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Ulysses
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Chunky Read ULYSSES with reading schedule
That is why I pushed through as I did. I knew that I was beginning to dread picking up the book. If I did not hold my nose, dive in and get it done, I would never finish.
Hey everyone. Sadly, I'm behind too. I started late and tried to catch up, but so far have only read through chapter 10. I also have a rare type of cancer and will likely be spending the week with more Chemo--NOT the time to be reading ulysses. I need to be focused for this! On the bright side, maybe it will give me a chance to catch up on some of my TBR books. I take most of my books out of the library , and there are often long request lines. I've been annoyed lately about having to get and return books without reading them after I've waited a few months and then having to put myself back on the waitlist for another 3 months! So maybe this will actually be a good thing! I figure it's ok to be behind here--i just hope to finish by Bloomsday!
Alanna - Prayers and healing thoughts going your way. Also - this is definitely not a book to be rushed. Isn't it a just like life? There are boring and confusing parts.
I, also, send out my best wishes for your health and healing.
Alanna, I join he other ladies in assuring you of my support, prayers, well wishes. Please keep us posted. I hope your prognosis is fairly positive.
Thanks guys, other than some residual memory problems and body aches, I'm ok now. (last year I was in a coma and hospital for months and had NO memory at all--the nursing staff called me "50 first dates girl" Haha) but I basically need "maintenance/preventive" Chemo every so often. I think I'll be reading "clash of kings" while I'm there, I always feel a little out of it reading those books anyway. Becky, when I come back next week I'd be happy to help with some of the notes. I won't be moving forward in my reading of Ulysses this week, but I'll stop by and see if anyone has any revelations in the meantime. Lol Thanks everyone!
Mod
I am only putting a chapter up at a time and it is behind schedule so don't worry about being behind This is probably the hardest book I ever read!
Mod
I completely agree with you on this statement, Meg! I read Moby-Dick a couple years ago, and at that time, that book was tough for me, mainly because it would literally put me to sleep if I read it in the evening. It took me forever to finish. :o)
But Ulysses is MUCH harder to read than Moby Dick was. I cannot believe how hard, taxing, and challenging it is to read. I knew this book was supposed to be controversial, and had heard about the masturbation scene (which I have not got to yet, or it I had, I totally didn't know what I was reading! LOL), but I had no idea this book was so DIFFICULT.
All of us who manage to finish this one will definately deserve kudos, applause, pats on the back, and a well earned feeling of accomplishment. This book is a marathon.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has started to drift. And if we all finish this, we all need a good Irish whiskey.
We can definitely save it for Bloomsday which is right around the corner! Sláinte!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN SUMMARYThis episode takes place at around 8:00 p.m. on Sandymount Strand, the same shore where Stephen had earlier that morning contemplated the meaning of life's changes in "Proteus." Bloom has just come from visiting the Dignam family (in Sandymount), and "Nausicaa" provides him with a "relief" from the unpleasantness of Barney Kiernan's pub in "The Cyclops," and it also furnishes him respite from the somber atmosphere of the bereaved Dignam household. Joyce gains continuity with the previous episode, "The Cyclops," despite the time differential by continuing several motifs from that chapter, the most prominent of which is the arc. The rising and falling of the biscuit tin that was flung by the Citizen is reflected in the various ascents and declines in "Nausicaa!': for example, Gerty MacDowell's tempting leg, the Roman candle's rise and climactic explosion from the Mirus Bazaar, and the swinging censer of the church benediction — all of these risings and fallings lead up to and down from the simultaneous orgasms of Gerty and Bloom. Also, the form of the episode is as simple as its style (Joyce called it — perhaps knowingly — a "marmalady" style, a sticky style). The first part of the episode deals with Gerty; the second, with Bloom and his ruminations.
Parallels with Homer are not difficult to recognize. Odysseus, washed ashore on the land of the Phaeacians, was awakened from sleep when he was struck by a ball misthrown by Princess Nausicaa and her friends; the resourceful and beautiful young girl had come to the shore to play and wash some clothing. Not nonplussed by the appearance of a naked stranger, Nausicaa told the hapless, storm-tossed wanderer to go to her father's palace to receive succor. Gerty (Joyce's Nausicaa) aids Ulysses-Bloom by enticing him into the sexual respite provided by auto-eroticism, an act which he has been postponing until now. She also parallels the unmarried Nausicaa of Homer because marriage is much on Gerty's mind, especially after her breakup with her steady boyfriend, Reggie Wylie (a parallel here with Bloom's "loss" of Molly). In addition, Nausicaa in Homer's epic performed the menial task of washing her family's linens; Joyce's heroine, however, causes Bloom to (ironically) "dirty" his clothes by masturbating. Gerty is also compared to the Blessed Mother, and Mary's colors, especially blue, appear throughout the episode. Mary, of course, is the Catholics' Refuge of Sinners and, to them, a last resort for bewildered and perplexed mankind — in this instance, Bloom.
