ULYSSES pp. 109-115 “Hades”

By KATIE ELSE

Finally! The last of Hades (except for my probablynotgoingtobethatfunmarization)

The tweets:

109. LB still wondering about decaying bodies, the cemetery and the idea of burials. PD’s coffin is placed in the grave.

110. LB thinks about the idea of coffins, notices the mystery “man in the macintosh” is the 13th one there

111. LB thinks of his plot, how terrible it would be if PD was alive thru this. Burying the coffin. Hynes takes names doesn’t know LBs 1st

112. Hynes & LB don’t know who MinM is or how he’s vanished so quickly. They finish burying coffin. Dignam fam places wreaths on it

113. walking to Parnell’s grave. LB thinks $ on burial better spent on the living. Thinks of all the dead, once like him.

114. LB thinks:how could we remember everyone who’s died anyway?cheese=milk corpse, cremation>burial,eager to get outta cemetery

115. MC comes w/JHM. LB recognizes,says it was hate @1stsight,pts out JHM’s hat is crushed,JHM pauses,MC pts it out 2,only then does he fix

These final pages of “Hades” begin with the gravediggers burying Dignam’s coffin. And it is here that we meet the enigmatic man in the mackintosh coat, the thirteenth mourner to join the group. He seems to appear out of nowhere and disappear just as mysteriously.

We are privy to more of what we’ve come to learn about Bloom. His pracitcal nature and humanist tendencies lead him to believe the ritual and money spent on funerals and burial is a waste and better spent on the living. This is illustrated in the Dignam family’s predicament; they are in financial straits after his passing but still need to come up with the money for his funeral and burial.

We again see a lack of sentimentality on Bloom’s part when it comes to death. He wonders how one could remember those who have passes anyway. Eventually they would just fade away unless you had devices, like gramophones, to capture them.

Also, in these pages, we see the heart referenced in another way, in what it means to Catholic Ireland. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the greatest devotions in the Catholic Church with its own feast day.

And finally, the men get to escape Hades through the glimmering, open gates of the cemetery. But not before Bloom has a run in with his old frenemy, Menton. Who, even though Bloom is trying to be helpful, will not, almost can not, speak to him, just as Ajax was still angry with Odysseus and would not speak with him in Hades.

Who do you think the man in the mackintosh coat is or is he kind of a non-character who is supposed to symbolize something? 

Do you think Bloom is really unsentimental about death or is it because he was not particularly connected to Dignam? While he claims it would be impossible to remember the dead after too long, he seems to easily conjure pictures of his own son. But that could just be because, well, it’s his son.

Besides Odysseus and Ajax, Bloom and Menton, who are some of your favorite frememies from literature and mythology (The Hills does not count, even though some of them have ‘written’ books).

Check back tomorrow (not in 2 weeks, you say?) for the Hades funmary. My posts have been sersiously lacking in funny pictures so I will try to remedy that. TGIF!

ULYSSES pp. 101-108 “Hades”

By KATIE ELSE

First and foremost, eat my tweets! 

101. men see Dignam’s family at cemetery. Coffin is carried. MC scolds JP about talk of suicide. JP didn’t know about LB’s father

102. Men discuss the Dignam family.LB ponders widowhood. Small talk with Ned Lambert. Discuss money collection for the family.

103. LB sees PD’s son, wonders if he was there when PD died. LB at back of church. LB’s mind wanders during requiem mass all the way to gas

104. LB’s mind continues to wander, ponders the service, altar boys. The mass ends.

105. Simon sees his wife’s grave, weeps. Catholic men comfort him that she;s in heaven. Kernan and LB chat, both do not practice Catholicism

106. JH Menton inquires as to who LB is. He remembers Molly, wonders aloud why she would be w/LB.

107. Men run into caretaker there, He tells a funny story about two drunks looking for their friend’s grave.10:36 PM Jul 28th from web

108. LB thinks about how the caretaker got a wife to live in the cemetery, raised a family there & how the bodies will decompose over time

At this point in the chapter, they have arrived at the cemetery and the coffin is being carried in for the funeral rite.  Bloom is empathic towards the Dignam family but when the Mass begins his thoughts are detached, humorously, at times. He remains in the back, kneeling on his newspaper and hat attempting to make it more comfortable (doesn’t he know Mass is supposed to be uncomfortable??). He is barely engaged in the Mass while occasionally tapping in to comment on the monotony of it all, made worse by the use of Latin. This is another example of his disconnection from those around him; he is not participating nor wants to. 

Bloom’s approach to death could not be more different than the gentlemen he’s with. To him, after death there is nothing, nada, zip. This pomp and circumstance is meaningless and he doesn’t see the practically of it. Instead, he envisions burying the dead vertically to maximize space and using the bodies to fertilize the soil. He sees it scientifically, as part of the cycles of life. He can not participate in the consoling of Simon when he weeps upon seeing his wife’s grave. The other men use to consolation of heaven. 

We’re introduced to Tom Kernan, the only other non-practicing Catholic in the group. But even he concedes that the Biblical quote used in the Church of Ireland service, “I am the way the truth and the life” touches ones heart, presumably not knowing that same line is used in the Catholic Mass but in Latin. But on the subject of the heart (which is the organ assigned to “Hades”) Bloom is not sentimental; that doesn’t ‘touch’ his heart. He sees the heart as an organ that stops pumping upon death, and there’s are loads of them littered about the cemetery.

I feel these pages widen the gulf between Bloom and the other men. He is just traveling in a different world. He has such a different perception of the  motions they go through around the funeral. He’s nearly incomprehensible to them. Powers didn’t think twice about his words on suicide because it never occurred to him that anyone of them would have been affected by it in the way Bloom had been.  John Henry Menton can’t wrap his head around why anyone like Molly would be married to him. I feel it’s not out of malice that he’s excluded, he’s just occupies a different space.

My question for you guys is how this all pertains to Joyce’s idea of Catholicism. Being raised Catholic myself, I feel that the Mass is too easy to be detached from. You are not participating in it. It’s as if you’re watching a play. I’ve found that no matter how hard you try when sitting through a Mass you’re min inevitably goes astray, repeatedly. This would have been made worse before they used the vernacular as the language of the Mass. Perhaps everyone else around him was just doing their best to look pious while their minds went adrift as well. Those of you who know Joyce better than myself (doesn’t take much, frankly) do you see this chapter as a commentary on how he felt about the Church and its rituals?

