Here is what Frank O'Connor (my hero) wrote about Ulysses: "Take Ulysses, which is twenty-four hours, and I maintain it's a long short story. And it was wirtten as a short story, don't forget that. It was orginally entitled 'Mr. Hunter's Day.' And it's still 'Mr. Hunter's Day' and it still is thirty pages. It's all development sideways. That's really what I was talking about: the difference between the novel, which is not a novel, which is an extension sideways. It doesn't lead forward, it doesn't lead your mind forward... 'So now boys, having finished with this brief moment of our novel, we'll go backward for a while.' And all the time they're just going out like that because they're afraid to go forward." (Paris Review 1957)
I'm beginning to believe that Frank O'Connor was right--Ulysses is a short story that goes ashort way forward, then a long way sideways, then backwards a bit, then a bit or two forward. I'm trying to read it like a story, and the story IS quite exceptional, but James keeps distracting me with the sideways to the Church, to Greek allusions, and the contemporary Irish history and politics.
You can pick up a synopsis of episode 2 in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULysses_(novel) but there are some interesting insights into Stephen Dedalus and the Irish soul in the 2nd episode: For one, I think Stephen is humiliated by Deasy's stupid joke about Jews in Ireland--Irish (at least Irish-Americans) don't like to be butts of stupid jokes, or taken in by a ignorant joker like Deasy.
The episode also continues a blasphemous tone, for which the book is famous.
I love the internal monologues--When he's helping the young Sargent with his homework: Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him under foot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes... These are the same terms he had used in the previous episode in thinking of his own mother.
The genius in Ulysses is in these internal musings--however far sideways they may take the reader. Too, James often uses the cadence or rhythm of a prayer or the rhythm of ancient Irish poems--brightness which brightness--mien and movement--As it was in the beginning, is now--riddle me, riddle me--History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake...
I have to keep reminding myself that I'm reading Ulysses as a story and not as a piece of scholarhip. However, James is with me throughout the story--I can't seem to shake him from my shoulder as I read his work.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Story Starts This Way...
The story starts with three young men in a tower—Buck Milligan, Stephen Dedalus and Haines. I know it is a tower-like structure because according to my “companion” Robert Ellmann, Joyce lived in the Martello tower in Sandycove when he was about twenty-one, right after his mother had died and during the time he had returned to Dublin from Trieste. The tower was one of seventy-four which the British had hastily put up along the English and Irish coasts in 1804 in fear of a French invasion.
Oliver St. John Gogarty, another Dublin writer and a kind-of friend of Joyce’s, leased the tower, which he called Omphalos (naval structure). The third renter or guest in the tower was Samuel Chenevix Trnch, the model for the Haines character.
Here is the story behind this opening scene, according to Ellmann: On the night of September 14, Trench had a nightmare about a black panther, and began to shoot at it with a gun. Gogarty got the gun away and added a barrage of his own, aimed at the pots and pans above Joyce’s bed. Upon this action, Joyce dressed, left, ended the friendship with Gogarty (which was on the rocks, anyway, since Joyce had recently written a pamphlet ridiculing most of the Dublin writers, Gorgarty included), as well as his relationship with Ireland.
The incident is significant for two reasons—Joyce early on had decided to have this be the opening scene for his great book Ulysses, and he determined that night to be done once and for all with Ireland.
Stephen Dedalus is a sympathetic character—moody, very Irish, wears hand-me-downs from Mulligan, broods about the tower, and is subservient or, at least differential to the other two. Mulligan is also Irish, probably more Anglo-Irish—he’s self-assured, dismissive of Dedalus’ brooding and quite confident; in the end, he demands the key to the tower, though Stephen Dedalus pays the rent.
The theme of the 1st episode is the conflict within Stephen about his recently-deceased mother and how he had not granted her last wish—to kneel and pray with him. The guilt is shown in a brilliantly relayed dream, which Milligan dismisses. Milligan senses that Stephen has a problem with him. Stephen finally admits that Milligan had insulted Stephen when he had dismissed the death of his mother with an off-hand remark. “Don’t mope over it all day, he [Mulligan] said. I’m inconsequent. Give up the moody brooding.”
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twinning stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twinning chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay behind him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’ song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark cords. Her door was open; she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed.
Scholars read an immense amount of symbolism, mythology, imagery and literature into every word of Ulysses, but these two paragraphs, as well as Stephen Dedalus’ brooding manner, his sharply written memories and insight; the characters of Mulligan and Haines are really why James Joyce’s Ulysses should be read as a story not a piece of scholarship. By the end of this first episode, Joyce has created real characters in a real world with a real story.
The remaining parts of the episode are full of Shakespeare, Homer, Zarathustra, discussions about the Church and free thinkers, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and the imperial British State.
From a writers point of view (as opposed to the Joyce scholar), these topics are all legitimate topics for three young, educated and literate Irishmen to discuss on a freewheeling morning. Joycean scholars read each of these topics as Joyce predicted that they would—tediously trying to figure out what he meant.
Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael’s host, who defends her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.
