Tuesday, 28 April 2015, PART A, Pages 325 - 328, Wandering Rocks, End of episode 10

As we completed episode 10 and started with Sirens, episode 11, there will be two posts this week, PART A dealing with the last section of episode 10 and PART B introducing episode 11.

PART A:

The last section of episode 10 (Penguin 324 - 328) summarizes the wanderings of all those Dubliners we met earlier in this episode along with many we had met in earlier episodes. (With one exception. We meet Gerty MacDowell for the first time in this section. She will appear prominently later in Nausicaa, episode 13.) In doing so James Joyce has painted such an intimate picture of Dublin and Dubliners that he succeeds in making us readers feel that we are in the city, that we also are Dubliners.

The passing of the viceroy's cavalcade is observed by many who are themselves passing along the streets of Dublin. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the metropolis. For example, above the cross blind of the Ormond hotel, gold by bronze, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. Some of the greeters are noticed by those in the cavalcade, and some like Thomas Kernan are not (Penguin 324.28). Some like Young Dignam, whose father was buried that morning, see the cavalcade but do not recognize the personages inside (Penguin 328.7). Some like Mr Breen salute the wrong carriage! (Penguin 326.32).

The five whitesmoked sandwichmen wearing tall white hats displaying H. E. L. Y. S.  halt (H. first, and the rest behind him) at Ponsonby's corner near the College Green allowing the outriders of the cavalcade to prance past. (Bloom had met these five men in episode 8.) Blazes Boylan hurrying in his wide brimmed straw hat at a rakish angle, a suit of indigo serge and skyblue tie for his rendezvous with Molly Bloom at 4 pm forgets to salute but offers to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and the red flower between his lips. The two women whom Stephen had met on the Sandymount beach (Penguin 46.10) view with wonder the lord mayor (without his golden chain) and lady mayoress.

The passing of the cavalcade does not naturally affect all the daily business of Dublin.  The cycling event - the half-mile bicycle handicap - is underway at Trinity with nine handicappers. (Barang, the lastlap bell had rung while Dilly was waiting for her father in front of Dillon's auctionrooms.) From its sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Dewan's office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of liquid sewage. - symbolic of the Irish attitude towards the British regality? (Here is an interesting information from Gifford's Annotations / 10.1196: Tom Devan worked in the Dublin Corporation Cleanisng Department on Wood Quay. The department was the focus of controversy because of repeated delays in the construction of a centralized sewage system for Dublin.)

The posters of Marie Kendall and Mr Eugene Stratton continue to smile down on all those who happen to pass by.

It is 3 pm on the 16th of June 1904 in Dublin.

Note: It is possible that the board-game shown below, which Joyce played with his daughter, Lucia, inspired this labyrinth of an episode! More information here.

Tuesday, 21 April 2015, Pages 316 - 325, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We stopped at "... watched the carriages go by." (Penguin: 325. 27) , (Gabler: 10.1205)

Last week we had stopped on the steps of the City hall. Elsewhere Martin Cunningham and Mr Power were going in a carriage from the Dublin Castle. John Wyse Nolan was lagging behind, reading the list.

Today, it became clear that this list was a list of donations for Patrick Dignam's family. Bloom enters the picture here though not in person. He had put his name down for five shillings. And had put down (paid) the five shillings too. Soon we realize that this act of Bloom is a real kind one ( 'there is much kindness in the jew' as Antonio said about Shylock in the 3rd scene of act 1 in The Merchant of Venice).

(Source: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-greatest-shakespeare-villains.php)

This is especially true when contrasted with that of Father Conmee who had just blessed the onelegged sailor without giving out any coin, and with Stephen who does not give any penny to Dilly though he had received his payment from Mr Deasy that morning (episode 2) and had spent it on offering drinks to the men in the newspaper office (episode 7), and now with the reluctance of the subsheriff, long John, to contribute anything at all to the Dignam family. As Cunningham is explaining to long John who Patrick Dignam was, they see the horses pass Parliament street, harness and glossy pasterns in sunning shimmering, the viceroy's passing cavalcade acting like a punctuation mark in this entire episode.