A Time for Heroes…

By JERRY GRIT

To take a break from the unrelenting tour of death and loss in “Hades,” we will (Bloom-like) distract ourselves with an administrative matter.

Simply, we need heroes. We need heroes to take on the remaining 7 chapters that have yet to be claimed in our history-making social media-enhanced reading of Ulysses.  You could put it on your resume!

The hero that I am, I will step up and take a few. But I can’t be the only one. (And it would be plain wrong for a dude to run “Penelope”…but I’ll do it. I’ll impose my phallocentric bias on Molly Bloom’s chapter-long streaming conscious. I don’t care. I don’t want to hear any bitching.)  

Here’s where we’re at*…

I changed the color scheme, so that should help.

Ben Vore and I have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame for having done 2 chapters already. Don’t you want this honor? 

If you’re unsure which one to take, let me touch on the interests/skills/dispositions that might be appropriate for the remaining chapters:

• Aeolus: Marketing, Journalism, Advertising
• Laestrygonians: Food, Feelings of Inadequacy 
• Scylla and Charybdis: Shakespeare, Socrates
• Wandering Rocks: Associative Logic, Pornography
• Nausicaä: Sentimental/Romantic Art & Literature, Masturbation
• Ithaca: Homemaking/Entertaining, Disappointment
• Penelope: Crazy Ladies

If any of these aspects correspond with anything in your disposition, anything that will enable you to speak to these issues, then let’s do this thing!

If you’re still unsure, consider the testimonials from those heroes who have already conquered a chapter:

I am a much better person now.  Thank you for saving my life.  –Ben Vore

It was the final missing piece in the incomplete puzzle of my life. –Erin Vore

When I finished Calypso, like Leeroy at the end of “The Last Dragon”, I achieved The Glow! I’m still glowing and catching bullets with my teeth! Thank you, James Joyce! —Lizaanne

Be a master, take a chapter!

———————————-

*Please note: I have since rescinded breaking up the longer chapters. That strategy was, apparently, DOA.

ULYSSES pp. 94-100 “Hades”

By KATIE ELSE

As we continue down the road to Hell, let me share with you my tweets…

94. LB starts to tell joke about Dodd’s son almost drowning, MC steps all over it. finishes story. much laughter

95. men discuss sudden death of PD. LB thinks it’s best to go quickly. Other men seem to disagree. They see a child’s coffin.

96. Men remark on child’s coffin. JP says suicide is worst death.MC says to reserve judgement knows how LB’s father died.LB appreciates that

97. It’s finally blatantly stated thru Lbs thoughts that his father died of suicide. They pass by cattle. Carriage is stopped again.

98. LB ponders a new tramline that could carrya coffin.They remember a coffin falling out of a carriage before. LB thinks of PD falling out

99. LB details the scenery, crossing over canal, the man on the turfbarge, the stonecutter’s yard, a tramp on the side of the road…

100. They pass by a home where a murder took place, get to cemetery, notice how few carriages are there

So far this chapter reeks of death which, of course, is fitting considering it’s parallel chapter, Hades. How much death can one squeeze into 14 pages? The death of Dignam is obviously a focus of this chapter. Bloom is also meditating on the deaths of this son, Rudy, and his father.   They pass by the coffin of a child. There’s the story of the poor chap whose coffin tumbled out of it’s carriage along the same route on the way to its final resting place. There’s the subject of the murder of someone names Childs. Bloom even thinks about the death of the cattle as they are on their way to slaughter.

The language and mood revolve around death as well. I actually went through and underlined any word that pertained to death (a very scholarly method, trust me) and this chapter is riddled with them, even when what is being described is not a death itself.  Death, mourning, condemned, sorrowful, grief, gloomy…I’m starting to feel like I’m in a Cymbalta commercial!

The other thing that struck me about the going-to-hell-and-back aspect of this chapter is that the fates of the two most prominent deaths, in the eyes of Catholics at least, are pretty grim. Poor Dignam died before he could receive his last rites, which might not put him in hell but he’s definitely on the chain gang in purgatory. And suicide? Sorry, buddy, here’s a one way ticket to hell.

Here’s where Bloom is again, viewed as an outsider. He believes that to go swiftly and without pain is the best death. For Catholics, this is devastating because there’s no certainty as to whether the deceased will make it to heaven at all. The mens’ wide-eyed glares say it all. It reminds me of a homily I heard in mass when I was about 9, a homily that would leave me terrified for years about my own fate postmortem, when priest said, “Trust me, you will be surprised at how many of your friends end up in hell.”

But Bloom thinks of death in this chapter with more of a scientific curiosity. He thinks about a scenario where Dignam falls out of his coffin, how he would look, what procedures are necessary soon after death, if he would bleed if cut at this point. He is not worried about what has become of Dignam’s soul or whether he has one at all. Instead he looks out the window, describing in nearly minute detail what he is passing.

It is in this chapter that we receive solid confirmation that his father’s death was indeed suicide. I found it interesting that he was so thankful to Cunningham for defending him. What he did was kind, but he has just moments ago been so rude to him. I think it points to Bloom’s empathy in that he can let that go and so quickly move to unreserved gratitude.

So here are some questions…

• What do you think the reason is for Bloom’s detailed description of everything passing by, sometimes even just listing establishment after establishment?
• Do the men consciously separate themselves from him or is it more like he’s not even there, he’s of no consequence?
• Are you depressed yet?

BONUS: Which of your friends do you think will end up in hell and why? (Please use specific examples.)

ULYSSES pp.87-93 “Hades”

By KATIE ELSE

Let me just begin by saying that I am enjoying being inside Leopold Bloom’s head far more than Stephen’s. I find him a much more sympathetic, empathetic and accessible character.  In the first pages of this chapter, the subtext and the… well, obvious text give us insight into these two men.  Let me share my tweets:

87. We meet Martin Cunningham, Mr. Power, Simon Dedalus (in person) getting into the carriage in front of Dignam’s with LB in last.

