Tuesday, 14 April 2015, Pages 307 - 316, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We stopped with Nannetti hailing "Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending." (Penguin 316.27) (Gabler 10.971)

The main wanderers we meet on these pages are Tom Kernan, Stephen Dedalus, Simon Dedalus, Father Cowley and Martin Cunningham.

Tom Kernan is a familiar figure to us, readers of Joyce. We first got to know him in the story Grace in Dubliners. In Ulysses we also met him earlier (episode 5), when Bloom after relishing the breakfast of the inner organs of beasts and fowls had left home, and walking soberly halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company in Westland Row, thinking that he must get some (Tea) from Tom Kernan (a tea salesman). He was also present at the funeral of Patrick Dignam that morning. We had also read about of him just minutes ago while Dilly was trying to extract money from her unwilling father.

Now Tom Kernan is on his rounds to get orders for Tea. He has already secured an order from Pulbrook Robertson, and now he is talking to Mr Crimmins (a tea, wine and spirits merchant). After exchanging comments on the disaster of the ship, General Slocum, on the East River, New York the day before, and enjoying just a thimbleful of Crimmins's best gin, and securing the order for Tea, Kernan continues on his way. Immersed in thoughts about the dashing way he himself was dressed (silk hat and gaiters), about the times of the troubles, about Emmet, the Irish rebel, who was hanged, about how Lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr, Kernan misses by a hair the cavalcade that passes him in easy trot. As we follow Kernan on his walk, we hear Simon Dedalus greeting Father Cowley, and glimpse once more how the flyer announcing 'Elijah is coming' rocks on the ferrywash on John Rogerson's quay.

Source:  amazon.com (here with cover!)

The next wanderer we meet is Stephen. Where Stephen is, there literature and philosophy are. Classical literature, Greek philosophy. And it has many echoes from earlier episodes. Watching through a webbed window old (Thomas) Russell working with gems, Stephen's thoughts  - born all in the dark wormy earth, ..... where fallen archangels flung the stars from their brows.... -  echo sayings in the Bible, Milton's words about fallen angels in Paradise Lost. Some of these thoughts - Antisthenes, orient and immortal wheat... (episode 3) - had occurred to him earlier. Passing on along the powerhouse and Clohissey's book shop, he stops at a bookcart. As he is looking at the books displayed there, Dilly comes along. She has just spent a penny she got from her father to buy a coverless book, Chardenal's French primer. Stephen looking at her high shoulders (her father had admonished her earlier to stand up straight) and shabby dress, thinks how she resembles him (My eyes they say she has). He feels remorse (agenbite of inwit; episode 1) but does not do anything to help his little sister.

Next we meet Simon Dedalus and Father Cowley. (This 'Father' is obviously different from the Father Conmee, whom we had met at the beginning of this episode.) Father Cowley is another portrait of the poverty prevalent at the time in Dublin. He owes money to his landlord and others. So two men are at his back to make him pay. As Father Cowley has no way of paying off his debts, he is waiting for Ben Dollard, who, he hopes, will talk to long John, the subsheriff and get these bailiffs off his back for a while. Ben Dollard gives him hope saying that the bailiffs cannot do anything until the landlord has been paid off!

Many people, whom we had met earlier, appear next: Martin Cunningham, Mr Power, John Wyse Nolan and Councillor Nannetti. We also become aware of new faces. Among these we shall be meeting Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce again in episode 11 in the Ormond hotel.

Tuesday, 7 April 2015, Pages 297 - 307, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We read till "Is it little sister Monica!"  (Penguin 307.3) (Gabler 10.716)

On these pages we witness - almost surreptitiously - how various Dubliners spend their time on this spring morning, the 16th of June 1904.

(Source: Visit page)

Tom Rochford demonstrates a mechanical devise (which was mentioned already on page 294, Penguin) to Nosey Flynn, Lenehan and M'Coy.

We follow the conversation between Lenehan and M'Coy as they walk down Sycamore street. Of the two, Lenehan is the one who has many tales to tell. To start with he is full of praise for Tom Rochford, who had once got down a manhole and had rescued a worker stuck inside. They think of the Gold Cup (horse) race that was taking place that afternoon at Ascot Heath. Under Merchant's arch, they see a dark-backed figure looking at books on a hawker's cart. This glimpse of Mr Bloom inspires Lenehan to recite in great detail how once he had shared a ride late at night with Bloom and his wife after the annual dinner at Glencree reformatory. Lenehan's description of how every jolt the bloody car gave, gave him the chance of bumping up against her leaves M'Coy unmoved damping Lenehan's spirits.

