Ulysses (James Joyce) - A literary discussion

[Mister_Micawber]

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1 (and 2)–I think it is just Stephen’s inner sarcasm directed toward Haines’s remark (‘We feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly’)-- of course, in a mock-British tone.

2-- If there are overtones of the Mass, it has gone over this atheist’s head.
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[Haihao]

@Mister Micawber

2-- If there are overtones of the Mass, it has gone over this atheist’s head.

Hear, hear, Mr. Micawber!

[Haihao]

Is this again a Joycean event?

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Here I am.

3. Is it = for a swollen bundle to bob up; (it would) roll over to the sun; it would have a puffy face, which is white as salt. Here I am, the drowned man declared.?

– Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with money.
– Is she up the pole?

4. I remember MrP once had commeted that ‘rotto’ could mean ‘drunk’. I found this time that ‘up the pole’ could mean ‘druck’, too. Sorry but I would like to ask if the former suggests the father ‘coveting for money’ while the latter ‘sexually wonderful to the extreme’? (though usually ‘up the pole’ would mean ‘up a tree’)

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped clothes.
– And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.
Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing.

5. I recall MrP told us the key was huge. Ha, huge enough to be laid across the heap!

6. Is it an allusion to a priest’s ‘Dressing, undressing’ before and after Mass?

The priest’s grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly.

7. Here again a real priest dressed. The episode begins with Buck’s ‘Mass commencing’ and ends with a priest’s ‘Mass closing’ but neither of them are real one. I can’t help but feel a mocking effect on the ritual event as I am coming to the ending of Telemachus again. Is that so?

A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far out on the water, round.
Usurper.

8. sleek, brown, seal’s, round. Does every word of them all refer to Buck’s wet head?

9. Usurper: A pun on Buck, Hamlet, Telemachus, Haines (= British Empire), etc.?

Have a good weekend.

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

Hello Haihao,

3. Yes, I think that’s it: the corpse announces its presence to the searching vessel with the “here I am!” of a game of hide-and-seek.

4. I think “up the pole” here means “pregnant” (cf. “up the stick”, “up the junction”, “up the duff”).

5. In classical epic, warriors typically lift boulders to hurl at one another “that ten men in our day couldn’t lift”. The key to the tower has a similarly Homeric quality. (It is a tiny precursor of magic realism.)

6. I think that would be a fair interpretation. It also has a weary note, to my mind, as if Stephen finds all that dressing and undressing faintly futile.

7. I would say so, yes.

8. Likewise!

9. Probably not Hamlet and Telemachus, who deal with usurpers; but certainly Buck, who has usurped the tower, Stephen’s money, his handkerchief, etc.; and by association Haines, representative of usurping England.

As a footnote to #1: the “Hear hear” and “prolonged applause” recall the accounts in Hansard of parliamentary debates. “Zut!” and “Nom de Dieu!” are presumably the ejaculations of Britain’s appalled (or impressed) rival powers.

All the best,

MrP

[Haihao]

Hello MrP, good evening and wish you have a very pleasant weekend!

Armstrong looked round at his classmates, silly glee in profile.

1. I would think, a) Armstrong’s silly glee in profile; b) his classmates’ silly glee in profile (collectively). Are both possible in the context?

With envy he watched their faces. Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle.

2. I would suppose ‘their faces’ = S’s pupils’ (boys’) faces. Did S’s own school life pop up then before his eyes with a vision of Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily who were all his classmates?

For Haines’s chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind.

3. Does the latter half mean: Tonight I will use my words like what is for Haines’s chapbook deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind.?

Thank you!

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

Hello Haihao, a pleasant weekend to you too!

1. I would take Armstrong’s profile as “silly glee in profile”, from S’s point of view, since he has “looked round” towards the class; like the profile of a gleeful jester. (Presumably the classmates face the front and Stephen.)

2. The boys’ un-innocent faces reflect their encounters with “Edith”, etc. (representative female names).

3. I would say: “Tonight, amid wild talk and drinking, I shall cunningly introduce my aphorism about the pier into the conversation, to pierce the resistant chain-mail of Haines’s mind; who will then add it to his collection of my aphorisms [chapbook].”

See you later,

MrP

[Haihao]

@MrPedantic

1. I would take Armstrong’s profile as “silly glee in profile”, from S’s point of view, since he has “looked round” towards the class; like the profile of a gleeful jester. (Presumably the classmates face the front and Stephen.)

O, yes! That’s what the whole picture meant to show us!

@MrPedantic

2. The boys’ un-innocent faces reflect their encounters with “Edith”, etc. (representative female names).

O, that explains everything!

@MrPedantic

3. I would say: “Tonight, amid wild talk and drinking, I shall cunningly introduce my aphorism about the pier into the conversation, to pierce the resistant chain-mail of Haines’s mind; who will then add it to his collection of my aphorisms [chapbook].”

Another fully-contained picture!

Thank you, MrP!

Best regards,

Haihao

[Haihao]

Hello MrP,

My Sunday breakfast seems to be this one with coffee:

Time has branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted.

1. Could it be reworded as: Time has branded Pyrrhus and Caesar. Fettered, they are lodged in the room of the innumerable possibilities they have driven out? If so, I would think, normally, they are fettered and lodged in the room of one of the innumerable possibilities whereas the rest of the possibilities are driven out of the room. The original seems to suggest they are lodged with what they have ousted.

Best regards,

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

Yes, I find it confusing too. I can see that the choice of A rather than B ousts infinite possibilities; but not why Caesar should be “lodged in the room” of those possibilities; unless “in the room of” is used here with the now obsolete (but suitably Elizabethan) sense “in place of”.