88.On their way thru town to funeral.LB points out Stephen to Simon.Simon asks if BM is w/him. Rants about how much BM sux.LB thinks of Rudy

89. LB reflects on Milly growing. Men express disdain for crumbs in carriage. They get stopped at the grand canal.

90. LB thinks of his father’s death and the dog, Athos, he inherited. Men chat about weather, mock a few mutual acquaintances, read obit

91. LB tries to remember what he did with letter,passes Blazes Boylen just as he’s thinking of him, examines nails and tries to ignore him

92. LB talks of Molly’s tour w/the finest musicians, dwells on Power calling her Madame, thinks of her then of Powers alleged mistress

93:Men spot Dodd a jewish money lender all have been to but LB. LB tries to tell funny story about Dodd & his son but MC keeps interupting

This chapter beings around 11am with the men are getting into the carriage which will take them to Paddy Dignam’s funeral, in front of Dignam’s home. We are introduced to Martin Cunningham, Jack Powers and Simon Dedalus who we finally meet in person. They enter the carriage with Bloom pulling up the rear setting the stage to portray Bloom as an outsider.

The carriage carries the men through town in the funeral procession.  Bloom recognizes Stephen Delalus and points him out to his father. This is where we gain some insight into Stephen’s relationship with his father. I can’t really see the warm and fuzzies between the two.  And it seems Simon could benefit from some anger management or, at the very least, thinking before he speaks.

Simon is concerned as to whether Buck Mulligan is with Stephen. This launches him into a rant about Mulligan’s character on par with the Real Housewives of New Jersey . The colorful language and lack of restraint paint him to be a bit of a loose canon. His threats go as far as a strongly worded letter to his mother or aunt and the promise to “tickle his catastrophe”, catastrophe being slang for buttocks, or so the internet tells me. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall for that one.

To me it seems this is well-meant paternal concern gone awry. It seems Bloom sees it the same way. At first, he’s put off by the tirade but it leads him to thinking of his own son’s death, what it would have been like to have had him grow up, the day of his conception and he concludes Simon is right to be upset.

But it seems Simon snaps more than he speaks showing us something about his temperment.  “It’s as uncertain as a child’s bottom” he blurts out in regards to the weather, which one of my personal faves. I’m hoping to add that one to my repertoire and work it into conversation as much as possible.

The theme of fathers and sons is touched on again when Bloom thinks of his own father’s premature death. This thought is triggered when he sees the Gasworks while they are stopped at the grand canal (the first of four rivers they cross on their way to the cemetery which symbolize the four rivers of Hades). Bloom is now fatherless and has lost his son; he is the end of his lineage, isolated.

What we see of this carriage ride so far shows us that he is isolated amongst his aquaintances as well, an outsider. There are small hints, Dedalus cutting him off from reading the obituary they mentioned (presumably because it was inappropriate), Power’s veiled insult in calling Molly “Madame” alluding to something promiscuous about her. Then right as Bloom’s thoughts wander to Blazes Boylan, they pass him on the street. He can’t understand why everyone is so taken with the “Worst man in Dublin”. He mentally disengages my concentrating on his nails.

The awkwardness really gets dialed up when they pass by Rueben J. Dodd, a Jewish money lender. The three Irishmen share an obvious disdain for him and alientate Bloom from the pack in mentioning that he’s the only one who hasn’t borrowed money from him. The obvious division here is one of religion.

Bloom tries to chime in with a (not so) humorous story aout Dodd’s son nearly drowning. Cunningham interrupts him repeatedly and ends up telling the story instead (no doubt because he’s Irish and has the gift of  the Blarney) putting him in his place once again.

There’s an obvious ‘you vs us’ vibe happening. I’m not quite sure (this being my first read) if Bloom is fully aware of how the others view him. He picked up on the ‘Madame’ comment and had a hard time letting it go. But he seems to remain fairly jovial, even after Cunningham railroads his story.  Do you think he has just accepted that is how he is viewed in Ireland, that he will always be somewhat of an outsider and has comes to peace with that? Or is he mildy oblivious to that fact? I’m sure this carriage ride to Hades will reveal more as we go along.

Throughout all of this we get hints that Bloom is an empathetic creature. He puts himself in the shoes of crazy talkin’ Simon Dedalus and determines he would be defensive of his son too. I was struck by something he thought in regard to a man he saw working the rails:

“Couldn’t they invent something automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the new invention?”

You see his pragmatism in wondering if they couldn’t be doing something more efficiently. Then you see his empathy in wondering how is would affect that particular man. Then it’s a mixture of both in that it could be beneficial for someone else and more practical. It leads me to think of how differently he relates to the physical world around him as compared to Stephen. Stephen has a hard time taking things in and processing them, he seems to be neither practical nor empathetic. He has a hard time connecting to the world around him and other people. He’s is stuck in this self-centered, cerebral space. That is his isolation. Blooms thoughts are so much more fluid. He associates things easily. And while he is isolated in a different way, he tries to relate to and empathize with other people instead of just thinking of himself. Can you think of other examples of how Bloom does this?

I think this is long enough, folks. I’ll hit you tomorrow with more from the carriage ride to Hades….

ULYSSES Funmary #5: The Lotus Eaters

by SCOOTER THOMAS

Scooter Thomas, aspiring toward dolce far niente.

x

My owners have asked me to write The Lotus Eaters Funmary for reasons which I find both flattering and deeply offensive. On one hand, they know that my astute critical analysis could enhance “The Lotus Eaters” chapter in illuminating and perhaps unexpected ways. I’ll take that as a compliment. On the other hand, they think that I, being a cat, am amply qualified to address themes of lethargy, drowsy complacence and lazy intoxication. Would that this vile canard die a quick and sudden death! Yes, our napping skills are superior to most, but that’s hardly reason to engage in gross slander against the entire feline species. One suspects humans think us totally worthless creatures incapable of rigorous scholarship or even basic motor skills. Yet again, I must light the candle of truth in this den of lies my owners call a home.

One other issue before we start: I must confess to feelings of loathing toward Mr. Bloom, who cowardly remarked to his own cat in the “Calypso” chapter — and I quote —

I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

This is really repugnant. He is a contemptible man. I will do my best not to stoop to his level, but I cannot confess to being an unbiased commentator. This monster really boils my blood.

