It was a good place to stop our reading today, at "Per deam partulam et pertundam nuns eat bibendum!" (Penguin 555.32), (Gabler 14.1439)
It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the first paragraph we read today is as convoluted and long-winded as any we have so far read in this episode, Oxen of the Sun. The reason could be that Joyce imitates here the style of the 19th century English essayist and historian Thomas Macaulay, who is considered to be 'a master of somewhat impetuous and unreliable history' (Gifford, 14.1174). Be that as it may be, we are confronted here with talks about science, what a man of science is like, what questions - such as the first question posed by public canvasser (Pubb. Canv.) Bloom (when did he pose this question?) regarding the future determination of sex - cannot be answered by science. At present. So the assembled people come up with all kinds of speculations about how the sex of a baby is determined during conception. Aristotle's theories in this matter are also mentioned, without naming him directly, of course. Mulligan, Doctor of Hygienics and Eugenics (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) comes up with multiple reasons - sanitary conditions, hideous publicity posters, ... - to explain infant mortality, another problem posed by the same inquirer (Bloom), who pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr. J. Crotthers comes up with other explanations, where as Lynch remarks that both natality and mortality, as well as as many other phenomena is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. And so they go on. Even the phrase survival of the fittest is mentioned hinting at Darwin's theory of biological evolution. After all, everyone is assembled in a maternity hospital, and Mrs Purefoy has just given birth. Again. Fritz Senn opines that Joyce uses different styles of writing in this episode to show the evolution of language over the centuries.
Meanwhile, the style has changed to that of Charles Dickens (1812 -1870).
It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the first paragraph we read today is as convoluted and long-winded as any we have so far read in this episode, Oxen of the Sun. The reason could be that Joyce imitates here the style of the 19th century English essayist and historian Thomas Macaulay, who is considered to be 'a master of somewhat impetuous and unreliable history' (Gifford, 14.1174). Be that as it may be, we are confronted here with talks about science, what a man of science is like, what questions - such as the first question posed by public canvasser (Pubb. Canv.) Bloom (when did he pose this question?) regarding the future determination of sex - cannot be answered by science. At present. So the assembled people come up with all kinds of speculations about how the sex of a baby is determined during conception. Aristotle's theories in this matter are also mentioned, without naming him directly, of course. Mulligan, Doctor of Hygienics and Eugenics (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) comes up with multiple reasons - sanitary conditions, hideous publicity posters, ... - to explain infant mortality, another problem posed by the same inquirer (Bloom), who pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr. J. Crotthers comes up with other explanations, where as Lynch remarks that both natality and mortality, as well as as many other phenomena is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. And so they go on. Even the phrase survival of the fittest is mentioned hinting at Darwin's theory of biological evolution. After all, everyone is assembled in a maternity hospital, and Mrs Purefoy has just given birth. Again. Fritz Senn opines that Joyce uses different styles of writing in this episode to show the evolution of language over the centuries.
Meanwhile, the style has changed to that of Charles Dickens (1812 -1870).
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Joyce imitates scenes from David Copperfield, borrowing even the word, doady, which is the nick name given to David Copperfield by his girl-bride Dora. Naturally we do not read here about Dora and David. Instead we read about Mrs and Mr Purefoy and their children. One of their daughters is given the name Mary Alice. Mary was the sister-in-law of Dickens, and it is said that he idolized her. Alice is very close to Agnes, the one idolized by David Copperfield! Not just Dickens's, I feel that Omar Khayyam's words are also echoed here. Here Joyce writes: ' And so time wags on:...' One of the most famous verses of the 11th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam's is:
The paragraph that follows (There are sins or ....) in the 19th century style of Cardinal Newman aka John Henry Newman, for whom Joyce is said to have had lifelong admiration, seems to be examining the effect of a chance word has on memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart. I feel that here Joyce is talking of the effect on Stephen of the words of Lenehan, the crucial word being 'mother'. (Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him, have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. Penguin 543. 20) At the beginning of the novel, we were told that Stephen's mother had passed away, and that he did not oblige her wishes and pray at her death bed. Stephen is still suffering from these memories.
Bloom (the stranger) observes the face before him. That this must be Stephen's is hinted at by Bloom thinking of one soft May evening at Matt Dillon's place. It was the first encounter between Molly and Bloom. Bloom had also seen there a young boy (a lad of four or five) and his mother. Bloom sees this young lad in his memories, and thinks, 'he frowns a little just as this young man does now...', sees how the mother had watched her son with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach in her glad look.
In a very biblical sounding language (style: John Ruskin, the 19th century English art critic and reformer), not only the image of the birth of Jesus in a stall is evoked to mention once again Mrs Purefoy and her new born baby but also the beginning of Genesis is evoked with the last words of the paragraph; ... so and not otherwise was the transformation, violet and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word.
What was this special word? Burke's!, a pub at the corner of Denzille and Holles street. It was nearing 11 pm, the closing time of the pub! So all those assembled there gather in a hurry their belongings and leave the room. Bloom lingers back to send a kind word to the happy mother. While going out he whispers (to the nurse): 'Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee?' The others are already rushing out for yet another drink, thinking, 'Per deam partulam et pertundam nunc est bibendum!' (By the goddesses Partula and Pertunda now must we drink!)
Note: This is my last blog post for 2015! I thank you all for your kind words and deeds about this blog, and wish all of you happy holidays and a good start to 2016. May the new year bring peace to the world!
'The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.'
(Moving finger = time, moves = wags)
The paragraph that follows (There are sins or ....) in the 19th century style of Cardinal Newman aka John Henry Newman, for whom Joyce is said to have had lifelong admiration, seems to be examining the effect of a chance word has on memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart. I feel that here Joyce is talking of the effect on Stephen of the words of Lenehan, the crucial word being 'mother'. (Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him, have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. Penguin 543. 20) At the beginning of the novel, we were told that Stephen's mother had passed away, and that he did not oblige her wishes and pray at her death bed. Stephen is still suffering from these memories.
Bloom (the stranger) observes the face before him. That this must be Stephen's is hinted at by Bloom thinking of one soft May evening at Matt Dillon's place. It was the first encounter between Molly and Bloom. Bloom had also seen there a young boy (a lad of four or five) and his mother. Bloom sees this young lad in his memories, and thinks, 'he frowns a little just as this young man does now...', sees how the mother had watched her son with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach in her glad look.
In a very biblical sounding language (style: John Ruskin, the 19th century English art critic and reformer), not only the image of the birth of Jesus in a stall is evoked to mention once again Mrs Purefoy and her new born baby but also the beginning of Genesis is evoked with the last words of the paragraph; ... so and not otherwise was the transformation, violet and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word.
What was this special word? Burke's!, a pub at the corner of Denzille and Holles street. It was nearing 11 pm, the closing time of the pub! So all those assembled there gather in a hurry their belongings and leave the room. Bloom lingers back to send a kind word to the happy mother. While going out he whispers (to the nurse): 'Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee?' The others are already rushing out for yet another drink, thinking, 'Per deam partulam et pertundam nunc est bibendum!' (By the goddesses Partula and Pertunda now must we drink!)
Note: This is my last blog post for 2015! I thank you all for your kind words and deeds about this blog, and wish all of you happy holidays and a good start to 2016. May the new year bring peace to the world!
Chandra
