**ulysses**

This is for all non-EC or peripheral-EC topics. We all know how much we love talking about 'The Man' but sometimes we have other interests.
User avatar
El Vez
Posts: 2085
Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2003 4:44 pm
Location: Heart Attack & Vine

Post by El Vez »

Kirk Douglas was decent although he basically reprised the same performance, to much greater effect, in Spartacus. Anthony Quinn had just finished giving his greatest screen performance in La Strada so his nothing part in this film is a bit disappointing. Also, the dubbing was almost deliberately atrocicious.

Overall, not a bad film to sit through in 10th grade history but probably not something you'd want to watch again and again. I'm not sure what everyone is talking about when they say it is "difficult."
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

And what of the 60s version with Milo O'Shea as Bloom? (Way better than Stephen Rea in the recent film 'Bloom' which I happened upon on BBC3 the other day, and it was tosh.) I had the honour of seeing this at an Oxford cinema introduced by none other than the late Richard Ellmann, biographer par excellence of Joyce, not to mention Yeats and Wilde.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

hey, i can't keep up w/ the long posts here! not that i'm saying stop, but more - GOSH! wow.

don't anybody feel intimidated. we'll all keep up as best we can.

i plan on reading it this week, and chattering.

i'm good at chattering.
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

That was Maria, having her say before going AWOL on us! Nice stuff.

Why be intimidated?

Will I find the time to re-read the requisite pages? Weird memories of being a student 20 years ago with the same assignment...
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
lapinsjolis
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2003 1:23 am
Location: In the cloud of unknowing
Contact:

Post by lapinsjolis »

Where is everybody or has the general tone of the board repulsed everyone?
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
Mr. Misery
Posts: 213
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:10 pm
Location: The barren pathways

Post by Mr. Misery »

I'm not sure if anyone is still enthusiastic about this project, but I'll give my reading notes on the first section anyway.

The myth of The Odyssey is the arc to Joyce's novel and provides the framework, but knowing that story and those figures isn't mandatory, although that information can be useful and interesting for its own sake. Personal details also no doubt inform many aspects of the story, but that's true of most writers and their work.

The first chapter may be known to some as "Telemachus" but in the published version it is simply numbered. The author removed the Homeric chapter titles from Ulysses, yet teachers love to reinstate them ostensibly for clarity but actually because of hubris. To me the point of the myth parallel is that there are elements of the heroic in the humdrum daily struggle.

Chapter 1

A tower by the sea. Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus are contrasted. Thoroughly modern Mulligan makes a mockery of religion and death alike, intoning a parody version of Mass and treating the death of Stephen's mother with beastly insensitivity. Stephen may have rejected his Catholic upbringing but he does so with the utmost seriousness, and his apostasy has brought him mostly unhappiness and unrest. He broods on the death of his mother and his actions on her deathbed. He had refused her request to kneel and pray, being true to his unbelief. But the question of whether he should have suspended that to comfort his dying mother is one he broods upon and which causes him remorse of conscience. It is an abiding question.

Haines is introduced but seems significant only for his Englishness; the history between England and Ireland is evoked. The sea has many symbolic associations but in league with obsessive thoughts the maternal ones predominate. "She is what Algy called her, a grey sweet mother." A witty pun to unravel: Algy = Algernon, first name of Swinburne. Algy = algae, a form of seaweed. Petulantly Stephen refuses to bathe in the sea with the other two, despite Buck's urgings. Symbolism aside, I'm with Mulligan in this debate.

Chapter 2

Stephen teaches history, and this is appropriate given his obsession with the past. He has a wealth of knowledge but is not skilled in communicating it to his students perhaps because he revels in his superiority to them. His encounter with an insufferable schoolmaster follows. Mr. Deasy--a sort of anti-Semitic Polonius--delivers hateful homilies and wheedles a promise to get his letter to the editor submitted. Stephen can't wait to escape him. He is surrounded by people and ideas he detests.

Chapter 3

This is a difficult chapter to read, and I'm not sure I deciphered more than a fraction of it. There is a barrage of stream of consciousness that flows into an ocean of it. These cryptic and allusive references may be right for a cerebral and serious young man, but at times they seem implausible and impossible. Perhaps when the whole work is read it will all be illuminated and clear. Walking by the sea Stephen returns to thoughts of his mother, trying to discover meaning, and prose rises to the level of poetry:

"Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in new sockets... My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore's tempting flow."
Last edited by Mr. Misery on Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
ImageImage
I've had you so many times but somehow I want more.
User avatar
lapinsjolis
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2003 1:23 am
Location: In the cloud of unknowing
Contact:

Post by lapinsjolis »

Mr. Misery-Gasp! A Swinburne reference I failed to note. Thank you so much. I agree with everything you got out of it. The set up is clear and the last section very fragmentary filled with symbols and images. To make a long praise short (too late) here are my notes from long ago:

The first section starts with the dastardly Mulligan. He prays 'come to the table' in Latin and readies himself from the day. Allusion to Mass sets the stage for the epic of Stephen's personal passion, as we see him coming to terms with death, unbelief and the weakness of humanity.

