Regular readers might remember my original plans to offer regular updates on my trek through Joyce's final and most abstruse work, Finnegans Wake. But as soon as I set to work on that, the book dove so deeply into incomprehensibility that to even attempt to summarize what I'd read would consist of nothing more than Skeleton Key summaries. Unlike Ulysses, with its connected but distinct chapters offering unique perspectives and pleasures at every turn, the Wake varied as its sections are, flow together with such abandon that I got nowhere trying to parse individual elements of the book/
It was only when I stopped trying to get a handle on the book, to even get a basic footing of where I was, that I even began to get into the Wake. Around that time, however, the book started to make some kind of sense. Based around Viconian cycles, the Wake is, narratively speaking, easy to figure out. After all, Joyce repeats the story ad nauseam, of the protagonist's social rise and subsequent fall from grace over a lewd encounter in a park and his irrepressible guilt. The same characters appear to reenact the basics over and over, each time as new figures with new, gnarlier paths to the same outlet. And in HCE's all-pervasive sense of guilt is the guilt of Ireland past and present, an anthropomorphic realization of the suffocating cloud of Catholicism that hovers over Joyce's ex-pat recreation of his homeland. The only deliverance comes through the water form of HCE's wife, ALP, whose mysterious letter has the power to wash away her husband's sins (or her husband entirely). But ALP, like Joyce's best women characters—Molly Bloom, Gretta Conroy—exists outside her husband's hopeless encasement in Ireland's moral carbon monoxide. ALP's chapter, filled with river names and the constant burbling of water imagery, is perhaps the most poetic, liberated passage Joyce ever wrote.
Showing posts with label James Joyce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Joyce. Show all posts
Friday, August 24, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Finnegans Wake: Book I, Chapters 1-4
From the very first page of Finnegans Wake, I knew I was in for a rough ride. Beginning in the middle of a sentence that will eventually be completed by the other fragment closing the book, the Wake plunges into a dense mire of language that collides various tongues into an idioglossia of puns and references so obscure as to be their own words, a sort of twin-speak warping of Dublin's geographical makeup that makes the esoteric written atlas provided by Ulysses seem as easy to read as a star map.
It's heady stuff, a gnarled (if flowing) run of portmanteaux and wordplay that seems to delight in instantly alienating the audience. The first chapter (and the next three) read like the Oxen of the Sun chapter of Ulysses, that book's most challenging, obscurant part. With fewer resources handy for the first-time reader than I had for Ulysses, Finnegans Wake proved an instant struggle. It took hours, whole hours, to read even one chapter.
It's heady stuff, a gnarled (if flowing) run of portmanteaux and wordplay that seems to delight in instantly alienating the audience. The first chapter (and the next three) read like the Oxen of the Sun chapter of Ulysses, that book's most challenging, obscurant part. With fewer resources handy for the first-time reader than I had for Ulysses, Finnegans Wake proved an instant struggle. It took hours, whole hours, to read even one chapter.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Reading Diary: Finnegans Wake
Reading Log
Book I, Ch. 1-4
I had not planned on keeping a running journal of my reading of Finnegans Wake, James Joyce's final, most elaborate opus, the way I did for Ulysses. However, as I begin to struggle—and I mean struggle—with the Wake, I figure it might do me good to keep a record of my thoughts in some vain attempt to organize what little I've managed to eke out of it so far. It may well be that this journal comes to resemble Robert Falcon Scott's Arctic diary, but damn it I need to do all I can to even start with this book.
I imagine I'll write posts by chapter as I did for Ulysses, though my first entry might consist of the first four chapters as I don't know that I've understood enough of any one of them to have enough thoughts for individual articles. I am slowly, ever so slowly, getting into the rhythm of the novel, even laughing aloud at times, and I plan on getting the famous Skeleton Key companion to give me a bit of a boost in understanding the basics. Worry not, Joyceans: I am not so foolish as to try to "get" Finnegans Wake. But as with Ulysses, I need a more solid foundation before I can slip into Joyce's nocturnal, panlingual orgy of shifting foci and character names and his free-associative wordplay. Still, despite my occasional flashes of pure, seething rage at the impossible density, I am curiously drawn to each page, rereading passages not merely out of necessity but because I can sense the music in them calling even to a tone-deaf id-jeeot like me. As much as I grapple with each page and eventually move on clueless as ever, I have the vague notion that, should I ever make it out to the other end, I'll be a devoted fan. But I suppose we'll see, won't we?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Richard Ellmann — James Joyce
Richard Ellmann's James Joyce is, quite simply, the best artistic biography I've ever read. Like the work of David McCullough, Ellmann's book is not only meticulously researched (nearly 100 pages are devoted to endnotes) but so lyrically written as to be almost novelistic. At first I did not understand the need for a biography of Joyce, given how autobiographical his work is, but Ellmann beautifully ties even the most minor incidents and acquaintances of Joyce's life into his flowing corpus. In fact, James Joyce could serve as well as a set of notes for Dubliners, Exiles, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake as it does a biography.