I think this was the first chapter that I even understood the basics of the writing, but, I never would have put together those up-down images. And, I was confused by the moving from the girls on the beach to scenes from a church and back again. It was clear that the girls were not moving in and out of a church, nor was Bloom, so how did the reader get inside a church all of a sudden?
I wanted to read this...I really did...but I got lost so quickly that I am afraid I gave up. Sorry to bail on the chunky yet again! One of these days I will actually be able to do it. I think I am going to shamelessly download 50 shades of grey onto my kindle for now. I am trying to stop reading trashy things but it keeps pulling me back in again and again!
Not to worry Stacy, this was an extremely hard novel
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Sheila , Supporting Chick
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Well, all I can say is that is the most OBSCURE sexual scene I have every read! LOL Or maybe it is because I just finished Fifty Shades of Grey, but seriously, that is supposed to be some oh so nasty mastubation scene????
Alanna wrote: "Hey everyone. Sadly, I'm behind too. I started late and tried to catch up, but so far have only read through chapter 10. I also have a rare type of cancer and will likely be spending the week with ..."Hey Alanna - I love your positive attitude about something that is pretty intimidating. Enjoy your enforced reading time and get well!
Sheila wrote: "Okay, I gave up on chapter 12...I just couldn't comprehend anything I was reading in it...and moved on to chapter 13. So chapter 13 is supposed to be the "nasty" chapter, right? The controversial o..."Wellll, it's nasty if you think how his readers were recently coming off of the Victorian novel being the standard. :)
I'm so sorry, I have been away. Just send me your e-mail address and I will send it today.
Going to VA next weekend so I will be reading this on the way. Six hours of me and Ulysses, so I am hoping to catch up then.
Mod
I don't think I could do 6 hours straight of this book! So good luck with your that. LOL
I've decided to not read a chapter until Meg posts the summary...since I have no idea what is happening in any chapter when I just read it. So I figure Meg is posting the summaries as she herself gets to each chapter, so when she posts a summary I will read that, then read the chapter. Then maybe I'll have at least an idea of what I am reading. :o)
I have a feeling we are all going to take longer than Meg's original schedule to finish this. :o)
I have to admit that I am reading the summary, then the book and then the summary again. This is wicked difficult!
That would be me too and then I read the analysis of the chapter.....
Hey everyone, thanks so much for the well wishes! I'm back...and absurdly behind, as always! Haha.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN SUMMARYThis episode takes place at around 8:00 p.m. on Sandymount Strand, the same shore where Stephen had earlier that morning contemplated the meaning of life's changes in "Proteus." Bloom has just come from visiting the Dignam family (in Sandymount), and "Nausicaa" provides him with a "relief" from the unpleasantness of Barney Kiernan's pub in "The Cyclops," and it also furnishes him respite from the somber atmosphere of the bereaved Dignam household. Joyce gains continuity with the previous episode, "The Cyclops," despite the time differential by continuing several motifs from that chapter, the most prominent of which is the arc. The rising and falling of the biscuit tin that was flung by the Citizen is reflected in the various ascents and declines in "Nausicaa!': for example, Gerty MacDowell's tempting leg, the Roman candle's rise and climactic explosion from the Mirus Bazaar, and the swinging censer of the church benediction — all of these risings and fallings lead up to and down from the simultaneous orgasms of Gerty and Bloom. Also, the form of the episode is as simple as its style (Joyce called it — perhaps knowingly — a "marmalady" style, a sticky style). The first part of the episode deals with Gerty; the second, with Bloom and his ruminations.
Parallels with Homer are not difficult to recognize. Odysseus, washed ashore on the land of the Phaeacians, was awakened from sleep when he was struck by a ball misthrown by Princess Nausicaa and her friends; the resourceful and beautiful young girl had come to the shore to play and wash some clothing. Not nonplussed by the appearance of a naked stranger, Nausicaa told the hapless, storm-tossed wanderer to go to her father's palace to receive succor. Gerty (Joyce's Nausicaa) aids Ulysses-Bloom by enticing him into the sexual respite provided by auto-eroticism, an act which he has been postponing until now. She also parallels the unmarried Nausicaa of Homer because marriage is much on Gerty's mind, especially after her breakup with her steady boyfriend, Reggie Wylie (a parallel here with Bloom's "loss" of Molly). In addition, Nausicaa in Homer's epic performed the menial task of washing her family's linens; Joyce's heroine, however, causes Bloom to (ironically) "dirty" his clothes by masturbating. Gerty is also compared to the Blessed Mother, and Mary's colors, especially blue, appear throughout the episode. Mary, of course, is the Catholics' Refuge of Sinners and, to them, a last resort for bewildered and perplexed mankind — in this instance, Bloom.