Ahem. On with it, then.

I trust that the Wandering Rocks readership is fully aware of the Odyssean parallel Joyce is using here. In his (quite rambling) epic poem The Odyssey, Homer describes Odysseus and his men escaping from Calypso’s island and being driven by a storm to the land of the Lotus Eaters, where the natives “live upon that flower,” the taste of which saps all desire to do anything except take a nice long nap. Odysseus “rescues” them, if that is the correct word, from this life of lazy idleness. (This Odysseus sounds like quite the nagging busybody, does he not?)

Thus Joyce employs similar motifs of intoxication and escapism in his reimagining of “The Lotus Eaters.” We are treated to a panoply of yawn-inducing images: Mr. Bloom’s tea-inspired daydreams about the far east, with its “big lazy leaves” and “flowers of idleness”; the “lazy pooling swirl of liquor” spilled out of train barrels; the chemist’s shop with its “drugs [that] age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night.” And consider the hour of day this takes place: mid-morning (the “slack hour,” as Bloomie calls it), as the contents of breakfast settle and everything in sight (a bed, the floor, the coffee table, an empty cardboard box) becomes a potential resting spot.

Joyce is not merely suggesting physical idleness either. Mr. Pervert Bloom’s worship experience at All Hallows offers a glimpse of spiritual stultification with its placating routines and comfortable ritual. (Congregants “don’t seem to chew” the communion wafer, only “swallow it down.”) Seeing as cats have usually not been welcome inside a Catholic church, I cannot speak from personal experience as to the verisimilitude of Bloomer’s impressions, though I find the idea of rinsing wine chalices with Guinness (or, for my tastes, port) rather inspired.

Finally we have the marital laziness of the Blooms, both trading love letters outside marriage; the one who won’t act on his impulses of infidelity is the one whose head we are trapped inside during this chapter, thus another type of complacence. On the subject of human infidelity and multiple partners, I will abstain from comment. We cats are not monogamous by nature, though I never had a say in the outcome as I was viciously castrated shortly after birth. (My current owners are not to blame for this, though my residual post-traumatic stress comes to bear against them first and foremost.)

On this note, I felt quite sympathetic toward the eunuchs Mr. Bloom considers when he looks at the choir loft, though I received no side benefit from losing my manhood such as a prolonged stay in the Papal Choir. No matter. My vocal skills are quite unpleasant. I would’ve sounded pretty much like my friend Burger here.

If my owners ever put me in a cage and stick a video camera in my face, so help me God — I will bring the pain like it has never been brought before.

(And lest you think that it’s cruel for poor Burger to be in a cage like that, you should know that he’s undergoing court-ordered rage counseling after second degree assault on his elderly owner’s ankles.)

Thank you for reading. I invite everyone to a spirited back-and-forth of intellectual discussion in the comment forum.

And Godspeed to “Hades”!

Mrkgnao!

ULYSSES pp. 82-86, “The Lotus Eaters”

by BEN and ERIN VORE

Dirk Diggler and Leopold Bloom: Kindred spirits.

The last page of today’s reading delivers the indelible image of Leopold’s unit (“the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower”). Did anyone else recall the final scene from P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights? We almost expected Leopold to say, “I’m a star. I’m a big, bright, shining star. That’s right.”

Leopold Bloom = The Dirk Diggler of early 20th century Dublin.

A tweet recap:

• 82. Choir loft makes LB think of Molly in Stabat Mater, “old sacred music,” eunuchs. Worship through eyes of an outsider: strange routines.
• 83. Confession: Not for everyone, but effective. LB ducks out before the offering, discreetly buttoning as he goes.
• 84. LB stops @ chemist’s 2 order Molly’s lotion but recipe (and key) are in his other pants. Asks chemist 2 check his files.
• 85. LB places order & buys soap. Unwittingly gives winning tip on horse race [Throwaway] to Bantam Lyons.
• 86. LB walks toward public baths, greets Hornblower, ponders cricket, anticipates lying naked in bath. Penis = ‘languid floating flower.’

The final line reiterates the obvious parallels to “The Lotus Eaters” in The Odyssey. What all these parallels mean, we’ll try to get at in next week’s Funmary. For now, a brief recap of the last five pages:

Leopold’s experience in church offers a rather amusing outsider’s perspective. He has considered his seat based on its proximity to an attractive woman. He has mistaken the Latin initials for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (I.N.R.I.) for “iron nails ran in.” He wonders why the chalice must hold wine instead of, say, Guinness. The choir loft causes him to reflect on eunuchs. And, when the Mass turns to English, Leopold thinks drily that the priest has thrown his congregation a bone.

Of note: one of the pieces of sacred music that Leopold recalls is Mercadante’s La sette ultime parole ( “The Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross”), an oratorio based on the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion. Blamires draws a connection to what will be the final seven words of Ulysses ( “yes I said yes I will Yes”).

Outside the church, Leopold heads for Sweny’s, a pharmacy. He has left the recipe for Molly’s lotion in his other trousers (along with his key), but he asks the chemist to check his prescriptions book. While he does that, Leopold ruminates about drugs and sedatives ( “Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever of nature”). The chemist also becomes the second person of this chapter to ask what perfume Molly uses.

In the street, Leopold runs into Bantam Lyons, who sees Bloom’s paper and wants to check the horse races. Leopold tells him he can keep the paper, which Bantam interprets as a tip (for the winning horse, Throwaway). Leopold greets the porter Hornblower and continues on toward the public baths where we get his Diggler-esque daydream. This brings to a close a chapter predominated by flowers, sedatives, opiates, scents, eastern exoticism, public leering, sexual fantasies, perverse fetishes and religious stupefaction.

Phew. We need to take a bath. Clean trough of water. Cool enamel. The gentle tepid stream…

x

BEN: Time to throw out some questions for consideration?

ERIN: Like if the Dirk Diggler analogy is a stretch?

BEN: You think so?

ERIN: Let’s just stick to the script, shall we?

BEN: All right. Leopold clearly has some cynical thoughts about religion during the worship service, but is there any aspect of it that he admires?

ERIN: Fair enough. My turn. Would it be accurate to say that your last attempt to make Crock Pot casserole tasted like “paragoric poppysyrup”?