The next wanderers we meet are Buck Mulligan and Haines, sitting in D. B. C. (Dublin Bakery Company) at a small table near the window, opposite John Howard Parnell, who is immersed in a game of chess. Having Melanges, they talk about Stephen. When Mulligan says, '... but you missed Dedalus on Hamlet', Haines comes across as being a bit disrespectful when he replies, 'Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance'. Mulligan tries to explain Stephen's behaviour hinting at the sermon he (Stephen) had heard as a school boy (They drove his wits astray...). The reference meant here is the chapter 3 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Mulligan also pronounces his personal judgement on Stephen - He can never be a poet. The joy of creation... - saying, while chewing and laughing, 'He is going to write something in ten years.' (See note below.)

As Mulligan and Haines are enjoying their melange with real Irish cream, the light crumpled throwaway announcing 'Elijah is coming!' sails eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers.

We meet, once again, Stephan's teacher, Almidano Artifoni, who had earlier missed the Dalkey tram, (Penguin: 293.26) now walking past Holles street. We also observe how Cashel Boyle O'Connar Fitzmaurice Tindall Farrell's dustcoat brushes rudely the slender tapping cane of a blind stripling. We had encountered this blind man earlier when Bloom helped him to cross Dawson street across to Molesworth street (episode 8). The way this blind person curses Farrell shows that he is anything but thewless (timid)!

The most engaging - and moving - section of the entire episode is the one with Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, whose father was buried just that morning. He is still dressed up in stiff and uncomfortable collars (the blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt). We experience death and its effects from the eyes and minds of a young boy. Seeing schoolboys, young Dignam wonders, 'Do they notice I'm in mourning?' He remembers his uncle Barney saying that the death notice will be in the paper that night (my name printed and pa's name.) He recalls seeing his dead father (his face got all grey instead of being red and there was a fly walking over it up to his eye). The finality of death strikes the young fellow when he thinks, 'Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead.' Young Dignam finally hopes that his father is in purgatory now because he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night. (According to Don Gifford, Patrick Dignam had sinned by going on (= having?) at least one drink, but as he had confessed his sins and been absolved, his soul has been adjudged to purgatory where he will complete his penance before entering heaven though he had not received extreme unction his death being sudden (Gifford, Ulysses Annotated, 10.1173)

What we read next is a sort of a summary of all these pages we have read so far in this episode. It brings together who all saw the passing viceroy's cavalcade, and what various people were engaged in as the cavalcade passed.

Note: Mulligan's prophecy that Stephen is going to write something in ten years must be noted in conjunction with two dates: the year (1904) Joyce assigns to the day of his Ulysses and the year (1914) in which he started to write Ulysses. Another hint that Stephan is the alter ego of J. J.?

Tuesday, 14 April 2015, Pages 307 - 316, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We stopped with Nannetti hailing "Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending." (Penguin 316.27) (Gabler 10.971)

The main wanderers we meet on these pages are Tom Kernan, Stephen Dedalus, Simon Dedalus, Father Cowley and Martin Cunningham.

Tom Kernan is a familiar figure to us, readers of Joyce. We first got to know him in the story Grace in Dubliners. In Ulysses we also met him earlier (episode 5), when Bloom after relishing the breakfast of the inner organs of beasts and fowls had left home, and walking soberly halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company in Westland Row, thinking that he must get some (Tea) from Tom Kernan (a tea salesman). He was also present at the funeral of Patrick Dignam that morning. We had also read about of him just minutes ago while Dilly was trying to extract money from her unwilling father.