We also observe how our Bloom turns over idly pages of many books in a shabby bookshop before deciding to buy for Molly the book, Sweets of sin, that is 'full of revolting sentimentality' as Lady Bracknell puts it in The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscal Wilde. (Of course Lady Bracknell was not opining about Sweets of sin, rather about a novel by a Ms. Prism.)

We wait with Dilly Dedalus for her father in front of Dillon's auction rooms. We had known from an earlier scene with Katey, Maggy and Boody Dedalus that Dilly had gone to meet (their) father.  Dilly wants to get some money from him. When Simon Dedalus finally turns up there, he tries at first to distract Dilly from her intentions. On being asked directly whether he got any money, he tells her, 'there is no one in Dublin would lend me fourpence.' But Dilly is obviously an old hand at this game. She manages to extract a shilling and two pennies from her father. Simon Dedalus, not charmed by his daughter's insistence, walks off, murmuring to himself. As he hands over two copper pennies to Dilly, telling her to get a glass of milk for herself and a bun, the viceregal cavalcade passes.

Thus we witness, as if we are observing from a bird's vantage point, simultaneous occurrences at different locations. The events mentioned above interspersed with many that are not mentioned here make us feel that these Dubliners are going about their normal affairs, and that this 16th of June is after all a very normal day. 

Tuesday, 31 March 2015, Pages 288 - 297, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

Read as far as "Mother of Moses!" (Penguin 297.18) (Gabler 10.463)

"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." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planctae)

Here in Joyce's Ulysses, the wandering rocks seem quite harmless. So far. Last week we met one of them, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. Today we met a bevy of rocks that were wandering:  among others 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. We were also told about a white arm that flung forth a coin from a window in Eccles street, meant for the onelegged sailor's cap and we met again the five sandwichmen advertising for H. E. L. Y. 'S. We have met most of them in earlier episodes, and some of them we had met as we followed the very reverend John Conmee S. J. on his morning stroll today. Joyce has structured the episode almost like a movie with all its technical possibilities for flashbacks, juxtaposition of events that occur simultaneously at unconnected places. This is a natural result of Joyce's interest in cinema. (He even ventured to open a cinema theater in Dublin after a chance remark from his sister Eva visiting Trieste that there were no cinemas in Dublin.)

Here are a few titbits about the various characters we met on these pages: The interaction between Kelleher and the constable 57C hints at the rumor that Kelleher is a police informant. The onelegged sailor is an ex navy man. That he is now onelegged explains his swinging himself violently, growling, etc while he sings the song. 'For England.' The part over Katey, Boody and Maggy Dedalus underscores the poverty of the Dedalus household. Stephen's pleasant exchanges with the music teacher, Almidano Artifoni, tells us that Stephen has a melodious voice, which he has neglected in the recent months. Perhaps the most dandy figure we met is that of Blazes Boylan. This is the first time we really come across Boylan though Joyce had allowed glimpses of him during the episode, Hades. When we meet him, a blond sales girl is arranging for him a wicker basket with a bottle swathed in pink tissue paper, a small jar, fat pears and shamefaced peaches.

Shamefaced peaches!

Though Boylan tells the sales girl that  the basket is for an invalid, it is obviously meant for Molly Bloom with whom Boylan has a rendezvous later in the afternoon. In a couple of pages, Joyce has portrayed Boylan so as to leave no doubts about what a dandy he is. It is left to the typewriter of Miss Dunne, Boylan's secretary, to reveal to us the date - 16 June 1904 -  on which the events of this masterpiece take place.

Note: The current issue (date: April 2, 2015) of the New York Review of Books carries a review of the book, 'The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses' by Kevin Birmingham. The review by Adam Thirlwell also supplies interesting background information. 

Tuesday, 24 March 2015, Pages 280 - 288, Wandering Rocks, Episode 10

We stopped with the following sentence in Latin: "et a verbis tuis formidavit cor meum." (Penguin 288.3; Gabler 10.205)

After having spent many hours with an episode of heavy discussions, of echoes and of allusions, we have moved to an episode whose main feature is one of movement. This episode feels like a breath of fresh air after the heaviness of the vaulted cell, of  a room in the National Library. This episode, named aptly as wandering rocks, is highly cinematic. All kinds of people are walking around, the paths of many, if not all, cross.

The pages we read today are devoted to Father Conmee. We could easily call these pages as one morning in the life of Father Conmee.