BEN: Now that’s just hurtful.

ERIN: I know. I’m sorry. It was delicious.

BEN: I’m curious: Have you ever heard someone’s voice “at your armpit,” the way Leopold heard Bantam’s?

ERIN: I’m also curious: Would you have become a eunuch had it secured a spot as a star performer in one of your college’s numerous a cappella groups?

BEN: Is that a trick question?

ERIN: I have a question that I’d like Jerry to expound upon: What’s the difference between a perv and a sweet perv?

BEN: I bet people would pay good money to hear Jerry answer that question. But at Wandering Rocks, they don’t have to — because it’s free!

ERIN: Hopefully if anyone else has a Lotus Eater question they will pass it along before we write our Funmary.

BEN: One can hope.

The Lotus Eaters Funmary: We’re coming for you!

Early next week!

ULYSSES pp. 76-81, “The Lotus Eaters”

by BEN and ERIN VORE

You can imply a lot of dirty things with a flower.

x

We left off yesterday anticipating the illicit thrill of Martha Clifford’s love letter. But a Penthouse Letter it ain’t.

First, the tweets:

• 76. LB disparages M’Coy: A homosexual? Leah is playing tonight, causes Bloom to reflect on dad’s death (suicide).
• 77. LB bonds w/castrated horses. (Everyone is impotent.) Finds flower pinned to Martha’s letter. Martha’s a bad speller
• 78. Martha’s letter: “You’re a naughty boy!” Wants 2 meet Bloom & know what perfume Molly uses. LB thinks of manflower, cactus, nightstalk.
• 79. LB thinks of Mary & Martha. Tears up letter & scatters the shreds. The word ‘bungholes’ also appears on this page.
• 80. LB enters church, thinks of missionaries in China. The Good News=opium? Wants 2 sit next 2 a woman. Priest administers the sacrament.
• 81. LB misreads I.N.R.I. & I.H.S. Thinks of Molly’s letter, then ‘crawthumper’ Carey. Wonders: Why not Guinness for the chalice?

Now, Martha’s letter:

It’s a big letdown. Where to begin? How about the spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. “World” should be “word.” “Patience” is singular, not plural. Punctuation is spotty. And the phrase “naughty boy” or some variant appears four times. Martha wants to “punish” Henry? What about the poor reader?

After wondering what Martha pinned to her letter (a photo? hair? a badge?), Leopold discovers it is a flower. (A flower for Henry Flower.) Specifically, “a yellow flower with flattened petals.” It does not have a scent.

After reading Martha’s letter, Leopold begins mentally cataloguing virtually every flower-related sexual innuendo you could imagine. Ulysses Annotated helps steer our imagination:

Tulips: dangerous pleasures; manflower: an obvious pun; cactus: not only the phallus but also touch-me-not; forget-me-not: as the name suggests and also true love; violets: modesty; roses: love and beauty; anemone: frailty, anticipation; nightstalk: in addition to the phallic pun, nightshade; falsehood.

Leopold knows he will not take Martha up on her offer to meet, but he does resolve to “go further next time.” (Maybe suggest something kinky with a kniphofia?)

The pin from Martha’s letter makes Leopold think of a street rhyme about a girl named Mary losing the pin of her drawers, which leads to him contemplating the story of Mary and Martha from the Gospels. Leopold has himself his own Mary and Martha, if we take Molly-Marion = Mary.

Leopold tears up Martha’s envelope, and by extension himself as Henry Flower — he won’t act on his theoretical infidelity. Then he proceeds to All Hallows’ Church where, upon entering, he sees a notice about the African mission. Leopold, who as Lizaanne noted is disengaged from his faith on a spiritual level (but not an identity level), thinks of “Faith as a drug for the natives” (Blamires). Here we get our first taste of religion as an opiate. Leopold imagines the Eucharist as a sort of sedative, lulling the congregants into a stupor ( “Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don’t seem to chew it; only swallow it down”).

More along this train of thought when we conclude “Lotus Eaters.” Before we get to the essay questions, more examples of this section’s continuing theme of “drugged receptivity and impotence” (Blamires):

• The horses “with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too full for words. … Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches.” [p. 77] (Did Joyce lift this from Equine Penthouse Letters?)
• “A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill” [p. 77]
• “Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic” [p. 78]
• “A huge dull flood [of Guinness] leaked out, flowing together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl” [p. 79]
• “Old fellow asleep near that confession box. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of the kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year” [p. 81]

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

• How has Leopold’s father’s suicide shaped him?
• For those who are rereading Ulysses: What is the significance of the Plumtree’s Potted Meat ad?
• What word did Leopold use in a previous letter which caused Martha to call him “naughty”? Use your imagination.
• If you wanted to have an affair with a married man, would you really ask what perfume his wife uses?
• Is Leopold a perv? He sure has a lot of fetishes: Silk stockings. Erotic correspondences. Churchgoing women. And he seems to have a thing for punishment.
• Have you ever seen such a stupid pussens as the pussens?

ESSAY QUESTION FOR EXTRA CREDIT! Write your own Ulysses Penthouse Letter using at least a half dozen types of flower. Bonus points for spelling errors and repetitious phrases!

Tomorrow, or probably more like Saturday: pp. 82-86!

ULYSSES pp. 71-75 “The Lotus Eaters”

by BEN and ERIN VORE

Have you wondered why you feel tempted to yawn when you see someone else yawning? Scientists term this “contagious yawning,” and suggest it may have something to do with one’s capacity for empathy. Depending on how empathetic you feel toward Leopold Bloom, you may be doing a lot of yawning this chapter. Like its Homeric parallel, The Lotus Eaters episode evokes drowsy complacence, escapism and intoxicating laziness. We’ll get to how this all intertwines with Leopold’s imagination, his marriage, his thoughts on religion and his epistolary infidelity with Martha Clifford.

But first, tag-twreading!

• 71. LB takes circuitous route to post office. Distracted by copy of tea ad. Imagines the far east, land of “big lazy leaves,” idleness.
• 72. LB tries to recall high school physics before sending his letter & receiving one, addressed to “Henry Flower.” Bloom’s pseudonym.
• 73. LB about to read letter when M’Coy interrupts him. LB not good at small talk. Spots a woman getting into her cab, starts fantasizing.
• 74. LB completely tunes out M’Coy, hopes for a glimpse of leg. Blocked by tram. Paradise and the peri: so near to paradise, but not quite.
• 75. LB now distracted by potted meat ad. Husbands talk about wives, both singers. M’Coy asks LB 2 write his name in funeral register.