Now Tom Kernan is on his rounds to get orders for Tea. He has already secured an order from Pulbrook Robertson, and now he is talking to Mr Crimmins (a tea, wine and spirits merchant). After exchanging comments on the disaster of the ship, General Slocum, on the East River, New York the day before, and enjoying just a thimbleful of Crimmins's best gin, and securing the order for Tea, Kernan continues on his way. Immersed in thoughts about the dashing way he himself was dressed (silk hat and gaiters), about the times of the troubles, about Emmet, the Irish rebel, who was hanged, about how Lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr, Kernan misses by a hair the cavalcade that passes him in easy trot. As we follow Kernan on his walk, we hear Simon Dedalus greeting Father Cowley, and glimpse once more how the flyer announcing 'Elijah is coming' rocks on the ferrywash on John Rogerson's quay.

Source:  amazon.com (here with cover!)

The next wanderer we meet is Stephen. Where Stephen is, there literature and philosophy are. Classical literature, Greek philosophy. And it has many echoes from earlier episodes. Watching through a webbed window old (Thomas) Russell working with gems, Stephen's thoughts  - born all in the dark wormy earth, ..... where fallen archangels flung the stars from their brows.... -  echo sayings in the Bible, Milton's words about fallen angels in Paradise Lost. Some of these thoughts - Antisthenes, orient and immortal wheat... (episode 3) - had occurred to him earlier. Passing on along the powerhouse and Clohissey's book shop, he stops at a bookcart. As he is looking at the books displayed there, Dilly comes along. She has just spent a penny she got from her father to buy a coverless book, Chardenal's French primer. Stephen looking at her high shoulders (her father had admonished her earlier to stand up straight) and shabby dress, thinks how she resembles him (My eyes they say she has). He feels remorse (agenbite of inwit; episode 1) but does not do anything to help his little sister.

Next we meet Simon Dedalus and Father Cowley. (This 'Father' is obviously different from the Father Conmee, whom we had met at the beginning of this episode.) Father Cowley is another portrait of the poverty prevalent at the time in Dublin. He owes money to his landlord and others. So two men are at his back to make him pay. As Father Cowley has no way of paying off his debts, he is waiting for Ben Dollard, who, he hopes, will talk to long John, the subsheriff and get these bailiffs off his back for a while. Ben Dollard gives him hope saying that the bailiffs cannot do anything until the landlord has been paid off!

Many people, whom we had met earlier, appear next: Martin Cunningham, Mr Power, John Wyse Nolan and Councillor Nannetti. We also become aware of new faces. Among these we shall be meeting Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce again in episode 11 in the Ormond hotel.

Tuesday, 7 April 2015, Pages 297 - 307, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We read till "Is it little sister Monica!"  (Penguin 307.3) (Gabler 10.716)

On these pages we witness - almost surreptitiously - how various Dubliners spend their time on this spring morning, the 16th of June 1904.

(Source: Visit page)

Tom Rochford demonstrates a mechanical devise (which was mentioned already on page 294, Penguin) to Nosey Flynn, Lenehan and M'Coy.

We follow the conversation between Lenehan and M'Coy as they walk down Sycamore street. Of the two, Lenehan is the one who has many tales to tell. To start with he is full of praise for Tom Rochford, who had once got down a manhole and had rescued a worker stuck inside. They think of the Gold Cup (horse) race that was taking place that afternoon at Ascot Heath. Under Merchant's arch, they see a dark-backed figure looking at books on a hawker's cart. This glimpse of Mr Bloom inspires Lenehan to recite in great detail how once he had shared a ride late at night with Bloom and his wife after the annual dinner at Glencree reformatory. Lenehan's description of how every jolt the bloody car gave, gave him the chance of bumping up against her leaves M'Coy unmoved damping Lenehan's spirits.

We also observe how our Bloom turns over idly pages of many books in a shabby bookshop before deciding to buy for Molly the book, Sweets of sin, that is 'full of revolting sentimentality' as Lady Bracknell puts it in The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscal Wilde. (Of course Lady Bracknell was not opining about Sweets of sin, rather about a novel by a Ms. Prism.)

