We stopped at "... excluding vocabulary." (Penguin 806,16), (Gabler 17.744)
The four separating forces - name, age, race, creed - between Bloom and Stephen are being examined very minutely. After about 4.5 pages, we have just reached the end of the discourse on the differences caused by age. There is one way still open to Bloom to achieve the rejuvenation of the younger companion by following meticulously the methods that Eugen Sandow prescribes in his Physical strength and how to obtain it. (Pity that Bloom did not have access to this video!)
Neither of them openly allude to their racial differences. Joyce introduces here a beautiful sentence: He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. One has to replace the "he"s with either Bloom or Stephen correctly to make sense of the sentence! A question arises at this point whether Bloom indeed is a jew. His mother, Ellen Higgins, was obviously not one. Hegarty, his maternal grandmother's name was a common Irish Catholic name. And according to contemporary Jewish tradition, a person can only be a jew by birth if the mother is one. In this sense Bloom is not one. He has even been baptized. Not once but thrice - the first time as a protestant, the second by laymen under a pump in the village of Swords, and the third time as a catholic when he married Molly. But the Dubliners in this novel regard him as a jew. He himself declares, at the end of Cyclops, episode 12, "Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me."
The two differ temperamentally too. One (Bloom) is scientific, the other (Stephen) is artistic. Joyce lists examples of important inventions/discoveries of late 19th century to show the scientific nature of Bloom. Apart from science, Bloom's thinking has also been stimulated by a couple of businesses he has known, by a fancy fair and waxwork exhibition, and by the modern art of advertisement. Now it is time to recollect various ads that Bloom has seen - some of which we have encountered earlier: Kino's 11 trousers (Lestrygonians, episode 8), House of Keys (Aeolus, episode 7), Plumtree's Potted Meat (Lestrygonians, episode 8) - including his own idea that was rejected by his the then employer, Hely.
Bloom's mentioning this idea of seated smart girls in a transparent show cart, results in Stephen constructing another scene that takes place in a solitary hotel in mountain pass. The name of the hotel, Queen's Hotel, triggers in Bloom the memory of his father, who had died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, in his own hotel, The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, by taking (accidentally? deliberately?) an overdose of monkshood.
Stephen narrates a second scene, the scene of A Pisgah sight of Palastine or the Parable of the Plums. These narrations induce Bloom to spin out various scenarios of writing which had certain possibilities of financial, social, personal and sexual success, such as the story, Matcham's Masterstroke, written by Philip Beaufoy he had read early that morning sitting asquat on the cuckstool! Such an occupation would suit the hours of the long evenings succeeding the summer solstice on Tuesday, 21 June 1904. His mind is also engaged with what to do with our wives. Many a possible solution occur to him, including the curious one of the clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled, though he himself is more in favor of courses of evening instruction. Molly is not really 'intelligent'. She pronounces metempsychosis as met him pike hoses, alias instead of Ananias. But our gentle Bloom has not given up, and has tried to educate Molly by leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a certain page... Obviously with little lasting result.
Continuing their talk on race, they mention names of a couple of illustrious sons of the selected or rejected race. They also recite fragments of verses - Stephen reciting lines Suil, suil, suil arun from the Irish ballad, Shule Aroon (lyrics here; video here) and Bloom reciting Kifeloch, harmon rakatejch from the Song of Solomon 4.3. They then write down the alphabets - Stephen, Irish characters and Bloom, Hebrew characters - on the blank pages of the novel, Sweet of Sin, Bloom has been carrying in his pocket since 3 pm. Their knowledge but of these languages practically excluded vocabulary.
The four separating forces - name, age, race, creed - between Bloom and Stephen are being examined very minutely. After about 4.5 pages, we have just reached the end of the discourse on the differences caused by age. There is one way still open to Bloom to achieve the rejuvenation of the younger companion by following meticulously the methods that Eugen Sandow prescribes in his Physical strength and how to obtain it. (Pity that Bloom did not have access to this video!)
Neither of them openly allude to their racial differences. Joyce introduces here a beautiful sentence: He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. One has to replace the "he"s with either Bloom or Stephen correctly to make sense of the sentence! A question arises at this point whether Bloom indeed is a jew. His mother, Ellen Higgins, was obviously not one. Hegarty, his maternal grandmother's name was a common Irish Catholic name. And according to contemporary Jewish tradition, a person can only be a jew by birth if the mother is one. In this sense Bloom is not one. He has even been baptized. Not once but thrice - the first time as a protestant, the second by laymen under a pump in the village of Swords, and the third time as a catholic when he married Molly. But the Dubliners in this novel regard him as a jew. He himself declares, at the end of Cyclops, episode 12, "Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me."
The two differ temperamentally too. One (Bloom) is scientific, the other (Stephen) is artistic. Joyce lists examples of important inventions/discoveries of late 19th century to show the scientific nature of Bloom. Apart from science, Bloom's thinking has also been stimulated by a couple of businesses he has known, by a fancy fair and waxwork exhibition, and by the modern art of advertisement. Now it is time to recollect various ads that Bloom has seen - some of which we have encountered earlier: Kino's 11 trousers (Lestrygonians, episode 8), House of Keys (Aeolus, episode 7), Plumtree's Potted Meat (Lestrygonians, episode 8) - including his own idea that was rejected by his the then employer, Hely.
Bloom's mentioning this idea of seated smart girls in a transparent show cart, results in Stephen constructing another scene that takes place in a solitary hotel in mountain pass. The name of the hotel, Queen's Hotel, triggers in Bloom the memory of his father, who had died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, in his own hotel, The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, by taking (accidentally? deliberately?) an overdose of monkshood.
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| Monkshood aka aconite |
Continuing their talk on race, they mention names of a couple of illustrious sons of the selected or rejected race. They also recite fragments of verses - Stephen reciting lines Suil, suil, suil arun from the Irish ballad, Shule Aroon (lyrics here; video here) and Bloom reciting Kifeloch, harmon rakatejch from the Song of Solomon 4.3. They then write down the alphabets - Stephen, Irish characters and Bloom, Hebrew characters - on the blank pages of the novel, Sweet of Sin, Bloom has been carrying in his pocket since 3 pm. Their knowledge but of these languages practically excluded vocabulary.