It’s ten o’clock when the chapter starts, an hour before poor Dignam’s funeral: “Slack hour.” Bloom is wandering, physically and mentally. He’s taking a roundabout way to the post office, which we’ll soon realize is due to his secret correspondence with a woman named Martha Clifford. Note the many descriptors which emphasize laziness. A small girl “listlessly” holds a caskhoop. Leopold’s eyes are under “dropped lids.” He imagines the far east, land of the Oriental Tea Company, as “the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on.” The Cinghalese, an ethnic group of Sri Lanka, lob (lounge) around in the sun all day,

Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flower of idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air.

Yeesh. Pardon us while we go take a three hour nap.

We also discover that Molly is not the only Bloom writing and receiving love letters outside the bonds of marriage. Leopold has assumed the name “Henry Flower” (Bloom = Flower) for his literary indiscretions with Martha. We don’t get to see what Martha’s letter says because Leopold runs into M’Coy. As Lizaanne noted in “Calypso,” Bloom doesn’t handle distractions well. His first thought when he sees M’Coy is to “get rid of him quickly.” When that doesn’t happen, he diverts his attention to the woman across the street getting into her cab, hoping, praying he’ll catch a glimpse of her leg. ( “Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!”) A tram passes, blocking Bloom’s view, which causes him to curse its “noisy pugnose.”

Bloom and M’Coy wrap up their conversation by talking about their wives, both singers. Leopold thinks back to the morning scene of Molly in bed, which sends his thoughts to the “torn strip of envelope,” i.e. Molly’s looming infidelity with Blazes Boylan. But the “torn strip of envelope” could also describe what’s in Leopold’s pocket, as he crumbled Martha’s envelope there just before running into M’Coy.

Interesting sidenote: According to Ulysses Annotated, “to pot one’s meat” is crude slang for copulation. Sex always sells.

Some questions we’d like you to consider:

BEN: Is it acceptable to write love letters outside marriage?

ERIN: Why would you ask a question like that?

BEN: I’m just trying to get at the difference, if any, between thoughts of infidelity and acts of infidelity.

ERIN: What you’re trying to get at is a bed downstairs on the couch tonight.

BEN: Fine, you ask a better question.

ERIN: All right. How do I look in my eye patch?

BEN: I told you. I think you look lovely. How many times do I have to say it?

ERIN: One more.

BEN: You’re the hottest thing in an eye patch since Kurt Russell in Escape From New York.

ERIN: Aww, you’re so sweet. All right, final question: If this whole chapter is about languor and laziness, how come we haven’t seen the Bloom’s cat yet? What says “drowsy complacence” better than a cat?

Tomorrow: Pages 76-80!

A “Lotus-Eaters” Preview And The Merits Of A Kinesthetic Learning Approach To Ulysses

by BEN and ERIN VORE

We’ve got our work cut out for us. After Lizaanne very capably and efficiently funmarized “Calyspo,” the bar has been set quite high for “The Lotus-Eaters.” We will begin tag-twreading it tomorrow with posts to follow.

In preparation for our assignment, and to immerse ourselves in all things Joyce, one of us has been wearing an eyepatch ever since Wandering Rocks launched.

Yarrrrr, matey!

This led to the following conversation which took place in the Vore bathroom this morning:

BEN [sitting on toilet]: I notice you don’t take your eyepatch off when you shower.

ERIN [in towel and eyepatch]: Yeah. So?

BEN: It’s really starting to smell.

ERIN: You’re taking a dump and you’re telling me my eyepatch smells?

BEN: I’m a kinesthetic learner. If I want to really understand Leopold’s scatalogical fetishes, I’ve got to walk a mile in the man’s shoes.

ERIN: You’ve been on the pot since Thursday.

BEN: Have I?

ERIN: And you’ll never finish “The Lotus-Eaters” episode so we can write it together if all you do is read — and then wipe yourself with — a prize titbit titled Matcham’s Masterstroke.

BEN: But it’s quite good! It has inspired me to manage a sketch.

ERIN: Has it.

SCOOTER THOMAS [sauntering into the room]: Mkgnao!

ERIN: I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

BEN: Wait. Is he wearing a little kitty eyepatch too?

SCOOTER THOMAS: Mrkgnao!

BEN: That looks ridiculous on him.

ERIN: I think he looks cute.

BEN: And Leopold thought cats were the cruel animal.

ERIN: Hush. Tell me — which dress goes best with my eyepatch?

The marital hijinks and astute literary analysis continue tomorrow!

Bring on The Lotus Eaters!

(Mrkgnao!)

ULYSSES Funmary #4: Calypso

By LIZAANNE

All right, Folks, it’s time for another funmary!  Let’s hear it for Calypso!

The Calypso section serves as an introduction to Leopold Bloom, his family, his personal issues, and his role in the novel. 

In this chaper, Leo is the active character.  He’s the Energizer Bunny as he makes breakfast for himself, his wife, and the cat; goes to the butcher; gets the mail; defines a word for his wife; promises to return a library book; eats a kidney; reads a letter from his daughter; uses the outhouse; and throughout, he daydreams– particularly of lush gardens.  

Continuing with the Homeric parallels, the *Calypso* here is Molly Bloom.  She is still and quiet (except for her bedsprings).  She sits in her room as the queen bee at the center of her universe as Leopold buzzes busily around her.  Molly is the nymph of the title, holding Leopold to her; poor Leo is as effectively caught in a honey trap as Odysseus was.  The contrast, though, is that Leo is not desperate to leave [though he suspects her of cheating]. 

As Hermes arrives to Calypso’s island, so also several messages arrive to the Blooms, but unlike Zeus’s missive, these letters do not set Leopold free.  Instead, they tie him further to his family by reminding him of his and Molly’s daughter & their son. They also sour the honey a bit by reminding Leopold of Molly’s unfaithfulness.

