The reading stopped at "None nought said nothing. Yes."(11.224)
Summary:
Joyce not only gave the name Sirens to the 11th episode of Ulysses but also defined music as its art. Music is present here in various forms; not just in the terminology, songs, arie, references to musical instruments, choice of verbs used but equally prominently in the structure of the episode. There are fragments of sentences that resemble fragments of musical motives, leitmotivs. (Example: Imperthnthn thnthnthn (11.2).) Music also connects Joyce’s Ulysses to Homer’s Odyssey.
The previous episode ended with a recapitulating of the 'rocks' we had encountered wandering around Dublin. This episode starts, on the other hand, with 63 fragments of sentences. This part, serving as the introduction to the episode, is like the overture of a musical composition introducing leitmotivs that reoccur. It is fun to recognise them as one gets further into the episode.
The ‘concert hall’ is the bar of the Ormond hotel. The ‘concert’ begins at 4 pm. From the streets of Dublin encountered in Wandering Rocks, the previous episode, we have moved to the inside of the bar of the Ormond hotel. The major musicians here are the two barmaids - bronze-haired, Ms. Douce and gold-headed, Ms. Kennedy -, Lenehan, Boylan, Simon Dedalus, Father Cowley, Ben Dollard, and of course our Bloom!
(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)