Hear, hear. Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu!
--Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’ voice said, and I feel as one…”
The above is just one example throughout the first episode of the smooth transition from Stephen Dedalus’ inner monologue (his famous stream of consciousness) to the world of acquaintances swirling about him.
Again, scholars dissect every word of this beginning episode. However the story is there, the characters are developed, the technique is art and the dialog is real. A real story with real people in a real world—that should be the joy of this odyssey.
A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far out on the water, round.
Usurper.
In the end, as the three young men part down near the sea, Mulligan demands the key to the tower even though Stephen pays the rent—the word Usurper enters Stephen’s head as he leaves them.
Perhaps you need to be Irish Catholic to appreciate this scene and the dialog; perhaps you need to have lived or spent time in Dublin; perhaps you need to be a Joycean--in any case--so far this story works for me.
I see now, too, Homer is going to have to be one of my "companions" during this year and a day.
I'll be posting as I read the story---comment as you wish. However, all you Joyce scholars--remember I'm reading Ulysses as a story not a tome.
Oliver St. John Gogarty, another Dublin writer and a kind-of friend of Joyce’s, leased the tower, which he called Omphalos (naval structure). The third renter or guest in the tower was Samuel Chenevix Trnch, the model for the Haines character.
Here is the story behind this opening scene, according to Ellmann: On the night of September 14, Trench had a nightmare about a black panther, and began to shoot at it with a gun. Gogarty got the gun away and added a barrage of his own, aimed at the pots and pans above Joyce’s bed. Upon this action, Joyce dressed, left, ended the friendship with Gogarty (which was on the rocks, anyway, since Joyce had recently written a pamphlet ridiculing most of the Dublin writers, Gorgarty included), as well as his relationship with Ireland.
The incident is significant for two reasons—Joyce early on had decided to have this be the opening scene for his great book Ulysses, and he determined that night to be done once and for all with Ireland.
Stephen Dedalus is a sympathetic character—moody, very Irish, wears hand-me-downs from Mulligan, broods about the tower, and is subservient or, at least differential to the other two. Mulligan is also Irish, probably more Anglo-Irish—he’s self-assured, dismissive of Dedalus’ brooding and quite confident; in the end, he demands the key to the tower, though Stephen Dedalus pays the rent.
The theme of the 1st episode is the conflict within Stephen about his recently-deceased mother and how he had not granted her last wish—to kneel and pray with him. The guilt is shown in a brilliantly relayed dream, which Milligan dismisses. Milligan senses that Stephen has a problem with him. Stephen finally admits that Milligan had insulted Stephen when he had dismissed the death of his mother with an off-hand remark. “Don’t mope over it all day, he [Mulligan] said. I’m inconsequent. Give up the moody brooding.”
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twinning stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twinning chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green. It lay behind him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’ song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark cords. Her door was open; she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed.
Scholars read an immense amount of symbolism, mythology, imagery and literature into every word of Ulysses, but these two paragraphs, as well as Stephen Dedalus’ brooding manner, his sharply written memories and insight; the characters of Mulligan and Haines are really why James Joyce’s Ulysses should be read as a story not a piece of scholarship. By the end of this first episode, Joyce has created real characters in a real world with a real story.
The remaining parts of the episode are full of Shakespeare, Homer, Zarathustra, discussions about the Church and free thinkers, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and the imperial British State.
From a writers point of view (as opposed to the Joyce scholar), these topics are all legitimate topics for three young, educated and literate Irishmen to discuss on a freewheeling morning. Joycean scholars read each of these topics as Joyce predicted that they would—tediously trying to figure out what he meant.
Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael’s host, who defends her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.
Hear, hear. Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu!
--Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’ voice said, and I feel as one…”
The above is just one example throughout the first episode of the smooth transition from Stephen Dedalus’ inner monologue (his famous stream of consciousness) to the world of acquaintances swirling about him.
Again, scholars dissect every word of this beginning episode. However the story is there, the characters are developed, the technique is art and the dialog is real. A real story with real people in a real world—that should be the joy of this odyssey.
A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far out on the water, round.
Usurper.
In the end, as the three young men part down near the sea, Mulligan demands the key to the tower even though Stephen pays the rent—the word Usurper enters Stephen’s head as he leaves them.
Perhaps you need to be Irish Catholic to appreciate this scene and the dialog; perhaps you need to have lived or spent time in Dublin; perhaps you need to be a Joycean--in any case--so far this story works for me.
I see now, too, Homer is going to have to be one of my "companions" during this year and a day.
I'll be posting as I read the story---comment as you wish. However, all you Joyce scholars--remember I'm reading Ulysses as a story not a tome.
A Year and a Day Married to James Joyce's Ulysses
“… In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring…” Section III of The Monumental Decision of the United States District Court Rendered December 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey Lifting the Ban on “Ulysses.”
James’ Joyce’s Ulysses always makes it to the top 100 best novels in the world, forever and ever, often making # 1. That’s like the Academy Award for the best movie ever made; the best Grammy in the history of the world, the Tony for every play ever produced on Broadway, the Booker Prize for life everlasting.
