Online reading, Thursday, 29 April 2021 (11.1155)

The last reading stopped at: “Rrr.” (11.1155)

Online reading, Thursday, 22 April 2021 (11.899)

The reading stopped at ". . . Dolphin's Barn Lane Dublin." (11.899)

Summary:

Listening to the song, When first I saw that form endearing . . , coming from the bar, Richie Goulding recognizes his brother-in-law's voice. The strained relationship between the two does not lessen his appreciation for Simon Dedalus's voice. Bloom asks Pat, the waiter, to set ajar the door of the bar (11.670). They all listen, are moved by the words, by the singing. As he plays with an elastic band he has been carrying in his pocket, Bloom mulls over tenors, Boylan’s visit to Molly and about the life of Simon Dedalus. 

When he realizes that the song he is listening to is from the opera, Martha, Bloom thinks of Martha Clifford and the letter he got that morning from her.

Simon Dedalus's voice soars, and he is for them Lionel, the hero of the opera and to Bloom he has become Siopold (11.752): Simon + Lionel + Leopold (Bloom). Richie Goulding remembers his listening to Simon Dedalus singing ‘Twas rank and fame, an aria from the opera, The Rose of Castile, by Michael Balfe. Goulding’s comment that this is the grandest number in the whole opera (11.828), starts off Bloom's thoughts on numbers (Numbers it is. All music when you come to think (11.830).) 

Not only Bloom and Richie Goulding but all the others present at that time in the Ormond Hotel listen to, appreciate and applaud Simon Dedalus's singing. The thirsty ones continue to drink. Bronze and gold continue to replenish the tankards. A little bit of flirting goes on. An extension of this harmless flirting is carried on to the dining room with Bloom's asking Pat for a pen and ink to write a reply to Martha. Of course he does not want to let Richie know what he is doing. So Bloom pretends that he is writing a business letter to the newspaper, Freeman's Journal.

Online reading on Thursday, 15 April 2021 (11.662)

The last reading stopped at: “pinnacles of gold.” (11.662)

Summary:

In the Ormond hotel saloon, Simon Dedalus and Father Cowley are with Ben Dollard, who is playing the piano. The three are also reminiscing about a past incidence at which Goodwin, a piano teacher, was playing the piano not so well and how Ben Dollard had to borrow a pair of trousers, albeit a pair too tight, from Bloom. (When they were living in Holles Street, Molly and Bloom collected and sold secondhand clothes and theatrical costumes.) Their talk moves to Molly, her looks, her parentage.

Bloom and Richie Goulding are having their dinner in the restaurant. Dinners fit for princes (11.523). While having dinner, Bloom's thoughts turn to Molly and to his conversation with her that morning. By sheer coincidence (or did he hear the music from the saloon and recognize the voices?) Bloom is also thinking of the night when he and Molly lent Dollard a dress suit for the concert. Thoughts of Molly make Bloom remember again the day the two had spent on the Howth. There is a very nice sentence here: We are their harps. I. He. Old. Young (11.582). Is Bloom thinking of how women (like Molly) play with men (like himself/old and like Boylan/young)?

More customers enter the Ormond bar. Urged by his friends to sing, Simon Dedalus declines at first. As they are discussing about the music, Boylan is jaunting jingly; Bloom and Goulding are having dinner. 

 (Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Online reading on Thursday, 8 April 2021 (11.465)

The last reading stopped at: “eau de Nil.” (11.465) 

Summary:

We should read this episode with much thought and care if we want to decipher and understand what Joyce is telling us here. It is similar to listening to a symphony and being able to pick out individual instruments, individual leitmotivs. An example is the following sentence: two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought (11.295). This single sentence is composed of Bloom's interior monologue (when I was in Wisdom Hely's), of description of what Bloom is currently doing (he is buying two sheets cream vellum paper . . . two envelopes . . . in Daly's) and of echoes from earlier episodes (Henry Flower, Hely's).