Joyce, in "Nausicaa," however, is doing much more than satirizing cheap, sentimental romance fiction: In this episode, he reveals the hidden side of Irish womanhood, as he will also later do in "Penelope," in Molly's soliloquy. In fact, in two significant ways, Gerty foreshadows Molly: Gerty, as does Molly, pleads for more understanding from men, especially priests, who hear women's intimate confessions; and Gerty and Molly are compared many times by Joyce to the Blessed Virgin.
Gerty knows exactly what she is doing in "seducing" Bloom — the dark and mournful foreign stranger — as she leads him to a moment of communication, albeit an ultimately unproductive one. She is aware of the allure of her transparent stockings: "Her woman's instinct told her that she had raised the devil in him. . . ." She finds a coconspirator in her friend Cissy Caffrey, who goes to ask her "uncle Peter" what time it is. Gerty has been told in the past about men's passions by Bertha Supple; thus, Gerty is very much aware of why Bloom keeps his hands in his pockets as he watches her display her underclothing. In short, she is scarcely the "fair unsullied soul" that Stephen saw calling to him at a climactic moment towards the end of Book Four of A Portrait. Stephen interpreted his "Pagan Mary" as beckoning him to the freedom of Europe; but in Ulysses, Joyce effectively portrays here the limitations of human nature, as well as its exalted moments. It was, in fact, Joyce's revelation of the darker passions of repressed womanhood, as well as its "blasphemous" commingling of sex and religion, that led to the suppression of Ulysses (in its serial format) by the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice in 1921.
Mod
"Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour in the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature's incorrupted benefaction.
UMM, SAY WHAT?? WAS THAT REALLY ONE SENTENCE?????
"In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildearted eft rising with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid."
HUH?
I'm SO confused!!!! Going to be skimming this chapter, for sure. Please, someone tell me that this book eventually becomes remotely understandable.
Sheila I'm not on 14 yet, but you've got me worried Haha.
Sheila, Yes, there are a few remotely understandable sentences, but only a few.
14 is my favorite chapter! I had to do an in depth study of it in high school and so after I dissected all of it I could I loved it :) Don't worry though I promise the easiest chapter to understand is Ithica it's catechism so it's literally questions with answers, there's still tough parts in it but not nearly as bad as some of the others :)Chapter 14 is amazing. The evolution of language, the birth, the various religious rituals, the incantations - since it's the evolution of language you'll get to a point where the text is horrible and others where it is super clear. But I know no one who enjoys old english styles as much as Joyce (except maybe literature professors) so that's where the Annotated Joyce really came in handy cause I don't even think I'd read any Chaucer before I read this book so I was completely lost at first. Good luck!!! I'm gonna look for my notes from high school tonight and I can add some of the fun stuff I researched back then.
My fave line though from the chapter-
"Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came."
Love it!
Sheila I am with you. I am even finding the chapter summaries difficult although easier.
Mod
Tyler, Please Please share any good stuff you have on Chapter 14, any of your notes from high school, because right now I am ready to skip over the rest of chapter 14, because it is making absolutely no sense to me right now. :o)
Okay, can't find my spiral but luckily I wrote all over this book, some of the pencil is faded but I think I got it...The opening of the chapter is in rough Latin and has ties to early Pagan fertility rituals. As the language styles progress from Latin to modern (early 1900) Irish slang, so does the embryo, the chapter follows the course of gestation starting here.
Blooms internal monologue was apparently somewhat shocking at the time, his thoughts about sex and reproduction are thoughts because to say them outloud would have been even worse.
Stephen is drunk and with his group, and Bloom starts to feel "fatherly" towards him. When talking about a patient who died Bloom longs for his dead son and the conversation turns to baptism and hell and Jesus. Bloom and Stephen share a moment of share loneliness while Stephen's friends are joking inappropriately.
As the language shifts to 17th century Buck arrives and throws the whole thing down an even darker hole of caos and depravity. An example "Mr Malachi Mulligan, Fertiliser and Incubator, Lambay Island" Thanks for that Buck...I remember my high school teacher laughing greatly at this so it's highlighted in my text.
