Episode Fourteen, "Oxen of the Sun"

This one was a doozy. If I hadn't been writing this blog, I would have thrown in the towel, but I am, so onward, I trudged. I also had three reference guides to help me along, but, even with them, this was no fun.

Basically, Bloom goes to a maternity hospital, to visit Mina Purefoy, who has been trying to give birth to her 8th living child for the past three days. The hour is 10 p.m., and Stephen Dedalus and some of his rambunctious friends, including two fledgling doctors, are drinking and yakking about sex, childbirth and other topics in a room in the hospital, while the poor woman labors away. Bloom is shocked by the turn of conversation. Both he & Dedalus appear to be outsiders in the episode, Bloom moreso. The action moves on to a bar after it is announced that Mrs. Purefoy has finally had a baby boy. Bloom stays behind and leaves his respects for the new mother

That is it, action-wise, but the total impression of this long and bewildering episode is overwhelmingly of its difficult language - more appropriate for reading by a language scholar or a Ph.D. student of language and literature. Every few paragraphs, the tone and style change completely, supposedly the progression of the English language, starting with Latinate, then Middle English, then progressing to modern slangy (probably American) ad-talk. There are also sections which were written in the style of famous English writers, and the only one of those which gave me any understanding of what was being said was the Dickens bit. I only know about the language development and the different styles belonging to famous authors from reading the www.sparknotes site on the episode, as well as the Wikipedia entry and the entry in my "Annotated Ulysses." Otherwise, I would have been in the dark. I am hoping that my enjoyment level picks up on the next episode. Once again, I was picturing James Joyce, laughing in his grave at all of us, trying to make sense of his wordplay and oblique references.

By the way, the non-oblique reference to the "Oxen of the Sun" (and these titles are not used in the acutal book, but in my guides, based on James Joyce's instsructions) is to the sacred cattle belonging to Helios, which Odysseus' men slaughter for food after he has warned them not to. Odysseus is punished for this - having killed the sacred cows, so to speak - and the idea of profaning the sacred is seen in Episode 14 when the young men discuss pregnancy and birth in such a ribald fashion.

The men in "Ulysses"never go home, and almost no one does any kind of work. They drink; they talk; they carry on about women; the move to the next bar or meeting point. Bloom is avoiding Molly, because he assumes that she has had an assignation with Boylan while he has been walking around the city, musing and making people cranky with his fussy opinions. He just seems to drift from place to place, having done a tiny spot of work in the morning.

I've peeked ahead and see that, in the next episode, Bloom and Dedalus will be drawn together rather dramatically. Hope springs eternal that things will "come together" a bit better for me.