Thursday 24 March 2016

Tuesday, 22 March 2016, Pages 635 - 644, Circe, Episode 15

The reading was stopped at ""Truffles!" (Penguin 644.17), (Gabler 15.2741)

Though a mind-boggling mixture of echoes of earlier episodes, Shakespearean as well as Biblical references and (mis)quotations, metamorphoses of humans to animals, songs of unknown origins, frankly expressed opinions about The Church, sex-changes, talking doorhandles, fans as well as hoops, these pages are incredibly hilarious.

At the end of the previous reading session, Florry had asked Stephen whether he was out of Maynooth (a college to train young men for priesthood), and had said that he was like someone she knew once. This reminds Zoe about a priest who had visited them two nights ago, who had buttoned up his coat, obviously to hide his Roman collar. Granpapachi Virag is not surprised at hearing this. He interprets this kind of sexual experience is what led to the fall of man. Even though Lynch, Zoe and Bloom pay little attention to Virag's Kamasutra-like-discourse, he continues in strong language about Jesus. (He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed.... He had two left feet...). In a couple of sentences, Virag, who has assumed the appearance of a monster (has a mooncalf nozzle, tortured forepaws,...), refers to a book by Flaubert, Book of Kells, beliefs of Cainites, and the book of Revelation.

(Book of Kells, Folio 7, Virgin and Jesus who has two left feet.
Source: https://markcalderwood.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/an-irish-virgin/)
This triggers Kitty to tell the story about the baby of Mary Shortall and Jimmy Pidgeon. The mention of 'Pidgeon' is used by Philip Drunk and Philip Sober to take us back to episode 3 (Proteus), in which Stephan, walking along the Sandymount Strand reaches the Pigeonhouse (known also as the Poolberg Generating Station), which name makes him think of the conversation between Joseph and Mary in the book, La vie de Jesus by Lèo Taxil. (Joseph: 'Who has put you in this wretched condition?' Mary: 'It is the pigeon, Joseph'; Penguin p. 51). Virag, who is now a baboon, comes up other possibilities about Jesus's father.  (Panther, the Roman centurion...; Mary was impregnated through the tympanum of her ear...)

The word 'Tympanum' triggers the appearance of Ben Dollard. We had met him in Sirens, episode 11, in which Dollard played the piano and sang in his heavy bass voice, 'When love absorbs my ardent soul...', only to be told by Simon Dedalus, '... you'd burst the tympanum of her ear, man, ... with an organ like yours.' (Penguin. p. 348). There are more references to the Sirens episode. Henry (i.e., Bloom) sings the aria from the opera Martha, caressing on his breast a severed female head. (The basis for this severed female head could be the myth of Medusa or the story of the St. Catherine of Siena or the story of King Arthur). Virag finally exists, slouching his skins, unscrewing his head and holding it under his arm, uttering, 'quack!'

The singing continues with Stephen, who has meanwhile turned into His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus. (Conservio lies captured...., O, the poor little fellow....,  Shall carry my heart to thee...., songs which Joyce had heard from his father.) As the doorhandle echoes his 'theeee', a male form (we don't know who this is) passes down the creaking staircase, taking the waterproof and hat from the rack in the hall that Bloom had seen when he entered the brothel. Bloom, startled, wonders whether this is Boylan. 'After?' (after the tryst with Molly?), 'Or because not?' (did that tryst not take place?) 'Or the double event?' (first with Molly, and now here?)

As Bloom and Zoe share a chocolate, the door opens again. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. What happens between the two is right out of Sacher-Masoch's 'Venus in Furs'. Bloom once again exhibits his penchant for masochism. Goaded by the fan of Bella, Bloom bends down, with desire, with reluctance, to make a true black knot on Bella's bootlace. As Bloom knots the lace, her (Bella's) eyes strike him in midbrow. As if it was Circe and her sorcery, Bloom turns into a pig. A sow. A she pig. Bella also mutates. Into Bello. A man. What happens next is the topic for next week!