Progressing in chronological order, Ellmann sidesteps this predictable, typically tedious structure by making clear how much of Joyce's growth as an artist was specifically related to his constant change. Where others might devote chapters to the subjects that influenced and inspired the artist, Ellmann makes it clear that, more than anything else, time was the great preoccupation of Joyce. Joyce never stopped dealing with the forces that shaped him, he just added countless new observations and studies until he built from microcosmic fragments of Dublin life to a dream language of the universal man. Amazingly, Ellmann captures every nuance of this constant evolution without ever losing sight of the man. Then again, for Joyce, life and literature were one and the same.
Progressing in chronological order, Ellmann sidesteps this predictable, typically tedious structure by making clear how much of Joyce's growth as an artist was specifically related to his constant change. Where others might devote chapters to the subjects that influenced and inspired the artist, Ellmann makes it clear that, more than anything else, time was the great preoccupation of Joyce. Joyce never stopped dealing with the forces that shaped him, he just added countless new observations and studies until he built from microcosmic fragments of Dublin life to a dream language of the universal man. Amazingly, Ellmann captures every nuance of this constant evolution without ever losing sight of the man. Then again, for Joyce, life and literature were one and the same.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Eighteen: Penelope
[Link to previous chapters here]
With "Ithaca," Joyce achieved such breadth of language, so infinite, so microscopic, that you'd be forgiven for thinking the book was over. Where else can he go? It is at that point that the author addresses the one missing link, the one area not covered in his melting pot of language, perspective and dimension and the one that, if deleted, would render Ulysses the most broken and incomplete: the input of a woman.
I read "Penelope" one sentence at a time, to which some might say, "Yes, well done, Jake. Hope you didn't get any headaches." But do please keep in mind that there are eight sentences in this chapter. The chapter is 42 pages long. There are no periods, and my edition only has paragraph breaks in-between the 8 sentences because some kind soul followed the schema and inserted them later. Otherwise, I'd be left with nothing but un-punctuated block text for 42 pages. You'd be amazed how appreciative a person can be for 8 presses of the tab button.
With "Ithaca," Joyce achieved such breadth of language, so infinite, so microscopic, that you'd be forgiven for thinking the book was over. Where else can he go? It is at that point that the author addresses the one missing link, the one area not covered in his melting pot of language, perspective and dimension and the one that, if deleted, would render Ulysses the most broken and incomplete: the input of a woman.
I read "Penelope" one sentence at a time, to which some might say, "Yes, well done, Jake. Hope you didn't get any headaches." But do please keep in mind that there are eight sentences in this chapter. The chapter is 42 pages long. There are no periods, and my edition only has paragraph breaks in-between the 8 sentences because some kind soul followed the schema and inserted them later. Otherwise, I'd be left with nothing but un-punctuated block text for 42 pages. You'd be amazed how appreciative a person can be for 8 presses of the tab button.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Seventeen: Ithaca
[Link to previous chapters here]
In a way, "Ithaca," the penultimate chapter yet the proper summation of Ulysses' "plot," is as gorgeous and revealing as its final entry. Joyce's own favorite of the 18 episodes, "Ithaca" is one of the most profound things I've ever read, despite (and in many ways because) of the banality at the heart of it. It achieves a simultaneous microscopic and macroscopic view, soaring above the characters yet summarizing and concluding their quirks, beliefs, attitudes and fleeting connection with such precision that, were the prose not such a challenge that only those who've endured the strongest passages of the novel to this point not prepared to handle it, this chapter might serve as a study guide for the rest of Ulysses.