Calypso gives us our first glimpse at Leopold in contrast to Stephen. To finish our funmary, let’s take a quick look at this awesome two-some: 

Stephen: is so over-educated that everything reminds him of a line of poetry; estranged from his father & uncle; Catholic; desperately single; poet who is teaching; booted out of his tower by roomate

Leopold: has trouble remembering history lessons and multiplication tables; strongly connected to wife & daughter; Jewish; married; salesman who is an aspiring writer; didn’t want to disturb wife in her room

Both: thinkers & daydreamers; have a dead family member & are both in mourning black; don’t practice their religion but are strongly influenced by it ; live on the edge of poverty; have no key to their homes 

Quite the pair.

ULYSSES pp.66-70, “Calypso”

By LIZAANNE

Welcome back.  Now that your tummies are full, settle into your seats for the final leg of our tour through “Calypso.”  If you look out the windows to your right, you will see tweets:

66-Milly’s letter:dad’s girl having 1st adventure; LB thinks of her birth & little boy who died @ birth; LB=fond but not overprotective dad

67-LB recalls Milly’s adolescence; regrets that he can’t keep her innocent & connects to “seaside girls”; LB picks what 2 read in outhouse

68-LB considers planting a garden; wonders about where he left his hat & if he’ll have time for a bath; uses “jakes” w/ door open; reads

69-“titbit” parallels to LB’s toilet use; wishes were writer; recalls scribing conversations w/ Molly; remembers morning after met Boylan

70-LB converts story to toilet paper; inspects suit & wonders what time is funeral; hears churchbells & ends w/ “Poor Dignam!”

In the continuing theme of how different Leo’s life is from Stevie’s, we are treated here to a glimpse into Leo’s relationship with his daughter Milly.  Now, we have previously heard a considerable amount about dysfunctional fathers and sons in Ulysses.  Here, though, Leo’s Milly is quite the “daddy’s girl,” and Leo himself seems to be a caring and gentle father.  He misses his daughter and thinks about her on her first birthday away from home.  He plans to visit her soon.  Leo remembers her birth with joy (as well as recalling with sadness his still-born son four years later).  Leo worries about her budding sexuality and the inevitability of  her losing her innocence, but he knows that he cannot stop her from growing up.  He can only hope that working and living in a new city will keep her busy and away from boys for a while longer.

If the hints of “seaside girls” and scandalous picture postcards are to be believed, though, Leo’s hopes are in vain.  Milly, at fifteen,  is having grand adventures as a model at the seaside.  She has escaped the mundane routine of her family home  and has embraced a rather bohemian lifestyle [dear readers, please recall Stephen’s efforts to do the same in Portrait].  Her letter, despite her poor grammar, shows us how much she is enjoying her new life and how much she loves her parents.

Interesting note– while Leo is daydreaming about the garden he will probably never plant, he also wonders where his hat is and why the hat and umbrella stands were too full: “Hallstand too full.  Four umbrellas, her raincoat” (68).  This bit indicates that perhaps Molly has had a visitor of whom her devoted husband is unaware?

Alright– we can’t avoid it any longer–the outhouse.  Joyce does give us a short quote to explain why this vignette is included: “Dirty cleans” (68).  Leo has a determinedly scatalogical streak, which he ever-so-kindly shares with us by leaving the outhouse door open in the final pages of this section.  Two things (no, will NOT make the cheap joke) to note here: 1-Leo enjoys the slight danger of being seen.  He seems to regret that the neighbors are away from their porches and windows.  This personality quirk will develop more as we learn the purpose of that hidden paper in his hatband.  2-Leo’s methods of literary criticism lack delicacy.  The story he is reading seems to be a moralistic and very shortened “epic,” of which he distinctly disapproves.  The Bloomsday book draws parallel here between the ending of Proteus, where Stephen tears a page from the excremental treatise to create poetry and the ending of Calypso, where Leo tears a piece of creative writing in order to remove his excement.

As this section ends, we leave Leo standing in his weedy garden, listening to churchbells and thinking about his dead friend.  Quite a sobering conclusion to what has, overall, been a section full of the joie de vivre lacking in Stephen’s internal monologues.

And we have successfully arrived at the station!  All ashore who’s going ashore!

As you disembark, some questions for discussion:

-Do we find Leo’s descriptions of his daughter’s sexuality simply honest or mildly creepy?

-Throughout this section, Leo has had a preoccupation with plants, gardens, and fruit.  Why are they so symbolic for him?

-Would you be interested in reading a bedroom sketch by Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom?

Essay question:

In Leo’s flashbacks to his mornings with Molly  (particularly the morning after she met Boylan) have several elements in common with the novel’s opening set-piece between Stephen and Buck.   List and explain the significance of these parallels.

ULYSSES pp. 60-65, “Calypso”

By LIZAANNE

Now that we’ve all had a chance to refuel (with our beverage of choice), time to get back on track with the next few pages of Calypso.  While the rest of the passengers are boarding, let’s take a few moments to review my tweets covering this section.  Pay careful attention, please, because Joyce loads us up with insight into Leopold and Molly Bloom over the course of these 6 pages:

60-LB buys sausage, avoiding eye contact w/ butcher; saunters back towards home, reading posters cut sheets adverting far-away farms; leads 2 daydream

61-recalls estranged friends; cloud brings dark thoughts of barren land & people; thinks of home & Molly 2 cheer up; @ home finds mail on mat

62-LB delivers postcard & letter 2 Molly in bed; moves dirty clothes; makes tea; cooks kidney; scans letter from daughter w/ fond memory

63-LB takes b-fast tray 2 Molly, sees she has opened letter; LB lavishly describes her body; letter is from her manager Boylan about concert

64-M asks L 2 define “metempsychosis” from her smutty book; he tries; he recalls day they met & how much he hates circuses; M wants new book

65-still explaining migration of souls; puts book in pocket; kidney burns; LB rescues it & eats alone in kitchen; thinks of daughter’s note

 Let me ‘splain– no, there is too much.  Let me sum up:

 1. Leo here follows the plan that he set out for himself earlier in the section, so we can see he is goal-oriented, which fits what we already know of him as a businessman.  He has his day planned out carefully.  So carefully, in fact, that he refuses to acknowledge any connection to the butcher (just as he previously only made small-talk with the store-keeper), lest it lead to something for which Leo is unprepared: “No: better not: another time” (60).  [side note– his reaction to Molly’s novel is certainly startling.  Who knew that Leo circus-o-phobic?]

