Online reading, Thursday, 17 June 2021 (12.1359)

(In case you missed last week participating in the virtual events celebrating Bloomsday, below are two links that could be of interesting: 

Bloomsday Readings and Songs from the James Joyce Center, Dublin

I Said Yes: A Celebration of Bloomsday at The Rosenbach from The Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia)

The reading stopped at ". . . be paid." (12.1359)

Summary:

The citizen's next remarks about strangers coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs (12.1141) aimed obviously at Bloom, a foreigner amidst the Dubliners, are ignored by Bloom. He looks to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider's web in the corner (12.1160), . . . the citizen scowling after him, and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when (12.1161). It is a very picturesque sentence. One can almost breathe the anti-semitic, anti-foreigner air in the room.

As the citizen's next remark about a dishonoured wife (12.1163) induces Alf Bergan to produce, gigglingly, a copy of the Police Gazette, a forerunner of today's tabloids,  John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan enter, having come from a meeting in the city hall. It is time for another interpolation with a reference to the most obedient city (12.1185). 

There is more nationalistic talk amongst the pub-goers, who praise the Irish language contrasting it with English, triggering another interpolation, written about an ancient Irish hero in the old Irish past. Bloom mingles in the talk a little awkwardly and uncharacteristically aggressively. The talk eventually moves on to how England exploited Ireland and left it virtually without trees. (The issue of deforestation was indeed a genuine concern at the time.) The ensuing interpolation, true to type, brings up the idea of breeding trees in a parody of a tree wedding.

The aggressive talk continues to how the English starved the Irish, how they were cruel in discipline and training . . ., then to the French and the Germans.  The talk about the British heralds another hilarious parody of the Catholic Credo!

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Bloomsday! 16 June 2021

 Today is Bloomsday!

Below are a couple of links on how the day is being celebrated at different places. Many of these events take place online.

1. Detailed information on Bloomsday Programme in Dublin is available here.

2. Information on the special programme offered by The Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia which owns the manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses is available here.

3. Over 30 of Ireland's Embassies and Consulates are marking the day with a variety of events including a Global Joycean Book Giveaway. Details are here.

4. Zurich James Joyce Foundation has arranged an open air event. The event is already sold out.

Online reading, Thursday, 10 June 2021 (12.1093)

 The reading stopped at ". . . stuck for two quid." (12.1093)

Summary:

Soon the discussion moves on to a boxing match, the Keogh-Bennett match.  Gifford* mentions that "the match does have some basis, since one M. K. Keogh did box one Garry in late April 1904. Percy Bennett, a member of the Zurich consular staff when Joyce lived in the city, is a grudge substitute for the more Irish Garry."  During Alf Bergan's description of how Keogh boxed Bennett  the name of Boylan again comes up. Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of blood (12.952), topics of least interest to the Dubliners gathered there. In fact, this boxing match is described by yet another interpolation, written as a parody of sports journalism style.

If there was one name Bloom does not want to hear mentioned, that is of Boylan. But the name is mentioned again, with Alf Bergan even bringing up the concert tour Boylan is organizing. 

At this stage there are two short interpolations. One is about Bloom's wife written as a parody of medieval romance, and the other is about the entrance of Ned Lambert and J. J. O'Molloy, two characters we had met earlier. Bergan mentions again Breen and Breen's violent reaction to the postcard saying U. p.: up. As they all finally agree to enjoy their pints in peace (12.1075), they see Breens and Kelleher passing the door.

* Ulysses Annotated, Don Gifford, Robert j. Seidman, 1988; (10.1133-34)

Online reading, Thursday, 3 June 2021 (12.849)

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)."

Online reading, Thursday, 25 May 2021 (12.569)

 The reading stopped at ". . . Kriegfried Ueberallgemein." (12.569)

Apologies for not posting any summery of the reading. It is planned to resume the posting of summaries next week. Appreciate your understanding.