We wait with Dilly Dedalus for her father in front of Dillon's auction rooms. We had known from an earlier scene with Katey, Maggy and Boody Dedalus that Dilly had gone to meet (their) father.  Dilly wants to get some money from him. When Simon Dedalus finally turns up there, he tries at first to distract Dilly from her intentions. On being asked directly whether he got any money, he tells her, 'there is no one in Dublin would lend me fourpence.' But Dilly is obviously an old hand at this game. She manages to extract a shilling and two pennies from her father. Simon Dedalus, not charmed by his daughter's insistence, walks off, murmuring to himself. As he hands over two copper pennies to Dilly, telling her to get a glass of milk for herself and a bun, the viceregal cavalcade passes.

Thus we witness, as if we are observing from a bird's vantage point, simultaneous occurrences at different locations. The events mentioned above interspersed with many that are not mentioned here make us feel that these Dubliners are going about their normal affairs, and that this 16th of June is after all a very normal day. 

Tuesday, 31 March 2015, Pages 288 - 297, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

Read as far as "Mother of Moses!" (Penguin 297.18) (Gabler 10.463)

"In the Odyssey of Homer, the sorceress Circe tells Odysseus of the 'Wandering Rocks' or 'Roving Rocks' that have only been successfully passed by the Argo when homeward bound. These rocks smash ships and the remaining timbers are scattered by the sea or destroyed by flames. The rocks lie on one of two potential routes to Ithaca; the alternative, which is taken by Odysseus, leads to Scylla and Charybdis." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planctae)

Here in Joyce's Ulysses, the wandering rocks seem quite harmless. So far. Last week we met one of them, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. Today we met a bevy of rocks that were wandering:  among others Corny Kelleher, constable 57C, a onelegged sailor, Ned Lambert, J. J. O'Molloy, Katey, Boody and Maggy Dedalus, Blazes Boylan, Almidano Artifoni, Stephen, Miss Dunne, a blond salesgirl and a clergyman. We were also told about a white arm that flung forth a coin from a window in Eccles street, meant for the onelegged sailor's cap and we met again the five sandwichmen advertising for H. E. L. Y. 'S. We have met most of them in earlier episodes, and some of them we had met as we followed the very reverend John Conmee S. J. on his morning stroll today. Joyce has structured the episode almost like a movie with all its technical possibilities for flashbacks, juxtaposition of events that occur simultaneously at unconnected places. This is a natural result of Joyce's interest in cinema. (He even ventured to open a cinema theater in Dublin after a chance remark from his sister Eva visiting Trieste that there were no cinemas in Dublin.)

Here are a few titbits about the various characters we met on these pages: The interaction between Kelleher and the constable 57C hints at the rumor that Kelleher is a police informant. The onelegged sailor is an ex navy man. That he is now onelegged explains his swinging himself violently, growling, etc while he sings the song. 'For England.' The part over Katey, Boody and Maggy Dedalus underscores the poverty of the Dedalus household. Stephen's pleasant exchanges with the music teacher, Almidano Artifoni, tells us that Stephen has a melodious voice, which he has neglected in the recent months. Perhaps the most dandy figure we met is that of Blazes Boylan. This is the first time we really come across Boylan though Joyce had allowed glimpses of him during the episode, Hades. When we meet him, a blond sales girl is arranging for him a wicker basket with a bottle swathed in pink tissue paper, a small jar, fat pears and shamefaced peaches.

Shamefaced peaches!

Though Boylan tells the sales girl that  the basket is for an invalid, it is obviously meant for Molly Bloom with whom Boylan has a rendezvous later in the afternoon. In a couple of pages, Joyce has portrayed Boylan so as to leave no doubts about what a dandy he is. It is left to the typewriter of Miss Dunne, Boylan's secretary, to reveal to us the date - 16 June 1904 -  on which the events of this masterpiece take place.

Note: The current issue (date: April 2, 2015) of the New York Review of Books carries a review of the book, 'The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses' by Kevin Birmingham. The review by Adam Thirlwell also supplies interesting background information.