(Source: url)

Father Conmee SJ was a real person. He was the rector at Clongowes Wood College when Joyce was enrolled as a student there in 1888. Connie was also instrumental in getting Joyce and his brothers into Belvedere College in 1890. (See: http://jamesjoyce.ie/tag/fr-john-conmee/). In Joyce's works, he first appeared in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, where as the rector of Clongowes, Stephen's college, he shows lots of understanding for the young boy, who has been unfairly pandied by Father Dolan. But here in Ulysses, Father Conmee is portrayed as a condescending person, one who has little empathy for others, one who seems to be good in making small talk when needed.

The walk of the very reverend John Conmee S. J. this morning takes him along the Gardiner street, Mounty square, Great Charles street, North Circular road, North Strand road, into a tram at Newcomen bridge to traverse past Mud Island, crossing the river Tolka at Annesley bridge, getting off the tram at the Howth road stop. But it is not yet clear to where the very reverend John Conmee S. J. is bound.

On his walk he meets a onelegged sailor, whom he blessed in the sun instead of giving any coin, the wife of Mr David Sheehy M. P. with whom he exchanges pleasantries, and three little schoolboys from Belvedere, whom he asks to post a letter. He salutes and is saluted by Mrs M'Guinness, by Mr William Gallagher standing in the doorway of his shop, and by a constable on the beat. He sees a billboard of Mr Eugene Stratton, dressed as a black man, and wonders about what happens to the millions of black and brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came like a thief in the night.

Soon after he alights from the tram, it is time for him to read from breviary. He should have read the Nones before lunch. Being occupied so, he sees - but does not really notice - a flushed young man followed by a young woman coming from a gap of a hedge. Father Conmee blesses both gravely and turns a thin page of his breviary, reading the 21st section of Psalm 119.

Tuesday, 17 March 2015, Pages 270 - 280, Scylla and Charybdis, End of episode 9

Completed reading episode 9 (Penguin 280.8; Gabler 9.1225) with

Laud we the gods

And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils

From our bless'd altars.

But first things first. As Stephen continues to lecture on how Shakespeare modeled a few characters in his plays on his family members, and moves on to mention specially his three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund and Richard, John Eglinton provokes him (draws his sword / touched the foil) saying, "Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund..." 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, Mulligan, etc. By the way, this little paragraph offers one of the many proofs scattered around in the book that Stephen is modeled on Joyce himself. James Joyce's brother, Stanislaus, worked in a apothecary, and was like a whetstone for Joyce.

What follows is Stephen's discourse on relating Richard, William Shakespeare's brother, to the Richard of the play, Richard III. To prove that the theme of the false or the usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to Shakespeare... always with him, Stephen refers to various plays by Shakespeare, to his daughter who was accused of adultery, and to the wordings on his tombstone. According to Stephen, it was the original sin (of his being seduced by Ann Hathaway) that darkened his understanding.

(Source: http://imgkid.com/william-shakespeare-grave.shtml)

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: "We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. Every life is many days, day after day."

On being asked by Eglinton whether he believes in his own theory, Stephen promptly says, 'no'. What Stephen really means by this 'no' is worth pondering about. In any case, Eglinton is relieved (is that why he smiles doubly?) because then Stephen cannot expect any payment for his theory even if he writes it down (for publication in the Dana)

Mulligan gets up, saying, 'Come, Kinch', words that remind Stephen of what Mulligan had said that morning as they were leaving the Martello Tower (Penguin 20.2). Feeling that he is following a clown (a lubber), Stephen goes out - feeling dejected (all amort) - of the dark room in which they were all sitting into daylight. Mulligan reads out from the scrap of paper on which he was scribbling something before they left the National Library. This scribbling act ('The Lord has spoken to Malachi'; Penguin 274.8) and reading from his tablet (Penguin 278.13) conceal references to the Bible.

A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting. 'The wandering jew', whispers Buck Mulligan. It was Mr. Bloom.

The episode ends with a quotation from the end of Cymbeline. Peace and tranquility have been restored. 

Tuesday, 10 March 2015, Pages 264 - 270, Scylla and Charybdis, Episode 9

Read as far as "... looked at all: refrained." (Penguin 270.29), Gabler (9.965)

On the previous page Stephen had started to speak about Saint Thomas. He continues here comparing what he thinks were the ideas of St. Thomas with those of the new Viennese school (i.e., Freud)  regarding incest.  The key word here seems to be 'avarice' - incest as avarice of emotions,... Jews, whom christians tax with avarice... Stephen says whether these be sins or virtues old Nobodaddy (God) will tell us at doomsday lent (last judgement). He brings Shakespeare and his plays back into the discussion, quoting from Winter's tale (.. Sir Smile, his neighbor) and from Hamlet (Polonius advice to his son). This prompts Mr Best to say that Gentle Will (William Shakespeare) is being roughly handled. 

