Odyssey Funmaries #15: Oxen of the Sun (Book XII.CCLXXXII-CDXCI)

By ANDREW CASHMERE

What a shitty trip. Odysseus must be a distant relative of Clark Griswold. Let’s look at the parallels.

Clark Griswold: Aunt Edna dies in her sleep. Clark and the family must drive their dead aunt to a relative’s house, earning bonus points for driving cross-country in the rain with a dead person on the roof.

Odysseus: His buddy Elpenor gets drunk, falls off the roof, and dies.  Odysseus must sail to Aeaea to bury him, although he does not put Elpenor on the roof of the Family Truckster.

Clark Griswold: Frequently notices a hot chick driving next to him.  Clark is also frequently foiled in his attempts to seal the deal (eats dog piss covered sandwiches, almost collides with a truck, gets caught with said hot chick in swimming pool by wife).

Odysseus: Notices hot chicks singing to him as he sails by.  Rather than dancing with a urine soaked sandwich, Odysseus asked to be tethered to the boat to keep from pulling over to try to nail the Sirens.

Clark Griswold: Drives in to East St. Louis, has hubcaps stolen. Roll ‘em up!

Odysseus: Sails between Scylla and Kharybdis, six men are eaten. Roll ‘em up!

Man, this vacation sucks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like things will get better for Odysseus just yet. You can imagine this as a deleted scene from Vacation. After all that Helen (Eurylokhos) wants to pull over for a while. Clark (Odysseus) isn’t sure, but finally agrees. “Okay, that sucked. Let’s pull over for a while to rest, BUT WE ARE NOT GOING TO MCDONALD’S (or eating the Oxen of the Sun)! I BROUGHT SANDWICHES (provisions in the hold of the ship)!”

Clark/Odysseus does not want the family eating the Oxen of the Sun for one important reason: they belong to Helios. And Helios loves his Oxen. I imagine the Oxen of the Sun taste like veal. I don’t know what veal tastes like because it is clearly wrong to eat veal. Just like it wrong to eat the Oxen of the Sun.

Everyone seems okay with the ground rules Clark/Odysseus lays out, but a storm comes along and they have to pull the car into a garage and park for a while (pull the ship into a grotto). Clark/Odysseus again reminds everyone not to go to McDonald’s/eat the Oxen of the Sun because he has more than enough sandwiches/provisions. Eventually the sandwiches run out and while Clark is taking a nap, Helen and the kids run to McDonald’s/slaughter and eat the oxen of the sun.

Clark/Odysseus is not happy. “Why did you go to McDonald’s/eat the Oxen of the Sun? I told you I had sandwiches!”

Nobody really has an answer for that, so our crew sets off again. After driving/sailing for a little while longer, Zeus sends an ass-kicking storm to follow the Family Truckster/Odysseus’ ship. This storm completely destroys the car/ship and kills the entire family/crew. Only Clark/Odysseus survives and he is carried by the storm back to…KHARYBDIS/EAST ST. LOUIS!!! We all remember from earlier in the trip that Kharybdis is a whirlpool that will ruin your day, much like a drive through East St. Louis. Somehow, Clark/Odysseus makes it through without getting sucked into the whirlpool or getting mugged. The only possible explanation for this: Zeus was watching over him. Clark/Odysseus eventually lands on the island belonging to Kalypso, a dangerous and beautiful nymph who “received and loved” him. Maybe Clark finally does seal the deal. Good for him.

This would be a pretty good deleted scene, but it didn’t make it into the final cut of Vacation. Maybe Clark got sick of telling the story, just like Odysseus did.

Countdown to Bloomsday…

 Page 1 of Ulysses awaits us this Tuesday!

Get on the Holiday Road to Wandering Rocks!

New Ulysses Resources

By JERRY GRIT

It’s been some time since I’ve read this book, and in that time a ton of new resources have come out that may actually make this thing much more of a breeze than anticipated. 

In addition to the book of annotations I mentioned, I’ve come across a few other tools. I’ve posted them below and under the “Ulysses Resources” on the right nav menu of our page. We’ll update this menu as we find helpful things.

• Bloomsday Book: First off, you should all check out an oldie (recently rereleased as a newbie). Harry Blamires’ The Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Joyce’s Ulysses offers great coherent summaries of the plot and themes. It’s meant to be a companion for the general reader (i.e., for the slobs, not the snobs). Amazon is selling it for nearly $30, which seems to me to be a complete rip (Ben’s bookstore doesn’t even sell it, though). Get it from the library, or you can see the majority of the text online here.
• Ulysses “Seen”: There’s also a Ulysses comic book online, Ulysses “Seen”. Right now, they only have the first chapter posted, but it looks really good. Could be helpful if the rest of it gets posted soon.
• DifficultBooks.com: There’s another online reading group that’s currently reading it, and attempting some online annotations on difficultbooks.com. Could be really good to collaborate with these folks.
• Reading Ulysses Series on RTE: There’s also a radio series meant to accompany your reading, produced by an Irish radio station. I’m having some trouble getting the audio to work. But if possible, might be good to put this series on your zune.
• Sparknotes: There are also plot summaries on Sparknotes (a ghetto Cliff’s Notes). They can be helpful and they’re short, but they’re really incomplete. Blamires does a much better job.  

I think these resources collectively amount to our very own Magic Wind Sack that will blow us safely through this thing. You kids won’t know the hell I went through.