The baby is born- and while everyone acts very appropriate while the Nurse is giving the news as soon as she leaves they break into more ruckus jokes at her expense.
Bloom is more concerned about the mother's discomfort during labor and as the language changes forms again Bloom silently judges them and thinks it's odd they are medical professionals but so badly behaved- and of course Joyce can't just say that, he has to say "that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest."
The gestation process continues with the development of the sex as Bloom questions how it is determined. Mulligan picks up the subject of infant mortality during the stage of pregnancy that is usually the last most common point for miscarriage, blaming health conditions.
"Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their faces." I highlighted this but made no notes...I like the line but need to grab my annotated copy if I'm gonna remember what it symbolized.
Stephen suggests they go to the pub and the literary style starts changing rapidly as they venture drunkenly into the night. I always figured that it becomes indecipherable because they're getting more and more drunk and when you're drunk you speak in more common language and slang and at the end the literary style is supposed to be modern Irish slang.
Drunkenly they go to the pub and then decide to head to where the whores are.
So quick summary to me of what this chapter is about:
Bloom and Stephen's group all find themselves at the hospital while a baby is being born. In the waiting room they joke and laugh and drink. Bloom views Stephen as a son having known him as a child and now seeing him all grown. Crude jokes are made about child birth, religion, medicine and women. Once the baby boy is born the young ones head off to the pub, while Bloom lingers a little way behind paternally. When they leave the bar Stephen wants to go to the red-light district and Bloom again follows not wanting any harm to come to Stephen.
Hope that helps :) And doesn't confuse too much :)
Alanna, I think Joyce is smiling down on you.To anyone who gets discouraged with this book, let's remember that once you finish it, you can always be proud of yourself for having read it.
Unlike, say....I won't mention a title that is somewhat numerical....
Shelley
Rain: A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.com
Mod
Unlike, say....I won't mention a title that is somewhat numerical..."
Shelley, you wouldn't be referencing a certain 50 Shades book, now would you? :o) Because I have to say, that as bad as the writing was on that, at least I always knew what was going on as I was reading! LOL
Wow, I never got a single line in that chapter as being a joke, but then, I did not get many lines in that chapter. At one point I thought they were knights in a castle and then, I thought they were in a maternity ward of a hospital, but could not figure out what they were doing there and so on.
No one ever likes this chapter :( But most people usually like Ithica so hopefully y'all will like that one better.
Mod
Ithica is Chapter 17? So we just need to tough it out till then? LOL
Sheila wrote: "Ithica is Chapter 17? So we just need to tough it out till then?..."Lol, people like Circe too- 15 and 17- Circe is easy cause it's in play format. But if you're at 14 then you're almost there! You can't quit now you're so so close! In my class most people dropped out at Wandering Rocks. So I'll be y'all's cheerleader! Just keep swimming!
Mod
ha ha me too, I need a life jacket
Mod
What are we to do? Tread literary water and swim parallel to the shore, keep reading without expecting to understand, float periodically if we need to rest, until we escape the pull of confusion. Then enjoy the euphoria of the end as we get back to dry land and finish this book!
Yep just keep swimming, just keep swimming Dory's famous words of wisdom in Finding Nemo.
Marialyce wrote: "Yep just keep swimming, just keep swimming Dory's famous words of wisdom in Finding Nemo."LOL!! Yes, I keep saying this to myself as I try to catch up with everyone. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
there has got to be a life jacket somewhere..............
Yes, Meg, it is called Sparknotes...
Sheila wrote: "Cheer loudly, Tyler, because right now I am sucking in water and choking! LOL"Go Team! Go Chick's on Lit! You can do it! I believe in you!!! You're almost there! Ra ra ra!!!
The book may be really tough but this is the best group!I hope ya'll want to do another book together (hopefully not as hard though)
I'm following your progress...I am going to jump in late! The end of the school year is almost here and I always like to challenge myself over the summer, since I don't get much reading done during the school year except YA fiction since I teach middle school English.
Chicks On Lit
Books mentioned in this topic
South of Broad (other topics)Middlemarch (other topics)
Fifty Shades of Grey (other topics)
Moby-Dick or, The Whale (other topics)
Ulysses (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Pat Conroy (other topics)Frank Delaney (other topics)
I'm afraid I may not be able to supply the Gifford notes for a bit. I have some review work I need to finish today, and then I'm traveling most of the rest of May.
Can anybody else pick this up?