The Ulysses Reading Support Group

[Angus]

As I mentioned, tatapusin ko pa rin siya, yun lang sobrang bagal ng pacing. Baka magwork pa kung ganun ang technique. Bwisit kasi ang novel na ito. Mas malala pa sa Portrait! Hopefully by end of June (maximum palugit) tapos ko na siya.

[H]

Sige...ganon na lang...try ko rin yung style na yon. 1-2 eps a week. Baka pag ganon may time pa mag moony-moony sa meaning nya...

At least yung Portrait kasi manipis lang...

[Angus]

Episode 6, Hades:

So there's a funeral procession and the attendees are mindlessly talking about random things. There are a lot of people talking, so I found it a little hard to follow the narrative. On this part, Dedalus joins Bloom, so this must commence the activities that the two are to partake together for the rest of the day.

The procession ends at the cemetery and Bloom wonders about the tedious repetitiveness of a priest's job during a funeral, saying the same words over and over again. Actually, this is the only part in the episode that I understood, because I sort of feel the same. Whatever it is that a priest says over a dead body seems to me detached and insincere because really, does the priest know everyone that he is praying over?

Also, this is not your common funeral where people mourn or think about the person who recently passed away. In fact, I think they only talked about Poor Dignam once. They are distracted with their own thoughts. They are merely attending the funeral for the sake of attendance. Which happens in real life.

[Angus]

Episode 7, Aeolus:

This episode looks interesting because of the structure. It breaks away from the traditional narration of the previous parts. The episode is broken down into news snippets with their corresponding headlines. But really, if we take off the headlines, it will still be the same.

This form is appropriate because the events take place inside a news room. There's a lot of noise produced by the printing equipment, and probably this ultimately dulled my understanding of the episode. There's too many people talking and caring only about the conversation within their circle.

All I know is that Bloom is working on an ad for a client and this client is trying to negotiate some of the terms that he has with the printing press and Bloom's boss doesn't want to bend to the new conditions of this client. After all those conversations about, that's the only one that stuck to me. It seems that I lean a lot toward Bloom because he is in and out of the office, so when he was out of the office, he obviously didn't hear what the other characters were talking about. So like me.

[H]

Parang gusto ko na basahin yung part na magiging play...I wonder if that would make more sense? :P

[Angus]

Gusto ko na ngang itapon ito eh. It would never make any sense. Magbasa ka na lang ng guide. Kahit nga yata guide wala namang kabuluhan. Actually, medyo naasar ako sa mga naggoglorify dito. It's sooo pretentious. Pero naisip ko afterward, pakialam ko ba? To each his own. And ang naging conclusion ko from that, hindi na ako magbebenchmark kanino man.

Itong book na ito, naghihintay lang ng 2 stars max sa akin, pero malamang 1 lang. I am still giving it the benefit of the doubt. 3 stars from me ay sobrang labo. How could I even like anything that I barely understand and that I am straining so hard to understand? Bow!

[H]

Hahahaha...wag itapon..sayang naman...puwedeng book end yan :)

Malay mo, ma windang ka sa ending...sobrang enlightening and life changing pala..hehehehe.

[Angus]

Life changing kasi magkakaroon na ng kapalit ang Tropic of Cancer as my worst book, hahaha!

[H]

Meron akong Tropic of Cancer and Topic of Capricorn...pareho ko hindi pa nababasa. Is it really that bad??

[Angus]

I don't like the theme. At saka mukhang nagyayabang lang si Miller. It seems that he's trying to pull off an I-don't-care attitude. See for yourself.

[K.D.]

:)

[Angus]

Episode 8, Lestrygonians:

It's been some time since the last time I touched the book. I was hoping that the little break could provide some relief from the difficulties that I suffered with the previous episodes. But it's all in vain. I guess I will just have to deal with it.

It's already lunch time in the book's time span. Bloom is walking around town, feeding birds, bumping into past loves, eating lunch, and thinking of laboring women and lovemaking while munching on his food. This part explores the different thought processes while people are eating their food. We also see bad eating habits, hear people's orders, smell the aroma, and taste the food.

Food is a powerful theme. Its necessity to human life makes in a thing unignorable, but its pervading presence makes it sink a little into the mundane. This is quite an interesting episode, which is not to say that I have finally discovered the way to enjoy and understand the novel. There are also some references to religion at the beginning of it, and I'm pretty sure there are more allusions to it while the whole of Dublin is busy eating and thinking their own thoughts.