It's a towering achievement, but in a specific respect. After building and building for nigh on 700 pages, Ulysses damn well better deliver on Bloom's return home to handle Stephen's indirection and his wife's affair. Yet Joyce quickly makes it clear that the humanly observed reality of his characters will not, can not, suddenly give way to the fantastical resolution of complex human issues. This is not an explosive end to the book's story; it is a monumental summary of the book's use of language.
It's a towering achievement, but in a specific respect. After building and building for nigh on 700 pages, Ulysses damn well better deliver on Bloom's return home to handle Stephen's indirection and his wife's affair. Yet Joyce quickly makes it clear that the humanly observed reality of his characters will not, can not, suddenly give way to the fantastical resolution of complex human issues. This is not an explosive end to the book's story; it is a monumental summary of the book's use of language.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Sixteen: Eumaeus
[Link to previous chapters here]
Once again, Joyce gives the audience a breather, following up the sexual nightmares conjured by M.C. Escher and Franz Kafka in the previous chapter with straightforward prose that suggests Joyce really could have written a lucid, charming novel if he'd cared to, one that might even have put some money into his vacant, cobwebbed bank account. Then, just to shut everyone up, he sets about sabotaging this structure and pointing out its weaknesses.
For after spending nearly 600 pages entrenched with the foibles, perspectives, fantasies, observations and patterns of Stephen and Bloom, Joyce suddenly acquiesces to all those who would complain of its complexity and pulls back into language that's easily understood. But it lacks the intimacy of the reader's connection to these two characters. Where we used to get the barest flicker of pure reaction to another character or situation, now we get broader strokes. Granted, it's a hell of a lot easier to get a feel for the painting when you see the whole thing and not extreme close-ups of the preliminary pencil sketches, but who would pass up the opportunity to see Picasso revealing his process in minutiae in order to just see the finished product?
Once again, Joyce gives the audience a breather, following up the sexual nightmares conjured by M.C. Escher and Franz Kafka in the previous chapter with straightforward prose that suggests Joyce really could have written a lucid, charming novel if he'd cared to, one that might even have put some money into his vacant, cobwebbed bank account. Then, just to shut everyone up, he sets about sabotaging this structure and pointing out its weaknesses.
For after spending nearly 600 pages entrenched with the foibles, perspectives, fantasies, observations and patterns of Stephen and Bloom, Joyce suddenly acquiesces to all those who would complain of its complexity and pulls back into language that's easily understood. But it lacks the intimacy of the reader's connection to these two characters. Where we used to get the barest flicker of pure reaction to another character or situation, now we get broader strokes. Granted, it's a hell of a lot easier to get a feel for the painting when you see the whole thing and not extreme close-ups of the preliminary pencil sketches, but who would pass up the opportunity to see Picasso revealing his process in minutiae in order to just see the finished product?
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Fifteen: Circe
[Link to previous chapters here]
Did someone tear out what was meant to be the Circe chapter and paste in the screenplay for Bitter Moon hoping I wouldn't notice? Having read some of Joyce's more erotic letters to his wife Nora, I knew he could be astonishingly forthright about sex, but nothing in this book -- not even the graphic description of Bloom's cum-soaked shirt post-masturbation in the Nausicaa episode -- truly prepared me for the explosion of sexual desire contained within this chapter.
In The Odyssey, Circe traps Odysseus and his men when she turns the remaining crew into pigs, which is actually a step up from the usual fate to befall Odysseus' men, which is agonizing death in the name of their commander's quest for welcome-home sex. Odysseus receives an herb from Hermes that helps him avoid this curse, but he still falls under Circe's spell, staying with her for a year and becoming her lover.
A similar spell of sex and drug-induced haze falls over this chapter, which Joyce formats as if a play but structures in any way but a typical drama. This could almost have been written by Hunter S. Thompson after a particularly wild night even by his standards. As Bloom follows Stephen into "Nighttown," the area choked with brothels and whores, he begins having fantastical visions, all of them dovetailing into his warped sexual frustrations and desires. As Joyce moves deeper into the nightmarish (yet darkly funny) vision of sexual excess and the liberated id, he once again casts aside everything we think we know about this man.