2. Leo multi-tasks at home as he does the job of both husband and wife (cooking, tidying, bringing in the mail, organizing laundry, etc) because that slovenly, slug-a-bed Molly has yet to arise from her Spanish?, squeeky-springed mattress {as the astute Scooter Thomas noted, she is an excellent napper}; although she does awaken enough to gobble her breakfast and to clandestinely read the letter from her lover, Boylan.  

2a. As the first female character to be properly introduced in the novel, Madame Molly does not demand our sympathies.  Instead, she plays the part of the over-indulged and over-sexed nymphette to a tee (by having her tea and drinking it too, so to speak). 

2b. However, we do have her question about “metempsychosis” to thank for illuminating a central premise of this novel: the transference of Odysseus’s spirit into Leopold.  There’s also a nice little example for us pointing to Molly as a nymph.

3. Despite his domestic placidity, however, there are dark depths to our Irish Odysseus.  During his trip back home from the butcher’s, Leo is unexpectedly overcome by a wave of despair (interrupting another lovely daydream of ripening fruit in the Promised Land) when he sees a cloud pass over him–an example of pathetic fallacy in reverse.  This incident, although Leo dismisses it out of hand as “morning mouth” (61) clearly throws him off his stride.  It echoes Stephen’s previous imagery of barren lands and sexually-unproductive women, here with the added themes of the lost and abandoned Israelites throughout the world.  Leo’s feelings of loneliness and disconnection also match Odysseus’s emotions as he weeps at the shore of Calypso’s island. 

3. In another of his refreshing contrasts to Stephen, though, Leo does not wallow in his misery.  Thoughts of Molly lift him out of his funk and cheer him as he arrives home.  Thus, Leo manages to score two points up on our Stephen in that he successfully makes it back home without his key and he does it cheerfully [interestingly enough, Leo brings himself back by conjuring up pleasant sensory images– echoing the experiment Stephen was trying earlier]. OH– make that three points, Leo actually likes his family members and recalls them fondly, as evidenced by his brief flashback to when young Milly gave him the mustache cup for his birthday. 

Right, time for nibbles and questions.  Buy some sweets from the nice lady’s tray– mind the chocolate frogs. 

Questions for discussion:

–How many sexual innuendos did you count in these 6 pages?  The “tender gland” one doesn’t count as it is too easy. 

–What do you think was REALLY in that letter from young Master Boylan?

–Would you like to see the Blooms on an episode of “How Clean is Your House?”  Explain using details.

–Calculate the probability of the word “metempsychosis” appearing in an dirty novel about circuses to at least 10 decimal places.

Bonus points: 

 a. Jerry mentioned several posts ago that each section has its own color.  Can you identify the color for this section? 

b. Did you catch the cameo appearance of rosy-fingered Dawn?

ULYSSES pp. 55-59, “Calypso”

By LIZAANNE

Hi, folks!  Welcome aboard “The Odyssey” section of the novel–please have your tickets ready to be stamped.  Thank you.

This fourth section [Calypso] introduces us to the man who will be our second central character of this novel, namely Leopold Bloom.   Our narrator has backed the timeline up to the morning again, so that we meet Mr. Bloom at the beginning of his day.  After reading the first 5 pages of this section, we’ve learned quite a bit about him.  First, however, here are my tweets:

55-Leopold Bloom is introduced by his love of organ meats, how he makes b-fast, & talks to the cat–he anthropomorphizes as pretty but cruel

56-LB watches cat drink; decides on kidney for b.fast; checks on wife- she mumbles; considers loose bed springs; puts on hat w/ hidden paper

57-LB leaves key behind so won’t have to disturb wife, wanders down street in good mood; daydreams about exotic East– knows is just fantasy

58-LB greets shopkeeper after considering property values-wonders how he made his money; passes by school– hears lessons; arrives @ butcher

59-LB oogles meat & servant girl in shop; reads ads from cut sheets-thinks of cattlemarket; places order, wants to hurry so can follow girl

So, what have we learned on our first foray into Bloom-land? Well…

1. Leo is an advertising businessman who has a head for making money, property prices, potential clients, and a good land bargain.  Despite these talents, though, he seems to be living at the lower end of the spectrum. 

2. Leo endears himself to the reader through his fanciful daydreams (He is a good deal more cheerful in his thoughts than Stephen, which is a welcome change for us) and his kind treatment of his wife and his cat.  

3. Ah, on the subject of Molly (whose name we don’t learn until 3 pages into the chapter)–when we first meet Leo, he is putting together a breakfast tray for his wife, who is still in bed.  She’ll be there for the rest of the section.  Like Odysseus with Calypso, Leopold is tied to his love.  Unlike Odysseus, Leo doesn’t seem to mind much, at least we have seen no signs of it yet.  He is a devoted husband; in fact, we get the idea that he might be just a bit afraid of her.  According to the Bloomsday book, we should pay particular attention to her noisy bed-springs, which make their first appearance here.

4. Leo is not nearly as well-educated as our friend Stephen and is considerably older and more comfortable in his environment (not to mention in his own skin).  Leo knows Stephen’s father, Simon, well enough (probably in the pub) to have heard his impressions of the shop-keeper O’Rourke many times.  There are two things Leo and Stephen share at the moment: 1-that neither of them possess a key to their homes [however, Leo has only propped his door closed, and he fully intends to be back after his trip to the butcher]; 2- that both men are dressed in black because they are showing respect for the dead [Leo has a funeral to attend this morning after breakfast]. 

5. Leo has an eye for the ladies, particularly well-rounded ones.   He also loves organ meat.  These two ideas are probably connected.

6. Leo also appreciates the scatological elements of blood, guts, etc.  We shall shortly hear more about this than we ever wanted to know.

So, here are some questions for discussion as this train pulls into the station for refueling:

— How are the cat and Molly similar?

–Why does Leo carry a lucky potato?

–How does the idea of “Homerule sun rising up in the northwest” connect to our previous discussions of Irish-Anglo relations?

— Why is Leo buying pork sausage when he is supposed to be Jewish?