2. Nestor

[[deleted user]]

@ 50 Susan wrote: ... Daedalus' freedom ...  it's the journey that's important. ."

I think you're onto something there.

Stephen Dedalus in this chapter repeatedly ruminates on souls. So it's an important issue for him. And he verbally says to Deasy that God is out there in the street. (I.E., IF one supposes a God, God would be found in the midst of life actively lived. )

Deasy has said that "The ways of the Creator are not our ways. (I think Deasy means it's not given to us to understand it.) All history moves toward one great goal, the manifestation of God." (I think Deasy means God directs history toward His own end...)

THAT, this chapter suggests to me, was Stephen Dedalus's big problem with Catholicism. It said: Just accept. Dedalus wants/needs to make his own journey.

Like the boys in the street, focusing on the goal marks they have set, and actively, passionately, knowingly moving towards them, that's what Stephen Dedalus wants, too.

To work towards something that seems important to him...a goal..his own journey (even if he hasn't yet found what it is).

What he does not want, what he cannot accept, is to be told what his goal/his beliefs /his journey "should " be. ("There can be no two opinions on the matter.")

Stephen Dedalus will not/ cannot live a mindless life.

I suspect he despises mindlessness.

Examples: The Church. It tells him what to believe...and won't allow questioning...therefore, it won't allow understanding. To remain in the Church would be nonsense.

Which, I think, is why the riddle was about perfect.

The cock crew
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
Tis time for this poor soul
To go to heaven.


The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.


As I had noted @25, there really WAS such a riddle. With such an accepted/prescribed answer.

But the soul going to heaven in the riddle and the soul going to heaven in church doctrine both strike Stephen Dedalus as nonsense. Neither makes sense to him, yet, established as they are, neither is to be questioned!

Deasy/the Church: the ways of God are not our ways. (You don't need to understand. Don't question.)

The boys...mindlessly repeating the "facts of history"... Deasy doesn't require them to understand; he only needs them to be able to recite.

The boy Cyril Sargent with his math exercises: "Mr. Deasy told me to write them all out again...and show them to you."

Deasy's goal wasn't for the boy to "do" the math; just go through the motions.

SD: "Do you understand how to do them now?"

The boy: 11 to 15. I was to copy them.

SD: "Can you do them yourself?"

The boy: "No, sir."

Well...the boy can't understand what he's doing but he knows the correct form of address with which to address ... his betters... so that's something, eh?

Mr. Deasy..."What is it now? he cried continually without listening."

Just going through the "right" rituals.

The boys...reading Milton. Milton! Without any understanding. All Deasy/ (all the world???) needs or wants is for the boys to say the words. Just like the Church. Just say the words. Just kneel and go through the motions.

Well, by God, Stephen Dedalus is not going to go through his life just saying the words and going through the motions. He wants to be in the streets of life. Living. The journey is important to him.

[[deleted user]]

Lol. It always seems to come back to "The Wizard of Oz."

[Suzann]

Adelle wrote: "@ 50 Susan wrote: ... Daedalus' freedom ...  it's the journey that's important. ."

I think you're onto something there.

Stephen Dedalus in this chapter repeatedly ruminates on souls. So it's a..."

I love this! I wasn't giving Mr. Deasy enough credit as the secular mindlessness paralleling the religious non-questioning mindlessness. Each step in Stephen's journey is incrementally well-placed as you demonstrate.

[Suzann]

Adelle wrote: "Lol. It always seems to come back to "The Wizard of Oz.""
Modern myth!

[[deleted user]]

Susan. Your thoughts on freedom and his having to journey got me thinking.

I have always LOVED that movie.

[Lily]

Patrice wrote: "Susan wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Lol. It always seems to come back to "The Wizard of Oz.""
Modern myth!"

I missed the Wizard of Oz reference. Where is it?..."

@63? Maybe someplace earlier, but....

[Lily]

Patrice wrote: "Thanks Lily. I saw that but was wondering "what" comes back to the wizard of oz?"

Well, you said @43:

"I think Susan might be right, SD might be on the journey his mother wished for him, to find a heart. Ha! The Wizard of Oz again."

[[deleted user]]

@63. Dorothy had to do it herself. Mmm. Another analogy might be that Dorothy, too, like Odysseus, was trying to get back home.

I just said it because of the journey ... that each has to find one's own way.

[Thomas]

Adelle wrote: "The boys...reading Milton. Milton! Without any understanding. All Deasy/ (all the world???) needs or wants is for the boys to say the words. Just like the Church. Just say the words. Just kneel and go through the motions.
"

Joyce was teaching English in the Berlitz School in Trieste, Italy when he started writing Ulysses. I can't imagine what it must have been like to learn English from James Joyce, but I think it must have been like the school boys reading Milton. He gave his students the following to recite and copy down:

Ireland is a great country. They call it the Emerald Isle. The Metropolitan Government, after so many years of having it by the throat, has reduced it to a specter. Now it is a briar patch. They sowed it with famine, syphilis, superstition, and alcoholism. Up sprouted Puritans, Jesuits, and bigots.

and

The tax collector is an idiot who is always annoying me. He has filled my desk with little sheets marked "Warning," "Warning," "Warning." I told him that if he didn't stop it, I would send him to be f...ound out by that swindler, his master. Today, the swindler is the government of Vienna. Tomorrow it could be the one in Rome. But whether in Vienna or Rome or London, to me governments are all the same, pirates.

