Note: For the time being, the Ulysses readings have been moved to an online platform. Please see the blog entry titled “All Readings Online” (30 October 2020) for further information.
The joint online reading held on Thursday, 26 November stopped at: “O'Connell street.” (7.1041)
Summary (by Chandra Holm):
We have almost reached the end of the current episode, referred to commonly as Aeolus. In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses (Odysseus) reaches the island of Aeolus after he and his crew escape from the land of the Lotus-Eaters. The story is told by Odysseus to Penelope in Book XXIII. Accordingly when Odysseus reaches the island of Aeolus, he is welcomed and feted for a month at the end of which Aeolus gives him a leather bag, made from the flayed hide of a nine-year old ox, and imprisoned all the winds there (1) and sets him on his course to Ithaca after warning him not to open the bag at any cost. Odysseus and the crew sail homeward for 9 days and on the 10th day when their land is in sight and when Odysseus closes his eyes for a short while, his crew, thinking that Odysseus has been given a bag full of riches by Aeolus, opens the bag. A tempest rises and the men in the ship are carried seaward again. Odysseus returns again to the island of Aeolus, who this time closes the doors of his palace against Odysseus, telling him, “Leave our island, now, lowest of living men. It would be against religion for me to set a man on his course when the blessed gods revile him. Go, for you come as one the immortals hate.”(2)
As we have seen, the 7th episode of Ulysses by James Joyce is set in the offices of the Newspapers, Freeman's Journal and Telegraph. It is composed of short sections, each with headlines similar to that in a newspaper. Many of these headlines herald - often directly, sometimes in a really stretched manner - the content that follows. Talks heard/read by well known orators are commented upon/recited, lots of lofty words (many of them hollow and windy) are used, the exception being when Stephen tells a story to Professor MacHugh on the way to Mooney's. In the section with the headline VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES., Professor MacHugh suggests a line from a poem by Virgil as the title of the story but it is rejected by Stephen who prefers a title that echoes the Bible.
There are two kinds of returning/coming back in this episode, just as Odysseus returns/comes back to the island of Aeolus. The first is when Bloom comes back to the newspaper office after discussing the terms of the advertisement he procures from Alexander Keyes. The second one is when we reach the Nelson's pillar at the end of the episode, the location with which we started the episode.
