Online reading on Thursday, 25 February 2021 (10.127)

The last reading stopped at: “smiled tinily, sweetly.” (10.127) 

Summary:

Whereas the previous episode was one replete with heavy discussions, echoes and allusions, this one has movement as its main feature. It feels like a breath of fresh air after the heaviness of the vaulted cell (9.345), the room in the National Library. The episode, named aptly as Wandering Rocks, is highly cinematic. Here all kinds of people are walking around in Dublin; the paths of many, if not all, cross.

In the Odyssey of Homer, the sorceress Circe tells Odysseus of the ‘Wandering Rocks’ or ‘Roving Rocks’ that have only been successfully passed by the Argo when homeward bound. These rocks smash ships and the remaining timbers are scattered by the sea or destroyed by flames. The rocks lie on one of two potential routes to Ithaca; the alternative, which is taken by Odysseus, leads to Scylla and Charybdis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planctae).

In Joyce's Ulysses, the 'Wandering Rocks' seem quite harmless though. Apart from the very reverend John Conmee S. J. (he is the first one we meet), a bevy of 'rocks' are wandering on this day in Dublin: Corny Kelleher, constable 57C, a onelegged sailor, Ned Lambert, J. J. O'Molloy, Katey, Boody and Maggy Dedalus, Blazes Boylan, Almidano Artifoni, Stephen, Miss Dunne, a blond salesgirl, and a clergyman among others . . . 

 (Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Online reading on Thursday, 18 February 2021 (9.1124)

The last reading stopped at: “smoothsliding Mincius.” (9.1124) 

Summary:

Stephen starts narrating how Shakespeare brought his own family into his plays: “. . .  his mother's name lives in the forest of Arden” (setting of As you Like it), his dead son Hamnet cast as Hamlet, his wife, Ann Hathaway as Cleopatra, Cressida and Venus, bringing finally into the picture the three brothers of William Shakespeare, Gilbert, Edmund and Richard. Mr Best, whose first name is Richard, is very keen that Stephen says a good word for Richard.  John Eglinton too wants to hear what he has to say about Richard and Edmund. Suddenly the discussion takes on the form of a play. After all as Hamlet said and Buck Mulligan quotes, “The play's the thing!”

Stephen then thinks of his own brother (Where is your brother? Apothecaries’ Hall), who for him was like a whetstone (a stone used to sharpen knives, here one's own wits) along with later friends like Cranly (See, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Mulligan, etc.  Incidently this little paragraph offers one of the many proofs scattered around in the book that Stephen is modelled on Joyce himself. James Joyce's brother, Stanislaus, worked in a apothecary, and was like a whetstone for Joyce.

Even though Stephen himself laughs at the end of his argument (to free his mind from his mind's bondage), even though Buck Mulligan intervenes with one of his, apparently, irrelevant comments, the mood here is sombre. It also contains two profound sentences everyone knows but does not always think about: “Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves” (9.1044)

“No”, Stephen answers on being asked by Eglinton whether he believes in his own theory. What Stephen really means by this no is worth pondering about. In any case, Eglinton is relieved, perhaps because then Stephen cannot expect any payment for his theory even if he writes it down for publication in the magazine Dana.

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Online reading on Thursday, 11 February 2021 (9.844)

The reading stopped at ". . .  he any son?" (9.844)

Summary:

Amidst all such buffoonery by Mulligan, an attendant opens the door to inform the librarian that a gentleman has come from the Freeman, wanting to see the files of the Kilkenny People for last year (9.586). The librarian goes off to assist the gentleman. Mulligan snatches the card the attendant has brought in, wondering who it could be, and sees that it is Bloom.

As John Eglinton and Mr Best want to hear more of what Stephen has to say about Mrs S (Mrs Shakespeare), Stephen's discourse starts with a reference to Penelope.  But soon Stephen is back to Shakespeare and his twenty-year long sojourn in London. (Odysseus also spent twenty years away from home.) Stephen says that Shakespeare led a rich life, had property, and had many liaisons. This part interspersed with Buck Mulligan's buffoonery and Stephen's interior monologue is not always easy to decipher. Additionally Stephen's discourse demands that the readers be very well versed not only with Shakespeare's works, which he liberally quotes from, but also with his life as well as with the lives of Aristoteles, Socrates, Plato etc.

The talk then moves on to Shakespeare's will, according to which he left only his secondbest bed (9.698) to Ann though he was rich, a fact that seems to bother Stephen. According to him, Shakespeare does not come out with flying colours when his behaviour is compared with that of Aristotle or with that of Charles II.

Other topics they touch upon include homosexuality and the bard's strict sense of business dealings which led him to create, for example, the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Whether or not Shakespeare was a Jew is also touched upon, with Eglinton quoting from a paper by the dean of Studies at the University College in Dublin that Shakespeare was catholic.

Mulligan’s groaning, “Ora pro nobis" (9.773), saves the day when Stephan starts on Saint Thomas. Stephen continues comparing what he thinks were the ideas of St. Thomas with those of the new Viennese school (i.e., Freud) regarding incest. He then brings Shakespeare and his plays back into the discussion, quoting from The Winter's tale. Mr Best's comment, “Gentle Will is being roughly handled” (9.793), starts off a play of words regarding will: will as the modal verb, will as the shortened version of the name, William, and will as wish. 

Eglinton intervention (why they should care for Shakespeare's wife or father),    leads to a discourse on the relationships between fathers and sons including Shakespeare's writing Hamlet soon after the death of his own father John, and Stephen's thoughts about his relationship with his own father, Simon Daedalus. Neither a reference to Jesus and the Church is left out. 

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Online reading of Thursday, 4 February 2021 (9.566)

The last joint reading stopped at: “for a pussful.” (9.566)

If you have any questions regarding the readings, please contact the Zurich James Joyce Foundation: info@joycefoundation.ch

Summary:

Advancing his theory about Shakespeare, Stephen majestically quotes from many Shakespearean plays (Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest and naturally from Hamlet) to underscore his argument that the dead king in Hamlet is indeed Shakespeare himself. John Eglinton makes it clear that Stephen has a tough task to convince him of his theory.

Just as Stephen says that the voice of the ghost is “heard only in the heart of him who is the substance of his shadow, . . . ” (9.480) the seriousness of the discussion is deflated like a balloon pierced, by the entrance of Buck Mulligan, pronouncing, “Amen!" (9.482)

Buck Mulligan is his usual self, joking when he should be serious. For example, when the librarian says, “Mr Mulligan, I’ll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of Shakespeare” (9.503), Mulligan responds saying, “Shakespeare? I seem to know the name" (9.508).

Taking out from his pocket the telegram that Stephen had earlier sent canceling their appointment of meeting in The Ship, Mulligan imitates the style of the writer, Synge, when he describes how he and Haines waited for “one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery’s sitting civil waiting for pints apiece” (9.561).

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)