His character is clear from his refusal to kneel at the death bed of his mother to the rejection of gray pants. He is as staunch in his ideals as any pious man and will not be moved. His disdain to serve and for those around him cause him to suffer with every word they utter.

Joyce presents a sort of Triune motherhood. The horrific vision he conjures with the odor of sanctity being replaced by the decay and corruption of the earth seems to blend his mother with the Church. The sea as well is offered as a mother figure. All mysterious, revered, obeyed, nurturing and feared. He senses the power of the invisible but attributes it to more of an elemental than a spiritual encounter.

Stephen is Christ-like in that Joyce makes it clear he lives among lesser men but Stephen sees Haines as a familiar and not an apostle. It isn't as cut and dry as that. There is no virtue in Stephen of a heroic nature and virtue is seen as a limitation. Still he suffers. Serving neither God or the mammon.

He is the Hamlet, the literary skeptic , with all the plaguing troubles about his mother only half revealed. I found Mulligan a perverse Aquinas figure. The dumb ox spouting nonsense. He does not marry reason and faith nor respect either.

He expresses nationality almost as a religion but sees the Church's power to be much more sinister and encompassing. Joyce takes off with the catholic aspect-universal. He makes the connection of all things through the earth, the elements, our humanity rather than religion or origin of birth and sees this difference as killing and petty. But is it inescapable?

The section with Lilly sets us up for upcoming, and in Joyce's view, inevitable exploration of the sensual. At first he laments his struggle and loss of innocence. But the siren's call the lure of nature makes him feel powerless against the seductive nature of women. Both sexes at the mercy of their own instincts.

The curse of the fathers on their children is expressed in lessons and wealth that will ruin minds. (render unto Cesar) Stephen lives in the past and others only in the present. Joyce uses the Eucharist as the symbol of father and son entwined, the power of lineage, the worship of it. He senses the fatality in such a narrow view and something fateful as well.

Mr. Deasy reduces all to money and hatred. as the money dances on Deasy we see Stephen's mind shift sideways, as it were, haunted by images and thoughts. He sees himself in everything and in nothing. It takes him to the end of the passion. desperate and alone. He thirsts for a human connection tired of clinging to the past finding not comfort in his implacable ideals he is open to experience a true bond with another person. He is ready, at last to humble himself and be touched.

Sorry for the interminable length! :oops:
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

okay, i'm in the middle of the section where stephen is waiting for mr. deasy to finish his damned letter so he can get the hell outta there. :)

i appreciate your notes, LJ and MM, though they make me wince for the section (chapter 3) ahead.

i don't have any great thoughts about it yet, but here are my reactions so far:

gosh, this stuff is DENSE. (okay, i knew that going in, but i keep realizing it anew every time i pick it up again.)

i'm intrigued by stephen's thoughts re: his mother's death. perhaps it's because this is one thing i can relate to, having lost my mother.

also, his reaction to the boy who can't do sums also spoke to me. 'futility.' but didn't stephen also see himself in the boy? since stephen seems to be superior to others, how does him seeing himself in this dull boy fit in?


and that's as far as i've gotten. :) i'll catch up.

i figure, anything i get outta this will be worthwhile. i will have read ulysses by joyce. how many people can say that? :)
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Sorry, folks. Been dead busy and will carry on being so, but would like to read what you're saying and contribute, maybe. Ain't had time to re-read, sadly.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
lapinsjolis
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2003 1:23 am
Location: In the cloud of unknowing
Contact:

Post by lapinsjolis »

Poppet and Otis!!!! Am I taking this too seriously? I was all ready for the next assignment. Would you like to do this privately?