Did someone tear out what was meant to be the Circe chapter and paste in the screenplay for Bitter Moon hoping I wouldn't notice? Having read some of Joyce's more erotic letters to his wife Nora, I knew he could be astonishingly forthright about sex, but nothing in this book -- not even the graphic description of Bloom's cum-soaked shirt post-masturbation in the Nausicaa episode -- truly prepared me for the explosion of sexual desire contained within this chapter.
In The Odyssey, Circe traps Odysseus and his men when she turns the remaining crew into pigs, which is actually a step up from the usual fate to befall Odysseus' men, which is agonizing death in the name of their commander's quest for welcome-home sex. Odysseus receives an herb from Hermes that helps him avoid this curse, but he still falls under Circe's spell, staying with her for a year and becoming her lover.
A similar spell of sex and drug-induced haze falls over this chapter, which Joyce formats as if a play but structures in any way but a typical drama. This could almost have been written by Hunter S. Thompson after a particularly wild night even by his standards. As Bloom follows Stephen into "Nighttown," the area choked with brothels and whores, he begins having fantastical visions, all of them dovetailing into his warped sexual frustrations and desires. As Joyce moves deeper into the nightmarish (yet darkly funny) vision of sexual excess and the liberated id, he once again casts aside everything we think we know about this man.
Ulysses, Chapter Fourteen: Oxen of the Sun
[Link to previous chapters here]
Let me me briefly summarize how I've gotten through Ulysses to this point. After constantly checking endnotes as I read through the first two or three chapters, I decided to try my best to simply power through each episode, note what confused me, then look up those things afterward. When I get a bit lost in the plot (which happens multiple times per chapter, save the more straightforward Nausicaa episode), I will -- and I refuse to be ashamed about this -- turn to Sparknotes. More recently, I've found meticulously outlined plot summaries here that have proved incredibly helpful. I read the explanatory notes for each chapter and occasionally branch out even further for information about what it all means, usually to Sheila O'Malley's posts on the book, since it was her enthusiasm for Joyce that finally motivated me to take the plunge into the author's work. Her writing on the chapters is, from what I've seen so far, insightful but conversational, perfectly capturing what I think Joyce did with his book: finding a human way to get across its big ideas. Whenever I get well and truly stuck, I immediately defer to her.
I did not make it one full page into the Oxen of the Sun chapter without running to all my little safehouses looking for clues, answers, ANYTHING to help me. What in the Sam Hill was going on? Even when I sorted out some basic facts, such as the chapter being set in a hospital and revolving around the idea of birth in physical and lingual terms, I still could not proceed. This is by leaps and bounds the hardest chapter of the book yet, and I pray it gets no harder from here. I don't mean to make Sheila out to be the be-all, end-all expert on Joyce, but when she opened her own post on the chapter with an acknowledgment of the difficulty of the chapter, I wondered what hope I had. Hell, Joyce himself acknowledged this was the hardest chapter to read. I am not even remotely surprised that it follows what was certainly the easiest episode to that point, one so intuitive and straightforward I never had to look at notes to figure out what was going on.
I don't want to give off the impression that anything I've written on Ulysses to this point is definitive or even all that confident. I've relied so much on other readings because it's so hard to pick up exactly what's going on that I don't even consider my Ulysses posts reviews (hence why I referred to my plans to chart my trip through the book as a "reading diary"). But I've at least tried to pick up on what Joyce is doing and make sense of it through my own set of references and outlooks. Here, I just need to try to sort it out.
Let me me briefly summarize how I've gotten through Ulysses to this point. After constantly checking endnotes as I read through the first two or three chapters, I decided to try my best to simply power through each episode, note what confused me, then look up those things afterward. When I get a bit lost in the plot (which happens multiple times per chapter, save the more straightforward Nausicaa episode), I will -- and I refuse to be ashamed about this -- turn to Sparknotes. More recently, I've found meticulously outlined plot summaries here that have proved incredibly helpful. I read the explanatory notes for each chapter and occasionally branch out even further for information about what it all means, usually to Sheila O'Malley's posts on the book, since it was her enthusiasm for Joyce that finally motivated me to take the plunge into the author's work. Her writing on the chapters is, from what I've seen so far, insightful but conversational, perfectly capturing what I think Joyce did with his book: finding a human way to get across its big ideas. Whenever I get well and truly stuck, I immediately defer to her.
