Saturday 24 July 2021

Online reading, Thursday, 22 July 2021 (13.753)

 The reading stopped at ". . . don't tell." (13.753)

Please note that the blog is on vacation! The next posting will be in two weeks!

Wednesday 21 July 2021

Online reading, Thursday, 15 July 2021 (13.465)

 The reading stopped at ". . . or some place." (13.465)

Summary:

There is more background information about Gerty on these pages. We read about Gerty's intense yearning to find a husband (her longing after a manly man with a strong quiet face, 13.210), her current home-life (father who was a prey to the fumes of intoxication (13.299), her snuff-taking mother, who gets raging splitting headaches (13.327), and even the picture of halcyon days (13.334) that she had tacked on the wall of that place - the toilet), and about the tension amongst herself, Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman, who were introduced to us at the beginning of the episode as three girl friends (13.9). 

It is with the description of Jacky and Tommy playing with the ball that a gentleman in black sitting there by himself (13.349) is brought into the picture. This part establishes the  link between Joyce's Nausicaa in Ulysses and Homer's Nausicaa in the Odyssey. Gerty, who becomes aware of the gentleman, is very quick to forget all about Reggy Wylie, the boy who used to ride a bicycle in front of her window and to transfer her affections and daydreams to him.

When all this is going on, sounds of the recitation of the litany of Our Lady of Loreto (13.287) in the church nearby, where the men's temperance retreat was being conducted (13.282), are carried over to the strand.

Wednesday 14 July 2021

Online reading, Thursday, 8 July 2021 (13.199)

 The reading stopped at "... was not to be." (13.199)

Summary:

“In Book 5 of The Odyssey, Odysseus leaves Calypso's island, is harassed by Poseidon and is finally beached at the mouth of a river in the land of the fabulous seafaring people, the Phaeacians. Odysseus hides in a thicket to sleep off his exhaustion and in Book 6 is eventually awakened by the activities of the Princess Nausicaa and her maids-in-waiting, who have come to the river to do the palace laundry” (Gifford, 13.1-1306).

A far cry from the Joycean style which we have gotten to know in the previous episodes, the style here is one of over-sentimentality. The very first sentence sets the tone for the entire episode. It is 8 p.m. Three girl friends - Cissy Caffrey, Edy Boardman, Gerty MacDowell - are seated on rocks on the Sandymount strand. Four year old twins, Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, have come along with the girls, who have also brought with them an eleven month old baby in a pushcart.

Most of what was read today was about Gerty MacDowell, her looks, her dress,  her dreams and her yearnings. 

Tuesday 6 July 2021

Online reading, Thursday, 1 July 2021 (End of episode 12)

 This reading session marked the completion of Cyclops, episode 12.

Summary

Bloom returns from the courthouse, where he has been looking for Martin Cunningham. Cunningham, feeling the tension in the air, makes a quick exit with Bloom, Jack Power and Crofton. Their hasty exit in a jaunting car cues in another interpolation, a short report of a kind of nautical farewell, and is full of sailing technicalities.

Though Bloom quits the pub, the citizen does not keep quiet. The situation turns nasty with him rushing out and bawling at Bloom. As onlookers enjoy the scene, Bloom starts to retaliate, evoking names of famous - though here irrelevant - Jews including Mendelssohn, Karl Marx, Mercadante, Spinoza and even Jesus and his father. Enraged, the citizen storms into the pub. It is time for another interpolation, another parody of another departure.

Just as the jarvey goes round the corner, the citizen hurls the biscuitbox after Bloom. It misses the target and the old tinbox clatter[s] along the street (12.1857)The interpolation that follows is gigantic in nature, dealing as it does with an earthquake.  Bloom's escape is parodied in the very last paragraph of the episode in which Joyce at first uses biblical language describing how the prophet Elijah ascended to the heavens and ends the episode with ordinary language.

Cyclops, episode 12, bears the closest similarity in the entire novel to Homer's Odyssey.  There is similarity between the citizen and Polyphemus as well as between the biscuit box thrown by the citizen and the rock thrown by Polyphemus. Some of the other features that invoke Homer's work are (a) the numerous references to 'eye' in the singular form hinting at the single-eyed giant, (b) Joyce’s playing with names through out the episode with how Odysseus introduces himself to Polyphemus by saying his name is "Οτις", and (c) the gigantism of the entire episode.

Polyphemus
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polyphemus.png

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)