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Ulysses
Ulysses - Spine 2012
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Discussion - Week Six - Ulysses - Episode 13 & 14
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What I want to know is, after Joyce takes us through this whole, difficult embryological development of literature thing in "Oxen of the Sun," where would he place Ulysses and its language? Does the text indicate that literature has finally been "born" after nine sections of linguistic gestation? And it's a boy and its name is Ulysses??
Mod
Many reviews and opinions I've read look at Joyce as being a kind of "show-off", flaunting his education, cleverness, and so on. This far into Ulysses, I can see how that opinion would arise.
In Declan Kiberd's introduction, he posits a different view of Joyce's performance based also on the Modernist project in general.
Joyce made his parodies the basis of a serious case against literature itself. Canceling one another out, the styles of Ulysses were - for all their technical flair - a chastening reminder to readers of the sense in which even the finest literature remains a parodic imitation of the real experience of life. What makes Joyce a radical writer is his willingness to question not just the expressive powers of language but also the institution of literature itself. This is the ultimate in sophistication: for, in raising doubts about the literary medium, Joyce is calling into question the very medium through which those doubts are expressed. The parodies in Oxen of the Sun join forces with the parodies of newspaper journalism, patriotic ballads, Yeats and Synge, adding up to a sustained meditation on the limits of communicability. That theme had been broadened in Dubliners, many of whose citizens were unable to finish stories, songs or even sentences; and, again, in A Portrait... where Stephen Dedalus mastered language only to find that he was talking to himself in the loneliness of a diary. By the time he completed Ulysses, Joyce was ready to include his own book in the indictment; and so he reached a terminus point of modernism, at which a culture, having flowered, immediately annuls its own agenda. At the heart of modernist culture is a distrust of the very idea of culture itself.
So in that light, I think it would be more likely to declare that literature has not been "born", but "annulled". Each of those developments of literature in Oxen of Sun is shown to be incomplete, inadequate, and not up to the task of truly representing "the real experience of life". This tour through not only the development of literature in this episode, but through history, politics, gender relations, biology, commerce, and religion, throughout the book is a meditation on existence, in general, and the difficulty of expressing, commenting on, and trying to make sense of it all. And maybe further, what's the point of trying to capture, comment and examine life in art? This question goes to the heart and soul of all artists in all mediums - "Why am I creating? To what end?" I know that in my own work in the visual arts, I've had many moments like this and some of the art I've made has a certain "Joycean" attitude towards the medium, the audience, and culture in general. Technically, I make art in the "Post-modern" era, but I think the basic issues of the Modernists are still here and as present as ever.
It is a boy and his comment is "The Emperor has no clothes!!!"
Okay. Hmmmm. Interesting: By the time he completed Ulysses, Joyce was ready to include his own book in the indictment; and so he reached a terminus point of modernism, at which a culture, having flowered, immediately annuls its own agenda.
I can see how this interpretation could be borne out, especially when the language "born" at the end of the episode disintegrates into a slangy cacophony.
Yet don't feel totally comfortable with the negative end implied by "annulled" and "indicted." Questioning the limits of the communicability of literature, yes. Finding it inadequate, yes. Telling us even Ulysses is inadequate, yes.
But seems like Joyce put in too much effort, time and innovation into Ulysses for it to be solely an exercise in incommunicability. Yes, each literary style alone is inadequate to communicate the modern experience, but the styles don't "cancel each other out." The radically chimeric whole communicates much more than the sum of its parts. I feel that his deliberate choice to liken literary progression to embryological development (which, at the time, was thought also to reflect evolutionary history) implies a positive aim for Ulysses. His may be kind of a freakish baby, but I can't help but feel Joyce is striving to place it on the next step up the developmental ladder. Maybe cacophony was necessary for trying to express modernity.
Two more things I've been wondering about:
- Since Shakespeare has a special status both in Ulysses and in the western literary canon, why isn't Shakespeare's style included in this recapitulation of literary development? At least, I didn't seem to see it, and I didn't see it mentioned in a couple of sources I checked. Is Will in there, and I missed it? Does Joyce excuse Shakespeare from this meditation on the limits of communicability for some particular reason? Is this a compliment? Or is it just that Joyce already wrote a sustained meditation on Shakespeare and his style in "Scylla and Charybdis?"
- And here, God as "a shout in the street" returns in a thunderclap: "A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that hist his heart." This all seems pretty important. So what do you guys think this vision of God means?
But met him pike hoses or no met him pike hoses, I'm not in Joyce's head, so all that is just my opinion.
Like Rachel, I prefer to view the demonstration of the evolution of language/literature in a more positive light. If the true progression were towards annulment and futility, why equate it with pregnancy, birth and life? I was wondering if a more modern-day, musical equivalent would be sample based music, where the re-purposing of earlier works is an act of creation rather than destruction.On a slightly different train, "Oxen of the Sun" is a rather difficult read. I found myself struggling with the text, whole paragraphs wold go by when I did not understand what I was reading and could not retain what I was reading. It began to feel as if Joyce were trying to re-teach me how to read literature -- to read literature with the with focus and attention we often bring to poetry, paying attention to every word. Typically with novels, I find myself glossing over descriptive passages, getting a sense of the content and the mood while reading quickly for plot. But Joyce doesn't allow this type of reading. I feel as if he deliberately makes the text strange and unfamiliar, requiring slow-reading. And so the process is frustrating and exhausting, but (presumably) rewarding.
Rachel wrote: "- Since Shakespeare has a special status both in Ulysses and in the western literary canon, why isn't Shakespeare's style included in this recapitulation of literary development? At least, I didn't seem to see it, and I didn't see it mentioned in a couple of sources I checked. Is Will in there, and I missed it? ..."Hmm, good question. The closest seems to be an "Elizabethan Chroniclers" section. By the end, I was curious about the other end of the time frame -- why does he not incorporate more modern writers, such as Kipling, Wells, H. James, Hardy, or Freud?
Looking over the styles, the majority seem to essayists, diarists, and historians. Perhaps only writing styles devoted to the progression of history, religion, and journeys were included?
Mod
Maybe the Modernist project gets stuck on the idea of "Why continue on with pregnancy, birth, and life if we're just going to mow each other down in trench warfare seasoned with mustard gas?"
Modernism is bleak, dark and searching for something to cling to. And it is quite frustrating and exhausting, just like this book....
Episode 13, Nausicaa
Scene: The Rocks
Hour: 8 p.m.
Organ: Eye, nose
Art: Painting
Symbol: Virgin
Technic: Tumescence: detumescence
Mr. Bloom on Sandymount Strand watching a fireworks display, and another display from Gerty Mac Dowell. Many an explosion on the strand that evening.
Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun
Scene: The Hospital
Hour: 10 p.m.
Organ: Womb
Art: Medicine
Color: White
Symbol: Mothers
Technic: Embryonic Development
A visit to the maternity ward to welcome a new life into the world. Surrogate father Bloom (Odysseus) meets surrogate son Stephen (Telemachus) and soon after their adventures begin in nighttime Dublin.