I did not make it one full page into the Oxen of the Sun chapter without running to all my little safehouses looking for clues, answers, ANYTHING to help me. What in the Sam Hill was going on? Even when I sorted out some basic facts, such as the chapter being set in a hospital and revolving around the idea of birth in physical and lingual terms, I still could not proceed. This is by leaps and bounds the hardest chapter of the book yet, and I pray it gets no harder from here. I don't mean to make Sheila out to be the be-all, end-all expert on Joyce, but when she opened her own post on the chapter with an acknowledgment of the difficulty of the chapter, I wondered what hope I had. Hell, Joyce himself acknowledged this was the hardest chapter to read. I am not even remotely surprised that it follows what was certainly the easiest episode to that point, one so intuitive and straightforward I never had to look at notes to figure out what was going on.
I don't want to give off the impression that anything I've written on Ulysses to this point is definitive or even all that confident. I've relied so much on other readings because it's so hard to pick up exactly what's going on that I don't even consider my Ulysses posts reviews (hence why I referred to my plans to chart my trip through the book as a "reading diary"). But I've at least tried to pick up on what Joyce is doing and make sense of it through my own set of references and outlooks. Here, I just need to try to sort it out.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Thirteen: Nausicaa
[Link to previous chapters here]
Note to self: stop thinking I have Leopold Bloom pegged down. James Joyce delights in confounding expectations and shaking up his book every time he intuits the reader has found even a sliver of understanding. After pulling back to show Bloom's frustrating weaknesses, Joyce finally gave the man a moment to shine and stand up for himself, only to sink to a new low here.
Not that this is evident at first. The novel, as ever displaying a self-awareness and a humanistic desire to get other perspectives, no matter how flawed, once more dips into someone else's POV, and the style shifts accordingly. The first half of the Nausicaa chapter owes to, of all things in this game-shifting tome, cheesy Harlequin Romance. It's hilarious: James Joyce, King Glot of Everything, casting aside Shakespeare, Latin and Homer for the sort of book Bloom is bringing home for Molly, a flowery, flushed-cheek bit of fluff.
Note to self: stop thinking I have Leopold Bloom pegged down. James Joyce delights in confounding expectations and shaking up his book every time he intuits the reader has found even a sliver of understanding. After pulling back to show Bloom's frustrating weaknesses, Joyce finally gave the man a moment to shine and stand up for himself, only to sink to a new low here.
Not that this is evident at first. The novel, as ever displaying a self-awareness and a humanistic desire to get other perspectives, no matter how flawed, once more dips into someone else's POV, and the style shifts accordingly. The first half of the Nausicaa chapter owes to, of all things in this game-shifting tome, cheesy Harlequin Romance. It's hilarious: James Joyce, King Glot of Everything, casting aside Shakespeare, Latin and Homer for the sort of book Bloom is bringing home for Molly, a flowery, flushed-cheek bit of fluff.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Twelve: Cyclops
[Link to previous chapters here]
Nothing makes me as simultaneously amused and infuriated as a bad (good?) pun. Joyce highlights the fact that the 12th episode of Ulysses corresponds to the Cyclops encounter in The Odyssey by placing the perspective in that of an anonymous first-person narrator, necessitating the frequent use of "I," the homophone for "eye." It's as easy as that. Or so it seems, anyway. Soon, Joyce delves into deeper interpretations of men with one eye, specifically their metaphorical lack of depth perception in their opinions. Windbags have floated around this novel like zeppelins, but here at last Joyce truly sinks his teeth into the self-righteous posturing of the roving bands of Irish drunkards crowding every pub in mid-afternoon.
I thought Joyce's prodding of Bloom in the previous chapter bordered on the cruel, unstoppable visions of Boylan heading off to take his wife. I had not seen anything yet. Those reminders of Bloom's impending cuckolding served mainly as vain motivation to get Leo off his ass and into action. Here, however, we at last see something of genuine contempt in Joyce's humanistic and tempered worldview.