On these pages, we first meet Lenehan who comes into the bar of the Ormond hotel looking for Boylan. But Lenehan is too small a fish to fry in the eyes of the two barmaids. The more he tries to get their attention, the cooler becomes their reaction. Failing with his overtures addressed to the sirens, he turns to Simon Dedalus, telling him about Stephen and their meeting MacHugh and O’Madden Burke in the newspaper office early that day. Even Simon Dedalus does not pay much attention to Lenehan, and moves to the saloon door, where there is a piano, recently tuned by a blind tuner, probably the same blind stripling we had met earlier in episodes 8 and 10. Meanwhile, Bloom crossing the bridge of Essex, remembers the letter he had received that morning from Martha, and decides to buy some writing paper to send a reply. Boylan also comes to the Ormond bar. At this point of the episode, Joyce has introduced a great mixture of interior monologue (mostly Bloom's) with what is actually happening (mostly with Boylan). Bloom, wanting to hide from Boylan, follows Richie Goulding into the dining room of the Ormond. They are served by Pat, a deaf (bothered) waiter. Bloom's caring character is revealed here in a few words. Though at first undecided, not wanting to make him walk twice (11.445), he orders a bottle of cider (11.447).

Online reading on Thursday, 1 April 2021 (11.224)

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)

Online reading on Thursday, 25 March 2021 (10.1236)

The last reading stopped mid-paragraph at: “made haste to reply.” (10.1236) 

Please note that the reading will continue over Easter: The group is convening as usual on April 1, Maundy Thursday (Gründonnerstag).

Summary:
Next we meet Mulligan and Haines, sitting in D. B. C. (Dublin Bakery Company) enjoying melange with real Irish cream. They are talking about Stephen. Mulligan declares his personal judgement on Stephen: “He can never be a poet. . . . ” (10.1074) and adds, “He is going to write something in ten years” (10.1089).  Mulligan's prophecy that Stephen is going to write something in ten years must be noted in conjunction with two dates: the year (1904) Joyce assigns as the year of his Ulysses and the year (1914) in which he starts to write Ulysses. Another hint that Stephen is the alter ego of J. J.

We also meet some Dubliners, whom we had met in earlier episodes: Stephen's teacher, Almidano Artifoni,  Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tindall Farrell,  and a blind stripling. 

The most engaging and moving section of the entire episode is the one where we meet Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, whose father was buried just that morning. We experience death and its effects from the eyes and minds of a young boy. Seeing schoolboys, young Dignam wonders whether they notice that he is in mourning. He recalls how his dead father looked: His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over it up to his eye (10.1161). The finality of death strikes the young fellow when he thinks, that he will never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead (10.1169). Young Dignam finally hopes that his father is in purgatory now because he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night (10.1173). 

The last section of the episode summarizes the passing of the viceroy's cavalcade through Dublin and how the Dubliners we encountered in this episode react to the sight of the viceroy and his cavalcade. Some of them greet the viceroy. Some of the greeters are noticed by those in the cavalcade, and some like Thomas Kernan are not. Some like Young Dignam, whose father was buried that morning, see the cavalcade but do not recognize the personages inside. Some like Mr Breen salute the wrong carriage!

 (Excerpted from Ulysses for the Uninitiated)

Online reading on Thursday, 18 March 2021 (10.981)

The reading stopped at "... Parliament street." (10.981)

Summary:

On this morning Tom Kernan is on his rounds to get orders for Tea. He has already secured an order for Pulbrook Robertson, his employer, 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, in New York, the day before, and enjoying a thimbleful of his best gin before securing an order for Tea, Kernan continues on his way. Immersed in thoughts he misses a cavalcade that passes. 

We soon meet Stephen. Where Stephen is, there is the talk of literature and philosophy. Classical literature, Greek philosophy. And here it has many echoes from earlier episodes. Passing on along the powerhouse and Clohissey's book shop, he stops to look at the books displayed on a cart when Dilly comes along. She has just spent a penny she got from her father and bought a coverless book on French grammar. Stephen, looking at her,  thinks how she resembles him. He feels sorry for her but does not do anything to help his little sister.

Later we meet Simon Dedalus and Father Cowley. (We had met another “Father”, Father Conmee, earlier in the episode.) Father Cowley’s 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 get these bailiffs off his back for a while. 

Martin Cunningham and Mr Power are also out, as is John Wyse Nolan, who has a list of donations for Patrick Dignam's family. Bloom also enters the picture here though not in person. He had put his name down for five shillings (10.974). And had in fact put down [paid] the five shillings too (10.975). Seeing this, John Wyse Nolan quotes from act 1, scene 3rd of The Merchant of Venice, saying, “There is much kindness in the jew” (10.980). We realize then that this act of Bloom is acknowledged by others as a real kind one.

We also become here aware of new faces. Among these are Miss Kennedy and Miss Douce, whom we meet again in the Ormond hotel in Sirens, episode 11.