I'm back from a road trip around Canada's Gaspe Peninsula, and I've gotten back to reading "Ulysses." I've just finished episodes three, four and a bit of five. Epidose Three ("Proteus" in my Wikipedia guide) was enough to make me consider researching & buying a good concordance or guide, as it is almost entirely Stephen's stream of consciousness while he is walking on the beach, then urinating, then picking his nose. Episode Four introduces Leoopold Bloom, seemingly Stephen's opposite, as he is lusty, carnal and action-based, as opposed to Stephen's moody passive aggressiveness. Bloom, a kind of advertising salesman, starts his day by going to the butcher to buy kidneys, then fixing breakfast for himself and his wife, Molly, who lies in bed, waiting to be waited on. She seems to have a singing job lined up...and there is a funeral which they will both attend at 11 that day - a fellow named Paddy Dignam. Bloom is occupied with feeding Molly and himself and the cat, reading a letter from his daughter, Milly, who is only 15 but is living away from home and training for a job. Then he defecates in the outhouse, an acitivity which Joyce carefully and lovingly describes, and then he takes off for a walk by a deliberately circuitous route, to pick up a letter from a lover or "love interest," a woman who uses the pseudonym of Martha Clifford, while she addresses him as Henry Flower.
I've fallen into the pattern of reading for plot content and just glossing over the stream of consciousness language - treating those parts as poetry. I am clearly missing things by doing this, but am enjoying the sound of the language - and what language it is! Joyce seems to have created some words, but his prose is also awash with all kinds of language. I am trying to revel in it, too, but will probably have to break down and buy a guidebook from amazon.
Pushing on, into Episode Five...
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Starting Bloomsday with Buck, Stephen and Haines
This really wasn't so hard.
I read the first 36 pages of "Ulysses" last night and stopped at the end of the second episode. I met the plump and bizarrely talkative med student, Buck Mulligan, who spouted Catholic Latin even while shaving early on the morning of "Bloomsday" - June 16, 1904. And I met his flat-mate (or tower-mate), Stephen Dedalus, whom I first encountered 40 years ago when I read Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man," and who, in this book, is sharing rooms in the Martello Tower, overlooking Dublin Bay with Buck. Stephen is a passive-aggressive, deeply moody school teacher, haunted by the recent death of his mother. Then, I met Haines, a foppish Oxford-educated Brit, who seems to be Buck's house guest and a constant irritation to Stephen, although he swallows his irritation and mutters to himself.
They all go down to the rocky beach so that Buck may swim after his shave. I must say, he certainly leads these two around by the nose. Following this, they share breakfast in their tower rooms. Then, in the second episode, Stephen is facing his classroom, trying to get them to concentrate on a boring bit of classical history - the victory of Pyrrhus of Epirus (the fellow who said "another victory like that and we are done for" and gave the world the phrase "Pyrrhic victory.") The boys can't wait to be released so that they may play hockey and are cranky when Stephen tells them a truly weird riddle - totally incomprehensible. Stephen, who tortures himself over his refusal to pray with his mother at her death bed (probably due to the fact that he no longer believes in the Church), sees in one pitiful little student, whom he tries to help with his sums after the other boys have left for hockey, a child whom only a mother could love, thereby reminding himself of his own mother's love. Stephen is clearly a fellow who knows how to torture himself. The headmaster, Mr. Deasy, calls Stephen to his office and proceeds to lecture him on how to save the wages he is paying him, gives him a very strange article on hoof and mouth disease he'd like Stephen to give to his contacts at the local newspapers and then sets forth several vile anti-Semitic pronouncements and one anti-Semitic "joke," and that ends the second episode.
There is plenty of the stream-of-consciousness, which I was warned about in the Wikipedia article, and I understand that the book will become more and more "streamy" as it progresses.
I have not yet met Leopold Bloom, around whom the book is structured, but I see from my Wikipedia notes that he will be introduced in the fourth episode. The same Wikipedia notes explain the classic references and the original classical headings to the episodes. Not being a student of the classics, I never learned any of these allusions, so I am having to refer to the notes for help.
We're told that Bloom, when he is introduced, will represent Odysseus or Ulysses; Stephen, his questing son, Telemachus; and Molly Bloom (Leopold's wife), Penelope - all from the "Iliad". The first three episodes are named "Telemachus," "Nestor" and "Proteus," characters whom I find nicely explained in Wikipedia but whose links to the text remain to be made clear to me. It is Leopold or Ulysses we are to follow through "an ordinary day" in Dublin on June 16, 1904, and we are to see the classical parallels throughout. This is where I need help.
That, and the Latin/Catholic phrases throughout.
And, of course, like so many people before me, I am wondering if James Joyce wrote "Ulysses" just to torture generations of English professors, English students and the like. He is said to have chuckled over the "puzzles" he planted throughout the book.
However, if I read the text quickly, looking for the bits and pieces that move the story forward, this seems to work, so that is how I will proceed. I'll check in with this blog after I've read the next two episodes. I'm hoping that some of you will want to read along with me and share your thoughts or explain any of the Latin and classical references as well as the "puns and parodies and allusions" we are promised in the Wikipedia article. My husband and I are planning a little road trip in a few days, so it may be a while until my next posting.
