The joint online reading of Ulysses held on Thursday, 14 January 2021 stopped at: “for the baby.” (8.1027)
Summary:
Looking for lunch, Bloom first enters Burton, a cheap eating place, which he leaves again rather quickly when he sees how sloppily people are eating there. This passage not only is a good and vivid example of how to render disgust but it also connects Joyce's Ulysses with Homer's Odyssey recalling to mind the cannibalism of the Lestrygonians. Wondering, am I like that? (8.662) and trying to see himself as others might see him, Bloom leaves pretending that he had entered the restaurant to look for somebody who does not seem to be there. Then he goes to Davy Byrne's, a pub that still exists today.
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| Davy Byrne's, 21 Duke Street, Dublin |
Inside he sees, sardines, sandwiches, etc that remind him of the lines from a poem: "Why should no man starve on the deserts of Arabia? / Because of the sand which is there. / How come the sandwiches there? / The tribe of Ham was bred there and mustered." (Gifford 8.741-42). He also recalls the ad of Plumtree's potted meat that he had seen that morning.
As Bloom orders a gorgonzola cheese sandwich, olives and a glass of Burgundy, Nosey Flynn, who is sipping his grog there, asks, “Doing any singing those times?”(8.767). Even though he does not want to answer, thinking that Flynn knows as much about it as [his] coachman, (8.769) Bloom does let himself be engaged in a conversation with Flynn. When Nosey Flynn starts wondering loudly about which horse to bet on in that day's Gold Cup Race, Davy Byrne cannot help, saying, “I'm off that.” (8.815) Bloom decides not to say anything too because he is afraid that Flynn will lose more by betting on a horse.
Eating his lunch, Bloom realizes that the wine tasted better as he was not thirsty. Perhaps he can (go home) at about six o'clock. Six. Six. Time will be gone then. (What he undoubtedly is thinking is whether "the visit" will be over by six o'clock.) Against his will, he is reminded of Boylan. Thinking of Oysters, for example, he recalls seeing him that morning, on the way to the Dignam's funeral. He was in the Red Bank this morning. (8.866) Red Bank was a seafood restaurant in Dublin.
Stuck on the pane two flies [buzz], stuck. (8.896) Their buzzing thus reminds Bloom of the time he had spent on the Howth with Molly, how the bay then had looked, how she had passed on a piece of seedcake (8. 907) from her mouth to his, how her eyes were like flowers, take me, willing eyes (8.910), how he had kissed her, how she had kissed him. (Here Bloom is thinking of one of the nice moments of his life. She had kissed him. Him! Now he knows that Boylan will be visiting Molly that afternoon, and so has kept out of the house.)
Watching veins in the wood of the counter in the pub, make Bloom think of curves . . ., of shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno. (8.920) The next question that arises in his mind is whether these lovely sculptures have . . . Because we stuffing food in one hole and out behind. . . They have no. (8.930) The anatomical feature Bloom is thinking of is not mentioned here. Bloom, who has never looked whether or not they have any, decides to investigate the same. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall, naked goddesses. (8.921) (Plaster cast of Venus stood in the entrance rotunda of the National Museum in Dublin). He would bend down as if he were retrieving something he dropped, so that the keeper won't see (8.931) what he is up to!
Bloom has to go out of the bar quickly. In his absence Nosey Flynn and Davy Byrne talk about him, coming finally to the conclusion that he's not too bad. (8.983) By then new customers - Paddy Leonard, Bantam Lyons and Tom Rockford - walk in. (Bloom had passed on his paper that morning to Bantam Lyons saying that he was about to throw away the paper anyway.)
(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated. )