Nothing makes me as simultaneously amused and infuriated as a bad (good?) pun. Joyce highlights the fact that the 12th episode of Ulysses corresponds to the Cyclops encounter in The Odyssey by placing the perspective in that of an anonymous first-person narrator, necessitating the frequent use of "I," the homophone for "eye." It's as easy as that. Or so it seems, anyway. Soon, Joyce delves into deeper interpretations of men with one eye, specifically their metaphorical lack of depth perception in their opinions. Windbags have floated around this novel like zeppelins, but here at last Joyce truly sinks his teeth into the self-righteous posturing of the roving bands of Irish drunkards crowding every pub in mid-afternoon.
I thought Joyce's prodding of Bloom in the previous chapter bordered on the cruel, unstoppable visions of Boylan heading off to take his wife. I had not seen anything yet. Those reminders of Bloom's impending cuckolding served mainly as vain motivation to get Leo off his ass and into action. Here, however, we at last see something of genuine contempt in Joyce's humanistic and tempered worldview.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Eleven: Sirens
Sometimes Joyce can be so literal I almost don't notice what he's doing. The Sirens chapter is based, of course, on the golden-voiced bird-women who lured sailors to their deaths on craggy rocks with their irresistible song. Because of this, Joyce uses musical imagery: the whole of the first two pages contains nothing but snippets of thoughts and sentences, and it's not until about halfway through this passage that it becomes clear Joyce is "warming up" as if tuning an orchestra. At the end of the segment, he announces to the reader that he's ready to go with a riotous "Begin!"
I took the fewest notes on this chapter as I have any of the other 10. That is not because I somehow had this whole thing "figured out" but because I got so entranced by the rhythm of the prose. In that sense, the writing itself embodies the mythic sirens, lulling me into following it until I finally snapped out of it and said, "Oh crap, important things are happening!"
I took the fewest notes on this chapter as I have any of the other 10. That is not because I somehow had this whole thing "figured out" but because I got so entranced by the rhythm of the prose. In that sense, the writing itself embodies the mythic sirens, lulling me into following it until I finally snapped out of it and said, "Oh crap, important things are happening!"
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Ten: The Wandering Rocks
Odysseus never travels through the Wandering Rocks in The Odyssey. Given the choice between the rocks, which pose such hazards that not even birds can make it out the other side, Odysseus opts to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis instead. Joyce, however, demarcates the first half of his book from the second with the Wandering Rocks episode. What gives? And what's with all these characters? A guy breaks out all sorts of addenda and summarizing notes to get through Stephen's absurdly complicated Shakespeare theory, ends up learning a great deal about Stephen in the process, and now suddenly the overriding question on my mind is "Who the hell is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell?" And is that even one person or does Joyce just not care about commas?
Comprising 18 vignettes and a coda, the Wandering Rocks chapter shatters the narrative of Stephen and Leopold to follow numerous other characters, some of whom we know already (either from this novel or Joyce's other work), others who just sort of pop up. Each wanders the streets of Dublin as the cavalcade containing the Earl of Dudley, his wife and several other members of the nobility works its way through town. With 19 strands in just over 30 pages, Joyce does not give himself much room to develop any one story, and each mini-episode ends just as a narrative seems to be forming.
Comprising 18 vignettes and a coda, the Wandering Rocks chapter shatters the narrative of Stephen and Leopold to follow numerous other characters, some of whom we know already (either from this novel or Joyce's other work), others who just sort of pop up. Each wanders the streets of Dublin as the cavalcade containing the Earl of Dudley, his wife and several other members of the nobility works its way through town. With 19 strands in just over 30 pages, Joyce does not give himself much room to develop any one story, and each mini-episode ends just as a narrative seems to be forming.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Nine: Scylla and Charybdis
The Scylla and Charybdis episode marks a turning point in Ulysses: though it once again only teases the reader with the near-miss of Stephen and Bloom, it at last expounds upon Stephen's much-touted theory on Shakespeare, a convoluted, witty explication de texte that would stand as the magnum opus of any critic. However, insecure, self-conscious thoughts nag at him throughout his attempts to convince librarians and intellectuals of his talent, and the chapter ultimately reveals as much about Stephen as anything in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Naturally, Joyce drops us in the thick of it, as Stephen lays on the complexities of his theory on Hamlet and Shakespeare's corpus at large. Sitting in the director's office in the National Public Library, Stephen gives an example of his theory -- the full idea of which we have not heard, by saying that Shakespeare "plays" the ghost father in Hamlet, thus making the titular character the Bard's dead son Hamnet and Gertrude Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway.
