Some Stuff To Know About Ulysses Before Reading It, Part 3: Ulysses and Music

“Lord knows what my prose means. In a word, it is pleasing to the ear…That is enough it seems to me”

–J.J.

This post focuses not so much on what you could know to help you read Ulysses, but more on how you could read it.

There will be a lot of seemingly impenetrable passages throughout the book. My suggestion: appreciate their sound, don’t try to understand their meaning. Although Joyce vowed he could justify the meaning of every single line in all his books, it’s very unwise for you to have he same expectation of understanding.

Instead, appreciate the sound.

And keep turning pages.

Some connections between Joyce, Ulysses and music.

• Joyce had a great voice. Like Stephen Dedalus, he was an exceptional tenor, had voice teachers, and toyed with the idea of going professional.
• Although Joyce has a modernist ambition to represent human consciousness, he still has that musician’s desire to make it pleasing to the ear. This makes a big difference. Check out Djuana Barnes’ Nightwood if you want modernism without music. Yech.
• There are songs throughout the Ulysses. Ben has promised to post his own recordings of each and every one.
• Joyce wrote using musical structures to structure the text. The “Sirens” chapter is structured is like a fugue. 
• Joyce identified Odysseus as an artist in that he is willing to put himself a great risk just to hear a tune. Here’s my favorite Joyce quote recorded in Ellman’s biography: 

The most beautiful, most human traits are contained in the “Odyssey”…Ulysses is a great musician: he wishes to and must listen; he has himself tied to the mast [in order to listen to the beautiful but destructive sirens’ song]. The motif of the artist, who will lay down his life, than renounce his interest.

So when you come across some Joycean muddle, don’t be disheartened. Step back. Read through it not to figure out what’s going on, but to simply appreciate the order of sounds. Whatever self-destruction you risk, preserve your interest…in finishing.

And keep turning them pages.

Odyssey Funmaries Start Thursday!

We Read Page 1 of Ulysses in 24 Days!