I read the first 36 pages of "Ulysses" last night and stopped at the end of the second episode. I met the plump and bizarrely talkative med student, Buck Mulligan, who spouted Catholic Latin even while shaving early on the morning of "Bloomsday" - June 16, 1904. And I met his flat-mate (or tower-mate), Stephen Dedalus, whom I first encountered 40 years ago when I read Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man," and who, in this book, is sharing rooms in the Martello Tower, overlooking Dublin Bay with Buck. Stephen is a passive-aggressive, deeply moody school teacher, haunted by the recent death of his mother. Then, I met Haines, a foppish Oxford-educated Brit, who seems to be Buck's house guest and a constant irritation to Stephen, although he swallows his irritation and mutters to himself.
They all go down to the rocky beach so that Buck may swim after his shave. I must say, he certainly leads these two around by the nose. Following this, they share breakfast in their tower rooms. Then, in the second episode, Stephen is facing his classroom, trying to get them to concentrate on a boring bit of classical history - the victory of Pyrrhus of Epirus (the fellow who said "another victory like that and we are done for" and gave the world the phrase "Pyrrhic victory.") The boys can't wait to be released so that they may play hockey and are cranky when Stephen tells them a truly weird riddle - totally incomprehensible. Stephen, who tortures himself over his refusal to pray with his mother at her death bed (probably due to the fact that he no longer believes in the Church), sees in one pitiful little student, whom he tries to help with his sums after the other boys have left for hockey, a child whom only a mother could love, thereby reminding himself of his own mother's love. Stephen is clearly a fellow who knows how to torture himself. The headmaster, Mr. Deasy, calls Stephen to his office and proceeds to lecture him on how to save the wages he is paying him, gives him a very strange article on hoof and mouth disease he'd like Stephen to give to his contacts at the local newspapers and then sets forth several vile anti-Semitic pronouncements and one anti-Semitic "joke," and that ends the second episode.
There is plenty of the stream-of-consciousness, which I was warned about in the Wikipedia article, and I understand that the book will become more and more "streamy" as it progresses.
I have not yet met Leopold Bloom, around whom the book is structured, but I see from my Wikipedia notes that he will be introduced in the fourth episode. The same Wikipedia notes explain the classic references and the original classical headings to the episodes. Not being a student of the classics, I never learned any of these allusions, so I am having to refer to the notes for help.
We're told that Bloom, when he is introduced, will represent Odysseus or Ulysses; Stephen, his questing son, Telemachus; and Molly Bloom (Leopold's wife), Penelope - all from the "Iliad". The first three episodes are named "Telemachus," "Nestor" and "Proteus," characters whom I find nicely explained in Wikipedia but whose links to the text remain to be made clear to me. It is Leopold or Ulysses we are to follow through "an ordinary day" in Dublin on June 16, 1904, and we are to see the classical parallels throughout. This is where I need help.
That, and the Latin/Catholic phrases throughout.
And, of course, like so many people before me, I am wondering if James Joyce wrote "Ulysses" just to torture generations of English professors, English students and the like. He is said to have chuckled over the "puzzles" he planted throughout the book.
However, if I read the text quickly, looking for the bits and pieces that move the story forward, this seems to work, so that is how I will proceed. I'll check in with this blog after I've read the next two episodes. I'm hoping that some of you will want to read along with me and share your thoughts or explain any of the Latin and classical references as well as the "puns and parodies and allusions" we are promised in the Wikipedia article. My husband and I are planning a little road trip in a few days, so it may be a while until my next posting.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Conquering the Classics
I am starting this blog to help me, and hopefully others, finally conquer those classics of literature, which have seemed to me to be too long, too difficult or too complex to read on my own or in book groups. I was an English major at Duke University, and I have my masters in Journalism from Columbia University and am currently the member of three book groups, but, even with that background, I have never worked up my courage to tackle "Ulysses" by James Joyce or "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann. I am completely intimidated by these two, which are considered masterpieces by so many academics and book editors.
I'll start reading "Ulysses," armed with my newly printed Wikipedia entry on the novel, which explains each chapter. I'll post my reactions and questions as I work my way - slowly - through "Ulysses," and I'll see how it goes.
I hope that this inspires others to read along, so that I end up with a kind of virtual book group. I will keep the number of pages I read between postings down to about 30 pages, and see how that works. The edition that I am using, if this helps you, is the Vintage International 1990 edition (a division of Random House), a paperback. There are 783 pages of text, so that would mean I'd be making at least 26 postings, if I hold to the 30-pages-at-a-time idea.
I look forward to hearing from you with answers to my questions or opinions or helpful hints, as I work my way through "Ulysses." Then, after "Ulysses," I hope to conquer a few more English language classics. Join me, won't you?
I'll start reading "Ulysses," armed with my newly printed Wikipedia entry on the novel, which explains each chapter. I'll post my reactions and questions as I work my way - slowly - through "Ulysses," and I'll see how it goes.
I hope that this inspires others to read along, so that I end up with a kind of virtual book group. I will keep the number of pages I read between postings down to about 30 pages, and see how that works. The edition that I am using, if this helps you, is the Vintage International 1990 edition (a division of Random House), a paperback. There are 783 pages of text, so that would mean I'd be making at least 26 postings, if I hold to the 30-pages-at-a-time idea.
I look forward to hearing from you with answers to my questions or opinions or helpful hints, as I work my way through "Ulysses." Then, after "Ulysses," I hope to conquer a few more English language classics. Join me, won't you?
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