P.S. Poppet-you picked up on exactly why Stephen feels an affinity with the boy-everything seems futile to him at this point in the book. His knowledge, his grief-nothing gives him comfort and all seems pointless.
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

okay, got it. stephen thinks things are pointless, and trying to teach this lump of a kid is pointless too. okay. well, at least stephen continues to show up to work, that's something.

i'm all for keeping this thread going. take it as seriously as you want, as long as you aren't gonna bash me for sounding flippant about it. 'cause it's what i do.

besides, i expect we have people reading who aren't participating. wouldn't want to deprive them of our fun.

i'll keep plugging. ready to start chapter 3! :)
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
Goody2Shoes
Posts: 1301
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:24 pm
Location: bouncing over a white cloud

Post by Goody2Shoes »

Yes, there are people reading along who aren't participating, but are nonetheless enjoying the discussion. :)

I'd contribute if I could, but I'm hopelessly inarticulate in these matters. My brain simply doesn't work that way. I'm having flashbacks to my high school and college days when I would sit in awe of my classmates, thinking, "Where did she get that? Why can't I do that?" So, please, continue, if it's not too much trouble.

Mr. Misery, I appreciate your insights regarding Stephen's refusal to pray at his mother's deathbed. It is an abiding question: what of ourselves are we willing to give up for the happiness of those we love, and how are our choices reconciled in the end? It is a prominent issue in my own life.

On an strictly procedural note, my edition doesn't have numbered chapters. There are 3 numbered sections, the second being quite long. I gather from the discussion that the first "section" comprises the first 3 chapters, but what of the very long second section?
It's a radiation vibe I'm groovin' on
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

re: next section - no clue yet. will try to figure out how to break it up, unless someone else has a good suggestion (Otis?).

i started chapter 3, and *it's my favorite so far*!

i'm finding it much easier to read than the conversations of the previous chapters. i read along for a page or so until i come to a natural breaking point, and come back later.

also, my one semester of french is actually handy, i can sound out the words and often, though not always, figure out what's been said. the latin i generally have very little clue, less than the french. however i do understand the german. pity there's so little of it. :)

i'm wondering when bloom shows up, but hanging out in stephen's head is okay too.
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Joyce deleted the chapter (or if you prefer, episode) names and, I think, numbers from the manuscript. It's easy to see where they start and end due to the flattened-diamond graphic device that separates them (which I assume looks the same in all editions, though I've only ever really seen different Penguin ones). The only numbers that remain are for the three main parts/sections (or perhaps they should be referred to as chapters, not sure if there's a standard approach here). I'm not sure if the part names were Joyce's or added by scholars. Here as a reference is a listing of all parts and episodes, giving you their opening and closing words to avoid confusion, plus page numbers in my Penguin edition, in case that helps, as well as the setting. May be a useful reference list as you work through.

PART 1 TELEMACHIAD

1. Telemachus
The Martello tower, 'Stately, plump Buck Mulligan' to 'Usurper'. pp. 9-29

2. Nestor
Mr Deasy's school, 'You, Cochrane' to 'dancing coins', pp. 30-42

3. Proteus
Sandymount strand, 'Ineluctable modality' to 'a silent ship', pp. 42-56

PART 2 ODYSSEY

4. Calypso
Breakfast at 7 Eccles Street, 'Mr Leopold Bloom' to 'Poor Dignam'. pp. 57-72

5. Lotus-Eaters
Bloom in the streets, 'By lorries' to 'languid floating flower', pp. 72-88

6. Hades
Dignam's funeral, 'Martin Cunningham' to 'How grand we are this morning', pp. 88-117

7. Aeolus
The newspaper office, 'In the heart of' to 'truth was known', pp. 118-150

8. Lestrygonians
Bloom in the streets: lunchtime, 'Pineapple rock' to 'Safe!', pp. 150-183

9. Scylla and Charybdis
The National Library, 'Urbane' to 'bless'd altars', pp. 184-218

10. Wandering Rocks
Dublin: afternoon streets, 'The superior' to 'by a closing door', pp. 218-254
[N.B. This is the only episode to use the graphic device to separate sub-sections of the episode, of which there are 19 in total]

11. Sirens
Ormond Restaurant, 'Bronze by gold' to 'Done', pp. 254-290

12. Cyclops
Barney Kiernan' pub, 'I was just passing' to 'shot off a shovel', pp. 290-343

13. Nausicaa
Sandymount strand: Gerty MacDowell, 'The summer evening' to 'Cuckoo', pp. 344-380

14. Oxen of the Sun
Maternity hospital, Holles St., 'Deshil Holles Eamus' to 'Just you try it on', pp. 380-425

15. Circe
Nighttown, '(The Mabbot Street' to 'his waistcoat poket)', pp. 425-532

PART 3 NOSTOS ('return')

16. Eumaeus
The cabman's shelter, 'Preparatory to' to 'lowbacked car', pp. 533-586

17. Ithaca
7 Eccles St: Bloom and Stephen, 'What parallel courses' to '•', pp. 586-658

18. Penelope
Molly Bloom's monologue, 'Yes because he never did' to 'yes I said yes I will Yes', pp. 659-704
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Regarding reading rate, a section a week would suit me, as I am worried I won't be able to fit this into an over-full life. As you can see, there's a lot of variation in the length of them. Some are quicker and easier to read than others.

