him of Antisthenes, the greek philosopher, who wrote the book, 'Of Helen and Penelope', which is believed to have been lost for over a thousand years. Hearing the name, Penelope, Stephen thinks of Penelope Rich, the Countess of Devonshire, known also as Shakespeare's Dark Lady.

They cross O'Connell street where tramcars of eight lines are standing motionless due to a short circuit ( a common enough occurrence in the early days of electrifying trams), with Stephen and the professor talking about the title to be given to the story. The professor comes up with a title in Latin, and Stephen suggests two alternatives alluding to the Bible. Looking at the statue, the professor recalls Stephen's referring Nelson as the onehanded adulterer, and remarks that it tickles him to which the newspaper man adds, 'Tickled the old ones too... if the God Almighty's truth was known.'

Thus Horatio Nelson (1758 - 1805) was the cynosure (center of attention) on this fair June day!

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson,_1st_Viscount_Nelson)

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Tuesday, 2 December 2014, read to Page 186, Aeolus, Episode 7

We read to "he strode on jerkily", next heading is: "RAISING THE WIND
(Gabler 7.994) (Penguin 186)

We pick up the conversation among the characters at the newspaper office. They talk about a speech given by Taylor on the issue of whether the Irish language should be revived or not. Presumably, Taylor's speech was elaborate but spoken without the help of a script and, since there seem to have been no shorthand-typists present when he delivered it, it was never recorded either. For the reader, this raises the question of whether it is likely that McHugh should be able to quote Taylor's speech himself verbatim and on the spot. In Aeolus, a chapter on windy speech and oratory skills, we are made to believe so, at any rate. Incidentally, there is a recording of Joyce reading the Taylor-speech passage (scratchy but intelligible)  made in 1924 and available on Youtube. To listen go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhW0TrzWGmI

Note that, here too, the various characters' speech is intermingled with Stephen's thoughts, often triggered by a word they say. Here's an example ("revealed to me" reminds Stephen of "It was revealed to me" in saint Augustine):

His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself?

– And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest
raised in a tone
of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his words and their
meaning was revealed to me.

FROM THE FATHERS

It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were
good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine.

- Why will you  jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language? (…) (7.834 ff.)

In contrast to the highflying orations and rhetorical tricks he has been listening to, Stephen takes the floor and produces a story of his own, totally unembellished, which he makes up out of the two women he saw earlier on the beach. The "midwives" are now portrayed as two women who've come from the fringes of the city to visit Nelson's Pillar (a high rising monument and symbolic of the British empire) and he gives them names too (Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe). Note that Stephen's paragraph starts with "Dubliners" (right after the heading "DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN" at 7.921). The way he tells his story is indeed not unlike the way Joyce himself wrote Dubliners (seemingly on side issues and out of raw and rough materials he encountered). The language is at its barest, very detailed and with no embellishments.

With "RETURN OF BLOOM" re-enters a character at an unfavourable moment: Bloom tries to catch the editor to talk about his advertisement when the men are already heading out of the office. In other words, he picks the worst possible moment to talk (i.e. an Irishman on his way to the pub) and, besides, he is not a good speaker himself, he is totally flustered, is making little sense and the editor doesn't really care about the ad anyway. Fritz Senn points out the irony here of Joyce making his Ulysses (a figure traditionally associated with great skill and agility in action and in speech) a bad speaker and a fumbler.