The reading stopped at "Klook Klook Klook." (12.849)
Summary:
By now we have got used to - and actually have learned to enjoy - the interpolations that Joyce has inserted into this episode. My favourite is the one starting with "In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter ... (12.338)." (We had read it in the previous session.) Joyce takes this opportunity in creating a parody of the beliefs of the Theosophical Society, of which prominent Dubliners such as W. B. Yeats were members. He embellishes his description of how a seance could look like by using a lot of modified Sanskrit words such as prālāyā (the original Sanskrit word has no elongated 'a's and means the deluge that ends the world), jivic (jiva - with an elongated 'i' - in Sanskrit means breath, life), atmic (the Sanskrit word atma, in which the first 'a' is elongated, means soul), etc.
Apart from the three parodies on the pages read in this session, what is of interest here is how Bloom has been portrayed as an outsider in the Dublin society. Bloom comes to Barney Kiernan's pub but does not want to have a drink. When Alf Bergan, who has also come in, starts sharing with his friends some letters from is office, and their conversation moves on to the topic of hanging, Bloom starts explaining what happens scientifically when a person is hanged, an explanation that interests none there. Anti-semitic sentiments are expressed freely when the citizen's dog starts smelling Bloom and the citizen says, ". . . I'm told those jewies does have a sort of a queer door coming off them for dogs (12.452)."
It is also obvious that, amidst all this, Bloom's mind is occupied with thoughts of what could be happening at that time at his home, when, talking about Dignam's wife, he says 'Wife's admirers (12.767)" when he really meant to say, "Wife's advisers (12.769)."