Naturally, Joyce drops us in the thick of it, as Stephen lays on the complexities of his theory on Hamlet and Shakespeare's corpus at large. Sitting in the director's office in the National Public Library, Stephen gives an example of his theory -- the full idea of which we have not heard, by saying that Shakespeare "plays" the ghost father in Hamlet, thus making the titular character the Bard's dead son Hamnet and Gertrude Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Eight: Lestrygonians
Having already established Leopold Bloom as a sympathetic character, even something of a role model, Joyce frees the poor man from the dismissive gaze of his self-absorbed colleagues in the "Lestrygonians" episode. With the exception of the previous chapter's bombastic, self-reflexive structure, all of Bloom's episodes thus far have placed the perspective in Bloom's head, but that's always a bustling place. Only when Bloom went out to the outhouse for a moment to himself in the "Calypso" chapter was the audience allowed to focus fully on the man's ruminations and not the clutter of conversation and keen but broken observation.
The organs and symbols of the chapter relate to digestion and food, and the schema for the chapter lists the technique as peristaltic, again digestive. I found two broad interpretations of Linati's vague use of the term "peristaltic prose": either it has something to do with recurring lines with minor variations and modifications, or, truer to its digestive nature, it shows words and ideas being broken down. Whether either (or both) these readings are accurate, this chapter certainly contains passages that support both interpretations.
The organs and symbols of the chapter relate to digestion and food, and the schema for the chapter lists the technique as peristaltic, again digestive. I found two broad interpretations of Linati's vague use of the term "peristaltic prose": either it has something to do with recurring lines with minor variations and modifications, or, truer to its digestive nature, it shows words and ideas being broken down. Whether either (or both) these readings are accurate, this chapter certainly contains passages that support both interpretations.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Seven: Aeolus
"Talk, talk, it's all talk
Too much talk, small talk
Talk that trash"
-- King Crimson, "Elephant Talk
Too much talk, small talk
Talk that trash"
-- King Crimson, "Elephant Talk
Steeped in obscure Irish history that not even the copious endnotes try to fully explain, the Aeolus chapter of Ulysses makes for the toughest reading yet. However, the ideas it communicates are some of the most clearly stated in the book so far, and as I have learned to just let go at this point and stop trying to "figure this novel out," I enjoyed the chapter immensely.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Six: Hades
Sometimes, despite my best effort to get as close a reading as possible, I find myself zipping through a book, so caught up in its narrative and/or style that I find myself so engrossed that I either lose fine detail for barreling through the story or, and this is really weird, I focus so intently on the construction that I sidestep the narrative entirely. (Austen does this to me a lot; I'll be both marveling and laughing at the way she sets up a joke and then go, "Wait, where did Darcy come from? Oh right, this was mentioned in the last three pages I blew through because I wanted to get to the punchline.)
The Hades chapter of Ulysses is the first time I can recall speeding up my reading simply because the thought of spending any more time in its hellish grip. Homer's stanzas in Hades do not communicate actual suffering: Odysseus, wisely wishing not to descend into the realm and further test his sour relationship with the gods, calls up the shades of heroes and relatives to meet him. Tears are shed and horrors related, but so much of it feels like a reunion, a sad one perhaps, but still a meeting of old friends and loved ones. Besides, the dead barge into Odysseus' life so much that one starts to feel as if he really is at a family reunion with "Uncle Agamemnon" reminding him that Odysseus' wife is probably cheating on him or whatever because his wife did. Meanwhile Odysseus probably still smells like ambrosia from hanging with Calypso for seven years.
The Hades chapter of Ulysses is the first time I can recall speeding up my reading simply because the thought of spending any more time in its hellish grip. Homer's stanzas in Hades do not communicate actual suffering: Odysseus, wisely wishing not to descend into the realm and further test his sour relationship with the gods, calls up the shades of heroes and relatives to meet him. Tears are shed and horrors related, but so much of it feels like a reunion, a sad one perhaps, but still a meeting of old friends and loved ones. Besides, the dead barge into Odysseus' life so much that one starts to feel as if he really is at a family reunion with "Uncle Agamemnon" reminding him that Odysseus' wife is probably cheating on him or whatever because his wife did. Meanwhile Odysseus probably still smells like ambrosia from hanging with Calypso for seven years.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Five: The Lotus Eaters
Well, dear readers, we move from the waste management system to the playground. Yes, where the digestive system formed the anatomical reference of the Calypso chapter, Joyce now swivels round the pelvis to focus on the genitals. Funny, considering that the organs would actually correspond with their Odyssey counterparts better if swapped, the the kidney for the Lotus Eaters and the genitalia for Calypso.
