We have reached the penultimate episode of the novel! Only 157 pages more to go - according to the Penguin edition of 1960 - till we read Trieste - Zürich - Paris, 1914 - 1921. We should be finished with our journey of Joyce's Ulysses by the end of this year :-(
Today we stopped at "... opposite power of abandonment and recuperation." (Penguin, 786.19), (Gabler 17.254)
Concerned about where Stephen will find a place to sleep that night, Bloom takes Stephen home. It is thus The Homecoming episode. It is all about what Bloom and Stephen converse on the way to Bloom's house (No. 7, Eccles Street), and what happens once they reach the place.
(Note:
The photographs above were all taken during our trip to Dublin in May 2015.
The essay of the Modernism Lab at Yale University deals with the style of Ithaca in greater detail. Read it here.)
Today we stopped at "... opposite power of abandonment and recuperation." (Penguin, 786.19), (Gabler 17.254)
Concerned about where Stephen will find a place to sleep that night, Bloom takes Stephen home. It is thus The Homecoming episode. It is all about what Bloom and Stephen converse on the way to Bloom's house (No. 7, Eccles Street), and what happens once they reach the place.
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| (Eccles street. In 1909 Joyce had visited No 7 in which his friend John Francis Byrne was living. The house does not exist anymore.) |
This episode cannot be more different than the previous episode, Eumaeus. In fact, with each episode, Joyce opens up new vistas of style. Joyce had written the following to Claud Sykes, a friend, that he was 'struggling with the acidities of Ithaca - a mathematico-astronomico-physico-mechanico-geometrico-chemico sublimation of Bloom and Stephen (devil take' em both) to prepare for the final amplitudinously curvilinear episode, Penelope.' (Ellman, James Joyce, p. 501). To his friend Frank Budgen he wrote: 'I am writing Ithaca in the form of a mathematical catechism....' (ibid) . A catechism - a series of fixed questions, answers or precepts used for instruction - it certainly is. Just look at how the episode starts: 'What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?'. This pattern is adhered to through out the episode. Everything that is talked about, seen and felt is categorized, everything is in an ordered manner. These categories, this order, are presented in such a way though that all the topics look as if they are equally important.
Mathematical terms are indeed used (just in paragraph 1: parallel, chord, circle, arc). So are unusual, complex looking words chosen to talk about common, mundane things (for example 'matutinal' for 'morning' on page 780). Though sometimes the questions asked look very simple, the answers given are in no way straightforward (see for example, the answers to the questions, 'Did it flow?' and ' What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?'). I, for one, do not feel comfortable with the description of the style here as being mathematical. After all, Mathematics is an extremely precise and concise language. Just think of Einstein's famous formula, E=mc^2
Getting back to the content on these pages: As said earlier, Bloom is taking Stephen home. It is 2 a.m. Both men are keyless - Stephen as he had to hand over the key to the tower to Mulligan that morning, Bloom, because ....
They talk of various things on the way, their views being equal and negative on some topics and divergent on others. Bloom had apparently discoursed on similar topics with others on previous occasions in 1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1892, 1893. Now, in 1904, he is carrying out such a discussion with Stephen. They reach home. No. 7, Eccles Street.
At the housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number 7 Eccles street, he (Bloom) inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.
Mathematical terms are indeed used (just in paragraph 1: parallel, chord, circle, arc). So are unusual, complex looking words chosen to talk about common, mundane things (for example 'matutinal' for 'morning' on page 780). Though sometimes the questions asked look very simple, the answers given are in no way straightforward (see for example, the answers to the questions, 'Did it flow?' and ' What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?'). I, for one, do not feel comfortable with the description of the style here as being mathematical. After all, Mathematics is an extremely precise and concise language. Just think of Einstein's famous formula, E=mc^2
Getting back to the content on these pages: As said earlier, Bloom is taking Stephen home. It is 2 a.m. Both men are keyless - Stephen as he had to hand over the key to the tower to Mulligan that morning, Bloom, because ....
They talk of various things on the way, their views being equal and negative on some topics and divergent on others. Bloom had apparently discoursed on similar topics with others on previous occasions in 1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1892, 1893. Now, in 1904, he is carrying out such a discussion with Stephen. They reach home. No. 7, Eccles Street.
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| (Fritz Senn in front of the door of No 7, Eccles Street that can be seen today at the James Joyce Center in Dublin) |
(Page 779, Penguin)
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| (Plaque of Joyce, celebrating the sentence above in front of the house in Eccles Street) |
So, now we know why Bloom also had no key. He had changed his trousers that morning before going to Patty Dignam's funeral. The house key was in the trousers that he had worn the previous day. The rest of these pages describe, in the manner of q & a, how Bloom, being keyless, climbs over the dwarf wall, jumps down without getting injured by concussion, gets inside the house through the kitchen that obviously was left unlocked, opens the ventcock of the coal gas, lights a candle, comes to the main door, opens it for Stephen, extinguishes the candle once back in the kitchen, draws two spoonseat deal chairs for Stephen and himself, takes a saucepan from the left hob of the kitchen range, goes to the sink, turns on the tap, collects some of the water that was supplied from Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow, during which occupation he, Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, thinks of the various characteristics of water that he admires - and does not admire -, sets the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, takes out a lemonflavoured soap bought thirteen hours previously for fourpence that was still unpaid for, asks Stephen to wash up too, an act that Stephen declines to follow!
(Note:
The photographs above were all taken during our trip to Dublin in May 2015.
The essay of the Modernism Lab at Yale University deals with the style of Ithaca in greater detail. Read it here.)