Online reading, Thursday, 20 May 2021 (12.337)

The reading stopped at ". . . flabbergasted." (12.337)

Summary:

In the pub they find the citizen sitting with a sheaf of papers, waiting for someone to buy him a drink. A rather fearsome looking dog called Garryowen is sitting at his feet. The citizen is said to be working for the cause (12.123), which could refer to the revival of Irish culture or to Irish independence. The citizen, a rather narrow minded nationalist, has been modeled by Joyce on Michael Cusack (1847-1907), founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association, dedicated to the revival of Irish sports such as hurling, Gaelic football and handball. The Irish Revival was very topical at the time the story of Ulysses is set at. Joyce describes the citizen as a sort of prehistoric Irish warrior. He is said to be adorned with tribal figures mentioned in a list of Irish heroes some genuine, some fake, the list finally growing completely out of proportion. Joyce's description here obviously owes a debt of ‘gigantism’ to Homer’s description of Polyphemus, one of the Cyclopes in Odyssey (Gifford, 12.151-205).

Even the language becomes at times rather violent, reminiscent of the big uncouth giants of Homer. It drifts into parodies. Sometimes adjectives are piled up, the language becomes cumulative, hyperbolic, bordering on being kitschy. In short, Joyce's technique here is gigantic; everything is elaborated, exaggerated.

In Kiernan's pub, Joe Hynes and the anonymous narrator are being served by Terry. Hynes pays for the pints with a sovereign that he says was given to him by Bloom, referring to him as the prudent member (12.211),  hinting that Bloom could be a Freemason. The citizen is busy reading birth, marriage and death notices in the “old woman of Prince's street” (the Freeman's Journal). His dog, old Garryowen, bares its teeth, growling now and then, and gets kicked in its ribs as a reward. Bob Doran (a character we know from the story, The Boarding House, in Dubliners) is sitting in a corner in a stupor, snoring drunk blind to the world (12.251).

This group of pub visitors is joined soon by Alf Bergan, who is doubling up with laughter, remembering how Mr. Breen was upset because he had received that morning the card on which it was written U. p: up.

Online reading, Thursday, 6 May 2021 (12.67)

Note: There will be no Zoom meeting on Thursday, the 13th of May 2021, as the day is the Day of Ascension.

The reading on Thursday, 6th May stopped at "... says he." (12.67)
(We completed Sirens, episode 11 and started with Cyclops, episode 12.)

Summary:

Episode 11

The episode 11 in which music is present in various forms, in its structure and terminology as well as  in the reference to arie, songs, and musical instruments, reaches its high point (if one has to settle for just one) close to the end when Ben Dollard sings the tragic Irish ballad, The Croppy Boy, moving with his voice the hearts of all those assembled in the Hotel Ormond.  Bloom wants to leave the hotel before the song ends. He is occupied with thoughts of Boylan, imagining how just at that time Boylan would perhaps be knocking at the door of Eccles street 7.

Listen to Kevin McDermott (1844-1892) rendering The Croppy Boy.

Episode 12

Cyclops, the succeeding episode, is a very funny and at the same time a serious episode. Its special characteristic is the insertion of 30 and more parodies/interpolations to highlight a particular point of interest.

The episode opens with a narrator, who is, and remains nameless. It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and as he is just talking to old Troy of the D. M. P. (an inspector of the Dublin Metropolitan Police), a chimney sweep passes by and nearly puts out his eye with his broom and ladder. The near miss of the chimney sweep’s broom and ladder (reminiscent of Odysseus’s burning pike of olive wood) suggests that the narrator is one of the Cyclopes (Gifford, 12.2-3). He sees Joe Hynes coming down the street, and tells him about this encounter with the chimney sweep. When Joe asks what the narrator is doing in these parts of the city, the narrator replies how he has been trying, without success, to collect bad debt from a plumber called Geraghty, who had bought nonperishable goods such as tea and sugar from Moses Herzog, a Jewish dealer, but then failed to pay.

Joe Hynes, a reporter, has been at a meeting of the Cattle Traders Association in the City Arms Hotel. He wants to inform someone referred to here as the citizen, for reasons not told, what went on at this meeting. He and the narrator walk round to Barney Kiernan's, 1 pub at 8-10, Little Britain Street near the courthouse on Green Street. Indeed, barristers from there used to adjourn to Barney Kiernen's to drink and discuss cases.

(Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)