[[deleted user]]

Lol.

Well, Rochester. ....at least he didn't have them recite and copy down Chapter 3, "Proteus."


Mmmm. Looks though, as if Mr. Deasy was perhaps correct about Joyce--not cut out for teaching.

Thanks, Thomas. I feel as though I know Joyce just a little bit better now.

[Suzann]

Adelle wrote: "Lol.

Well, Rochester. ....at least he didn't have them recite and copy down Chapter 3, "Proteus."


Mmmm. Looks though, as if Mr. Deasy was perhaps correct about Joyce--not cut out for teaching..."

A teacher among us might suggest that he's challenging his students to think while they copy. If, as the postmodernist character in Herzog says, " history is biography and biography is fiction" then Joyce's copying assignment is a counter narrative to the narrative conventionally accepted as historically accurate, however it may be no less accurate.

[[deleted user]]

A nice "hope"

[Silver]

One of the things which I wondered about is the somewhat enigmatic phrase about Stephen proving by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost was Hamlet's grandfather.

This was brought up a couple of times in Telemachus, and than repeated again here when Stpehen is helping Sargent with his arithmetic.

Is this phrase related to the search for father/parental figure which was crucial to Telemachus.

Thus far we are not really given any insights into Stephens own relationship with his father, and no mention of his father has been made that I can recall.

Is this some way for Stephen to try and combine rational thought/logic/science with some form of spirituality?

[Silver]

I also began to wonder at Mulligan always referring to Stephen as the Bard. At first I just assumed it was because Stephen was a writer.

But there seems to several references and mentions of Shakespeare "The Great Bard"

So then I began to wonder if there is meant to be some connection between Shakespeare and Stephen?

Is it part of Stephen's arrogance to compare himself to Shakespeare?

[Silver]

Patrice wrote: "I got curious and found an essay by Harold Bloom on Joyce. I've just begun it. It's called "Joyce's Agon with Shakespeare" and it's as difficult to read as Ulysses is. But the first sentence is:..."

That is quite interesting, thanks for the info.

[Kathy]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but my friend Jen used to be Harold Bloom's nextdoor neighbor. She said his wife reported that he read so fast that he was continually turning the pages and retained everything, which would explain his encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much all of English literature! At the time, Jen had toddlers, and she was afraid he would ask her someday what she was reading, and she'd have to say, "Everybody Poops."

[Kathy]

Yup, that's Harold Bloom.

[Kathy]

No, he's at Yale. We're near New Haven. My husband is fond of saying that you never know what superstar you're passing on the sidewalk here, which is so very true!

[Zippy]

Patrice wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Perhaps a bit off topic, but my friend Jen used to be Harold Bloom's nextdoor neighbor. She said his wife reported that he read so fast that he was continually turning the pages and r..."

LOL Patrice! Except, isn't that officially a spoiler?! Ha ha ha!

[Kathy]

I imagine Harold Bloom would totally get "Everybody Poops," to be honest. It would be interesting to see his exigesis on it! :)

[Everyman]

Adelle wrote: "The boys...reading Milton. Milton! Without any understanding. "

Why without understanding? And even if not understanding all, is that bad? My 7th grade teacher read Paradise Lost to us, and I sure didn't understand it all, but I loved the language and understood enough that I wanted to come back to it when I was older.

And, after all, if understanding were a requirement for reading, I would have to lay aside Joyce here and now!

[Sue]

As to Chapter 2 (Nestor), I noted SD's deep grief/guilt regarding his mother/his actions coloring so many of this thoughts. I took the "fox" riddle to be rooted in his grief (certainly that riddle was unbreakable but to SD, it would seem!). Similarly said grief directed his thoughts regarding the poor student to the student's mother as the only one who cherished/protected him…and extending those thoughts from the student to his own situation now clouded by how his relationship with his own mother ended…(and said relationship revisited in a dream).
I was also struck by the anti-semitism mentioned thus far in the book and of course, this is prior to WWII when such inferno resulted from these smoldering flints of disdain. Of course, in light of the recent Charlie Hebdo incident , I have become more aware that especially in France, that a significant number in the Jewish population is feeling anti-semitism once more (and thus many are migrating to Israel in increasing numbers recently). Seems this issue should have long ago vanished. However, I see (from posts here) these mentions are setting us up for Mr. Bloom and his situation! (speaking of whom, when I bought this book, I was advised that now I will be able to celebrate/attend Bloom's Day!)

[Nicola]

Everyman wrote: And, after all, if understanding were a requirement for reading, I would have to lay aside Joyce here and now! "

Hah! I would say 'me too' but I am actually understanding some of it. Not much admittedly but I am definitely getting much more out of it this time. I'm sure you aren't as bad as all that as well :-)