Best wishes,

MrP

[Haihao]

I see. Your comment really made me ponder on them again a lot and long… I would now like to make some wildest guesses:

a. Both Pyrrhus and Caesar were murdered. Therefore, they were fettered by the event (murder) and consequently ‘lodged’ in the room of actuality. On the other hand, at the moment the ousted possibilities were ousted of possibilities because of the event, they became impossibilites which were fixed or actualized at the same moment so that they were inevitably doomed to be the roommates of their counterparts to be lodged in the same room of actuality.

b. Because Pyrrhus and Caesar no longer existed, they were ousted of the infinite possibilities from that moment, so they could but become the members among the unrealized possibilities which they ousted themselves and have to lodge themselves in that room (with a sense of “in place of”)

Sorry for these crazy and unreadable thoughts.

And,

Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers

1. Naturally I would think it = Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, they were impaled to books, with faintly beating feelers of their fingers touching the pages.

2. Unnaturally could it be: Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps which were impaled in their glass cases, with faintly beating feelers of light around the bulbs.?

and in my mind’s darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds.

3. Does here S. think his (or rather human) laziness under the unconsciousness was reluctantly made a movement like a dragon shifting her scaly folds?

A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven on the church’s looms. Ay.

4. Who possessed the dark eyes? The Pharisees?

All the best,

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

@Haihao

a. Both Pyrrhus and Caesar were murdered. Therefore, they were fettered by the event (murder) and consequently ‘lodged’ in the room of actuality. On the other hand, at the moment the ousted possibilities were ousted of possibilities because of the event, they became impossibilites which were fixed or actualized at the same moment so that they were inevitably doomed to be the roommates of their counterparts to be lodged in the same room of actuality.

That sounds very plausible. “Fettered” too perhaps to their stories and to all the “what-ifs” their stories provoke.

Back later for your questions!

Best wishes,

MrP

[MrPedantic]

…

1./2. I wonder whether the image here is of insects (“bookworms”) feeding on the books around him in the library (“impaled” as insects are impaled in a display case – cf. Eliot’s “pinned and wriggling on the wall”). Fingers for feelers is a nice interpretation.

3. I can only guess that the “deadly sin” of Sloth or Acedia (here, the dragon) is made uneasy by the ambient Diligence (its theological opposite), and thus stirs reluctantly.

4. I think it would be Christ’s “dark eyes”, as he utters the phrase. But it’s by no means certain!

Have a good Monday,

MrP

[Haihao]

Hello MrP, Good morning! To see your comments has become my first thing in the morning, which makes my everyday begin with a very good beginning.

Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

1. Is it = illegible loops or not understandable loops?

Thank you!

Haihao

[Mister_Micawber]

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Blind loop: A loop formation that has been completely filled in with ink.
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[Haihao]

I see. And the online dictionary is wonderful and helpful.

Best regards,

Haihao

[Haihao]

And,

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.

2. Has ‘Stephen touched the edges of the book.’ something to do with ‘Futility.’? Or it is just S’s movement showing consideration?

Thank you!

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

Hello Haihao,

“Futility” is Stephen’s ground-bass; but in this case, I think it also refers to the futility of making Cyril copy out sums he doesn’t understand.

I’m not sure about the edge-touching; it might be consideration, as you say; or an unwillingness to pick up a grubby pupil’s exercise book; or perhaps he begins to pick up the book, to look at the sums, but (on realising the futility of the operation) stops there.

Have a good Tuesday!

MrP

[Haihao]

Hello MrP,

Please take a look at this one:

She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes.

1. Is She was no more = She had no longer existed: or She was no more than…

2. Is She Stephen’s mother or Sargent’s or Columbanus’ or everyone’s?

And the whole para:

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 underfoot, 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. She had saved him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped.

3. Based on your comments last time, I have a feeling this time that in this significant paragraph Stephen found his own person in Sargent and related or crossviewed Sargent’s mother to his own. However, he, with lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail’s bed, abandoned his mother or ignored his mother’s will in her deathbed whereas the fox, with red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes, buried its mother (grandmother in the text but mother in the original riddle) out of a true feeling to the only true thing in life. But I am not sure if the contrast is reasonable.

Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by algebra that Shakespeare’s ghost is Hamlet’s grandfather. Sargent peered askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom: the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field.

4. It seems to me this goes back to the theme of Episode I: looking for one’s father. Both I & II take quite a long length for mother/father-son relationship. Does it also suggest Shakespeare himself in return found his position (as Hamlet’s grandfather) in his work?

Thank you!

Haihao

[MrPedantic]

Hello Haihao, good morning,

1. I would say “She no longer existed”.

2. I take it as only Stephen’s mother; but tentatively – it might well seem different on the next reading!

3. I’m still not quite sure about that fox. But there does seem to be a contrast between the softness of Stephen’s thoughts on the one hand, and the bright energetic fox on the other: perhaps for Stephen, whereas “a poor soul gone to heaven” embodies a particular kind of sentimentality, the image of the red fox embodies a more pragmatic and realistic view.

4. I would look at that interpolation ("…Shakespeare’s ghost…") slightly differently: it seems to me that Stephen here suddenly becomes aware of the humdrum nature of his activity (teaching a schoolboy his sums), and of the gulf between that and the aphorisms and musings for which Haines shows such exaggerated respect. This awareness manifests itself in the irony of the interpolation, which conflates the two extremes (schoolwork: his theory about Hamlet) and burlesques the latter.

But again, only a very cautious interpretation!

Best wishes,

MrP

[Haihao]

Hello MrP, good evening,

Thank you again for the ever relishable breakfast to which what I need to add is only a cup of coffee!

Best regards,

Haihao