Ulysses

[Mark]

Cool! Thank you, very much! - )
Being limited to a single statement made for some hard choices. It was fun.
Ulysses is always fun!

[Mark]

Bob wrote: "Phillip wrote: ". . .you can get lost in intellectual pursuits and led astray, which is what stephen is trying to do from time to time."

Raises another question. Was this conference Stephen's gran..."
Hey Bob - I'm Mark. I went to your sight and notice your essay on the Sisters. I have some very strong opinions myself on the story which run counter to most of the "accepted" theories. Would love to discuss it some time!

[Phillip]

Mark wrote: "Cool! Thank you, very much! - )
Being limited to a single statement made for some hard choices. It was fun.
Ulysses is always fun!"

indeed - and sometimes it is hard work, which is also fun

[Mark]

Phillip wrote: "agreed on the term stream of consciousness - i tend to avoid it. it suggests the writer worked the way kerouac worked (i'm thinking of ON THE ROAD, in particular) ... there's nothing improvised abo..."
A very interesting dialogue. If I might add a few points here. Stephen as already started drinking, and whether the alcohol improves or retards his rhetorical abilities is anybody's guess. I think the Library chapter is primarily about ghosts, with a sidebar about adulterous wives. I think Joyce is trying to draw our attention to something that seems to fascinate him too. Certainly when Hamlet was first produced many in the audience had very strong opinions about the viability of ghosts. But by the time Joyce is writing 400 years later, science has done a fairly thorough job of convincing many of us that ghosts are not real. But Hamlet continues to be produced, and even a modern audience doesn't seem to have a problem with the ghost being the driving force to the action: people today are still seem willing to suspend their dis-belief in order to be entertained; and I think Joyce thinks that this is one of the really cool things about Art.
Anyway, as to Stephen's preparedness and so on, I see the big question from the very start of Ulysses, for Stephen, is why is he still in Dublin. There is absolutely nothing for him there, and even more importantly why has he not yet begun his grand project promised and for-shadowed in Portrait.
I posit three reasons: He has not let found his muse; which those of us of an optimistic nature assume is what is going to happen next after he leaves Bloom's backyard. Second he is still struggling to reconcile himself to the idea of abandoning his sisters to a rather uncertain fate! And third, there is something missing, important to the project, that he is about to recognize from his encounter with Mr Bloom. (And it is not as Declan Kiberd would have us believe anything to do with tables and chairs.)

[Mark]

Elaine wrote: "Although there haven't been any post for the past five months, I am enjoying reading past comments. I'm thankful for your insight and thoughtful posts. I was reluctant to commit to reading Ulysses,..."
Contrary to mountains of critical and lay opinion Joyce wrote Ulysses to be read and enjoyed. It's just a novel; and reading it is just for fun!

[Phillip]

i like anthony burgess' book, Re:Joyce - where, somewhere, he says joyce's big themes are expressed in good round, dublin terms

ULYSSES taught me to read

i am thankful.

[Mark]

Phillip wrote: "again, so glad you are so enjoying ULYSSES. as bob (and anthony burgess) says, this is a book of the people, not specifically created for intellectuals. what does burgess say? something like, "joyc..."
The only critical work I have every enjoyed, or found useful, or had any respect for at all is Stanley Sultan's 1964, The Argument of Ulysses. Sultan sees and says most clearly exactly what needs to be said: that Ulysses is a flawless masterpiece!

[Mark]

Phillip wrote: "i like anthony burgess' book, Re:Joyce - where, somewhere, he says joyce's big themes are expressed in good round, dublin terms

ULYSSES taught me to read

i am thankful."
I guess I need to look into Burgess! I read Ulysses as a love story, with the central theme: an investigating of Yeats most evocative line: love's bitter mystery.

[Biblio]

How true that Ulysses can teach us literacy of the soul ^.^

[Kfan]

The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar

This is about the solving of a literary mystery by a wonderful writer, Jack Hitt. I love the concept of epics filling the horror of the void - horror vacui.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/12...

[Kfan]

Happy Bloomsday! I hope to read a couple of chapters this evening.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...

[Bob]

Mark wrote: "I have some very strong opinions myself on the story which run counter to most of the "accepted" theories. Would love to discuss it some time!"

Hadn't been on this JJ group in years. Back now though, so...

[Bob]

Mark wrote: "Second he is still struggling to reconcile himself to the idea of abandoning his sisters to a rather uncertain fate!"

I've thought about this angle a fair amount and have been somewhat surprised that it's seldom (never?) discussed elsewhere. What is Stephen's (and therefore JJ's) ethical obligation to his siblings? In Ulysses in particular the problem is expressed as a fear of drowning, of being pulled down into the undertow. I think an excellent case can be made that Stephen (and JJ) actively represses guilt regarding this matter. Almost certainly the guilt covertly assists and propels his desire for self-imposed exile. But this is hardly a problem unique to Stephen. Very large, impoverished Catholic Irish families in the late 19th Century were scarcely uncommon. Could one individual genuinely be expected to support his own young, growing family and all his siblings as well? No. Far better to repress that guilt and, if possible, move far away.

I re-read all those old messages today and I see I didn't make my point very clear. I was trying to suggest that from the moment Stephen rises on 16 June he's mentally preparing for the event to come at the National Library. When he seems to be thinking about other matters during the morning, those ruminations can be re-read as his preparations for the big Scylla and Charybdis scene. All his thoughts at Sandymount? All can be connected to his Hamlet theory. And no, it's irrelevant if he or anyone "believes" a literary theory: the argument's construction is all that matters. How unassailable is it? How internally consistent? What still puzzles me is why he isn't more successful. This theory was not a parable like that of the plums, or like the stories of Dubliners, in which case the ambiguity itself is necessary. If his arguments weren't yet fully reasoned out, then why arrange the presentation in the library to begin with? Well, these questions are rhetorical....

[Aloha]

Bob, you showed up with a bang! I’ll have to dust off the book.

[Bob]

Aloha wrote: "Bob, you showed up with a bang! I’ll have to dust off the book."

I'm so accustomed to Twitter.......Wish GR would let one "like" comments....

[Mark]

Blamires in his new bloomsday says basically the same thing: "His conscience calls him to come to her aid, but he feels that everything is against them. If he were to return home he would be dragged down to drown with her (metaphorically, I assume). The torment of remorse for his failure to do anything for the family in their suffering conflicts with his determination not to be destroyed himself, and the tension remains unresolved." (102)

I'm not sure Joyce or Stephen had any ethical obligation, but maybe an emotional attachment. Four or five young girls, poor, without a mother, without proper food or clothing, and an unemployed drunkard for a father... We know Stephen is going to leave, but I don't think it is wild speculation to think his decision troubled him.

Joyce, in real life did get his brother and a couple of his sisters to come stay with him and Nora and the babies in Trieste. It was of course more a case of them assisting him, than he assisting them.

[Phillip]

Bob wrote: "Mark wrote: "Second he is still struggling to reconcile himself to the idea of abandoning his sisters to a rather uncertain fate!"

I've thought about this angle a fair amount and have been somewha..."

i don't know that stephen's (or joyce's) desire for exile is all about assuaging guilt. he wants to become an artist. there is the adage, or something like an adage - you first have to get your act together before you can help others. joyce (and stephen) belived/believe that self realization is impossible in ireland - too much in the manner of history and social pressures to live up to, not enough opportunities.

in this way stephen's obsession with preparation for the library scene can be just another way that he is preparing himself to be successful on his own terms - his literary knowledge, is talent for rhetoric, etc.