Mr Best's comment 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. (The will to live, ..., for poor Ann, ... is the will to die.) Stephen imagines how Ann would have lain on the secondbest bed (somehow this topic of the secondbest bed seems to haunt Stephen!), and how she would have spent her old age. He talks of how she would have suffered from remorse of conscience, and echoing an earlier section from the episode (Penguin 257.26) says, 'Venus has twisted her lips in prayer.'

Eglinton intervenes again, saying, ' I feel that Russell is right. (see Penguin, page 242) What do we care for his wife or father?" What follows in the coming pages is a discourse on the relationships between fathers and sons including Shakespeare's writing Hamlet soon after the death of his own father John, Stephen's thoughts about his relationship with his own father, Simon Daedalus. Naturally a reference to Jesus and Church is not left out (... only begetter to only begotten), nor to the nature of Holy Trinity (...Father was Himself His Own Son.) Stephen concludes that paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son? The argument moves from a particular son and a particular father to being the father of all his race as shown by Shakespeare's writing of Hamlet.

Stephen next starts narrating how Shakespeare brought his own family into his plays: his mother's name in the forest of Arden (setting of As you Like it), his dead son Hamnet cast as Hamlet, his wife, Ann Hathaway as Cleopatra, Cressid 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 will say a good word for Richard.

Suddenly the discussion takes on the form of a play. After all as Hamlet said and Buck Mulligan mentions, the play's the thing! Musical terms ( piano, diminuendo, tempo, stringent) are introduced to indicate how these players speak. Stephen, moving on to how Shakespeare hides his own name in many of his plays, turns to the celestial phenomenon of a super nova (Tycho's star) that was discovered in November 1572  (when Shakespeare was eight and a half years old), in the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia and whose brightness lasted for almost sixteen months.

(Source: http://www.smokymtnastro.org/Seasons/Summer/Summer%20Sky%20Tour%20Polar%20Constellations.htm)

Again there is a link to the Bible, to Exodus, when Stephen explains this celestial phenomenon as a star by night, a pillar of the cloud by day. Perhaps this image of the Israelites walking makes Stephen look at his hat, his stick, his boots. He is wearing boots borrowed from Buck Mulligan. There are holes in his socks. His handkerchief borrowed that morning by Mulligan is soiled. All symbols of Stephen's poverty. 

Tuesday, 3 March 2015, Pages 258 - 264, Scylla and Charybdis, Episode 9

We read as far as "All smiled their smiles." (Penguin 264.1) Gabler (    )

The topic of Shakespeare leaving (only) his secondbest bed to his wife Ann Hathaway dominates these pages. In the last section Eglinton had said to Stephen, ' 'We want to hear more. ....Till now we had thought of her .... a Penelope stayathome.'

Thus the next part of Stephen's discourse starts with a reference to Penelope. Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, is supposed to have said that Penelope because of her (stayathome) virtue is more beautiful than the beautiful Helen. But soon Stephen is back to Shakespeare and his twenty-year long sojourn in London. (Here is a connection to Odysseus, who also spent twenty years away from home.) Stephen says about Shakespeare: 'His life was rich", and goes on to imagine how his dining table would have looked (marchpane = marzipan), how he dallied between conjugial love (for Ann Hathaway) and scortatory love (with prostitutes), listing names of women with whom he is supposed to have had liaisons.

This part interspersed with Buck Mulligan's buffoonery and Stephen's interior monologue (... Encore vignette sous,... Do and Do. Thing done... Old wall where sudden lizards flash...) 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 to Ann. Stephen seems to want to prove (though he announces that the burden of proof is with you not with me) the marital disharmony between William S and Ann H. Eglinton mentions that the will ... has been explained ... by jurists.

(Shakespeare-LastPg.jpg)

Stephen is obviously bothered about this act of Shakespeare's leaving only the secondbest bed to Ann. Because Shakespeare was rich. Because he had amassed much property. Because he does not come out with flying colors when his behavior is compared with that of Aristotle (who on his deathbed made sure that his slaves are freed, that he will be buried next to his wife, and that his mistress should be allowed to live in one of his houses) and with that of Charles II, whose dying request was 'Let not poor Nelly starve.' (Gifford, 9.720-24)

The next topics they touch upon are homosexuality (love that dare not speak its name), 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.

Mulligans' playacting (Ora pro nobis, ..Pogue mahone...) saves the day when Stephan starts next on Saint Thomas. All smiled their smiles.

Note: If you also wonder what happened to Shakespeare's firstbest bed, there is an interesting explanation here!