On New Year’s Eve, I asked numerous seriously-educated friends if they had ever read Ulysses—
“Half, maybe…”
“I tried, but we didn’t get along…”
“I’ve always been meaning to…”
I mean this is considered THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Me? I have read half of Ulysses three times in my life—once when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley; once when I was a history graduate student in Colorado; and another as I commuted daily on the bus to and from University of Washington for yet another graduate degree. Each time I crawled my way to the halfway mark and simply could not go any further. I was worn out. I could never make it to the end--my Odyssey ended in the middle of the ocean. I gave up.
“Ulysses is not an easy book to read or to understand.” So said our Hon. John M. Woolsey when he had to plow through it for his rendered opinion. “The study of Ulysses is, therefore, a heavy task.”
This time, I’m going to finish James Joyce’s masterpiece—I am…I am...I am.
Like James Joyce in his loyalty to technique and who went about honestly attempting to tell fully what his characters think about, I will not funk my duty to read him fully, to think about what his characters are thinking about, and understand who they are and why they do what they do that one day in June in Dublin. I intend to read Ulysses as a piece of literature not a piece of scholarship. I want to read a story not a dissertation.
The Story: In a nutshell (again, thanks to the Hon. John Woolsey’s record-making opinion) … In Ulysses, Joyce takes persons of lower middle class living in Dublin in 1904 and seeks not only to describe what they did on a certain day early in June of that year as they went about the City bent on their usual occupations, but also to tell what many of them thought about the while.
Woolsey also believed that you can’t understand the book unless you have some companion studies. I’m armed with mine—Wikipedia (however, I’ve read the first episode of Ulysses and I’m already beyond the Wikipedia analysis); Ulysses on the Liffey by Richard Ellmanm, 1971 (me thinks he overanalyzes what Joyce enjoyed doing—interspersing bits from Homer, Shakespeare, and Mother Church), and A Lonely Voice by Frank O’Connor, 1961 (O'Connor preferred The Dubliners over Ulysses).
As I go along, I’ll pick up more “companion” pieces—this time around, we'll all get it right.
I’m armed…I’m ready and I’ve got myself a year and a day.
Oh--why Handfasting Ulysses as the title for this blog? Handfasting is an ancient Celtic marriage ceremony where the couple has a year and a day to decide if they want to stay in a marraige. I'm kind of feeling like I need such a commitment on this project.
James’ Joyce’s Ulysses always makes it to the top 100 best novels in the world, forever and ever, often making # 1. That’s like the Academy Award for the best movie ever made; the best Grammy in the history of the world, the Tony for every play ever produced on Broadway, the Booker Prize for life everlasting.
On New Year’s Eve, I asked numerous seriously-educated friends if they had ever read Ulysses—
“Half, maybe…”
“I tried, but we didn’t get along…”
“I’ve always been meaning to…”
I mean this is considered THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Me? I have read half of Ulysses three times in my life—once when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley; once when I was a history graduate student in Colorado; and another as I commuted daily on the bus to and from University of Washington for yet another graduate degree. Each time I crawled my way to the halfway mark and simply could not go any further. I was worn out. I could never make it to the end--my Odyssey ended in the middle of the ocean. I gave up.
“Ulysses is not an easy book to read or to understand.” So said our Hon. John M. Woolsey when he had to plow through it for his rendered opinion. “The study of Ulysses is, therefore, a heavy task.”
This time, I’m going to finish James Joyce’s masterpiece—I am…I am...I am.
Like James Joyce in his loyalty to technique and who went about honestly attempting to tell fully what his characters think about, I will not funk my duty to read him fully, to think about what his characters are thinking about, and understand who they are and why they do what they do that one day in June in Dublin. I intend to read Ulysses as a piece of literature not a piece of scholarship. I want to read a story not a dissertation.
The Story: In a nutshell (again, thanks to the Hon. John Woolsey’s record-making opinion) … In Ulysses, Joyce takes persons of lower middle class living in Dublin in 1904 and seeks not only to describe what they did on a certain day early in June of that year as they went about the City bent on their usual occupations, but also to tell what many of them thought about the while.
Woolsey also believed that you can’t understand the book unless you have some companion studies. I’m armed with mine—Wikipedia (however, I’ve read the first episode of Ulysses and I’m already beyond the Wikipedia analysis); Ulysses on the Liffey by Richard Ellmanm, 1971 (me thinks he overanalyzes what Joyce enjoyed doing—interspersing bits from Homer, Shakespeare, and Mother Church), and A Lonely Voice by Frank O’Connor, 1961 (O'Connor preferred The Dubliners over Ulysses).
As I go along, I’ll pick up more “companion” pieces—this time around, we'll all get it right.
I’m armed…I’m ready and I’ve got myself a year and a day.
Oh--why Handfasting Ulysses as the title for this blog? Handfasting is an ancient Celtic marriage ceremony where the couple has a year and a day to decide if they want to stay in a marraige. I'm kind of feeling like I need such a commitment on this project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)