I want to re-read to reassess my own views on it and just to reacquaint myself with details, and see if it still impresses me as much to read it (I'm sure I'll see a lot more than I did as a callow 20 year old).

One thing I can do, and am more than happy to, is help out with allusions of all sorts. My 'Allusions in Ulysses' book sits beside the computer and is very comprehensive. There's only one ref it doesn't explain, and frustratingly it's one of the things in the book I would most like more detail on, but more of that when the time comes...
Last edited by Otis Westinghouse on Thu Jul 08, 2004 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
Goody2Shoes
Posts: 1301
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:24 pm
Location: bouncing over a white cloud

Post by Goody2Shoes »

Wow, Mr. Westinghouse, that's quite a list there, and thanks.

Sadly, I have no 'flattened diamonds', but upon closer examination of my book, the first line of each chapter (or whatever) is all caps, which really should have clued me in the first time through.
It's a radiation vibe I'm groovin' on
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Ah ha, so the flattened diamonds are the publishers' decision, not an insistence that has been in the script throughout. I wonder how they looked on the original Shakespeare and Co. edition.

Dang, no requests for me to explain Latin, French, Dublin, literary or whatever allusions with the help of my tome. Probably just as well as I've been tanking up on booze in the gorgeous hall of Cambridge's oldest college, Peterhouse, and woule only get muddled.

Hope my list gets used. It only took me an hour to compile (though admittedly I was annotating my book with the headings and also the page numbers on a list of the chapter headings and locations I copied from a book on Joyce so I can have an easy reference to where they all start and stop).
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

using otis' numbered sections (which i printed out to stick in my copy so i'd remember which was which)

how about we go for a section a week - so the next section up is for MONDAY, section 4.

comments? concerns? :)

i'm in NYC next week (anybody wanna get together? i need to post w/ that as well). i expect to be online.
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Good news! Glad to have been of service. Section a week is good. Calypso is great fun. Bloom in the streets and in the toilet. Look out for Denny's sausages ref. Still a household name, with 100,000 of their saussies being cooked on Bloomsday this year!
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
Poppet
Posts: 939
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:49 am
Location: Boston, MA USA

Post by Poppet »

you say Denny's sausages, and i think of the chain restaurant here, Denny's, w/ the 'Grand Slam' breakfasts. all the cholesterol, all the fat, instant clogged arteries, and way yummy. if you can stomach that sort o' thing.
... name the stars and constellations,
count the cars and watch the seasons....
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Hilarious! A Joycean restaurant chain. I tried to find a connection between the two, but failed. The chain is 50 years old. I was wondering if a member of the Irish sausage industry had headed west.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
Mr. Misery
Posts: 213
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:10 pm
Location: The barren pathways

Post by Mr. Misery »

I never knew of the sausage link, as it were, to Ulysses. The great American sausage maker Jimmy Dean shares Joyce's first name but beyond that the two are unrelated.

Section 2, chapter 4 (Otis is right, chapters or episodes are not numbered in the text, I was supplying them mentally.) We are introduced to Leopold Bloom. Where Stephen is cerebral and spiritual, Bloom is earthy and living the life of the senses. "Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine." To each his own. Later it is described as "toothsome pliant meat." That sounds better.

There is a great sense of motion, sights, sounds, smells and textures in the ordinary goings on of that Dublin morning. And a good deal of exposition--Bloom is married to sensual Molly, is the sort who can go out to get her breakfast but follows another woman along the way, has a naive young daughter and mourns his lost son, speaks to his cat more than his butcher (I can relate to that one), and will attend a funeral in short order.
Last edited by Mr. Misery on Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
ImageImage
I've had you so many times but somehow I want more.
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

I love Calypso, a feast of writing, as witnessed in those lines above. A great introduction to Bloom, and a great taste of life on the streets of Dublin. Some great humour too, like the description of the girl from next door's 'hams' as Bloom admires her walking down the street after meditating on her, anxious over her ordering the last kidney, at the porkbutcher's.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
mood swung
Posts: 6908
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2003 3:59 pm
Location: out looking for my tribe
Contact:

Post by mood swung »

I have an eight pound reference book and I'm still all ears. continue!


and if anybody can make that S-M-P thing a little clearer, I'd appreciate it.
Like me, the "g" is silent.
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

S-M-P?
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
Post Reply