The Calypso episode of Homer's epic reset the narrative to introduce Odysseus, who'd spent seven years as the lover of the demigod Calypso (meanwhile Penelope hasn't stopped crying for 20 years; women through the ages have probably, and so rightly, referred to this as "a crock of shit"). Joyce's Leopold does not set out from his lover to return to his loyal wife. Rather, he fears her infidelity but does not say anything, too nervous to broach the subject. Already, the link between cunning, strong Odysseus and meek Bloom seems ironic. Yet both have the power of observation, though where Odysseus uses his ability to read people and situations to serve him well, Bloom still cannot apply his sensual connection to the world to any change. He's more active than Stephen Dedalus but just as unable to get where he wants with his more direct approach to life.
The Calypso episode of Homer's epic reset the narrative to introduce Odysseus, who'd spent seven years as the lover of the demigod Calypso (meanwhile Penelope hasn't stopped crying for 20 years; women through the ages have probably, and so rightly, referred to this as "a crock of shit"). Joyce's Leopold does not set out from his lover to return to his loyal wife. Rather, he fears her infidelity but does not say anything, too nervous to broach the subject. Already, the link between cunning, strong Odysseus and meek Bloom seems ironic. Yet both have the power of observation, though where Odysseus uses his ability to read people and situations to serve him well, Bloom still cannot apply his sensual connection to the world to any change. He's more active than Stephen Dedalus but just as unable to get where he wants with his more direct approach to life.
Ulysses, Chapter Four: Calypso
Each chapter of Ulysses comes with its own corresponding color for the imagery, and the "Calypso" episode filters its descriptions through orange. A hue with deep cultural ties to Ireland, orange is a somewhat controversial choice for Joyce. For, in Ireland, orange represents protestantism and unionism. In Joyce's time, it symbolized the conservative sect within Irish society demanding to remain under the crown. Today, it reminds everyone of the horrifying sectarian violence that made Ireland and North Ireland a war zone for the latter half of the 20th century. By this stage in the book, or even just this stage in Joyce's career, it must be taken for granted that the writer knows exactly what he is doing, and by incorporating orange into his descriptions he highlights a rift in the book.
Yet the color scheme for this chapter could just as easily been black and white, which Joyce references several times (the cat, the various sausages of the butcher shop). It makes sense, for the Calypso chapter announces a sharp break from the preceding chapters, one that not only shifts focus to an entirely new character but makes that character markedly different from Stephen Dedalus.
Yet the color scheme for this chapter could just as easily been black and white, which Joyce references several times (the cat, the various sausages of the butcher shop). It makes sense, for the Calypso chapter announces a sharp break from the preceding chapters, one that not only shifts focus to an entirely new character but makes that character markedly different from Stephen Dedalus.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Ulysses, Chapter Three: Proteus
Oh, how quickly I run into trouble with Ulysses. Already delayed an unforgivable amount of time by piled-up schoolwork, I returned to the "Proteus" episode ready and rarin' to go, only to find that the book I could slip into with surprising ease and live inside suddenly warped into a phantasmagorical mash-up of sound and image that read like the novelization of a Godard film. All I could think was "No, no, no. Not this early. Please tell me I'm not going to be confused this early. I'm not even out of the Telemachia yet!" (#whitepeopleproblems)
Even the notes included for the chapter clearly speculate where earlier they offered confident pointers for the uninitiated, helpful clues to guide us through Joyce's Dublin. But when I looked at the vague summary given for the Proteus chapter, I saw a question mark employed. Damn, even the scholars had to guess.
Then, I went and looked at the notes of the only Joyce expert I know -- though she might object to that term; and maybe there can never be an expert on such a man. Well, save perhaps Richard Ellmann (oh my God, Jake, focus) -- Sheila O'Malley. When I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to read the book, Sheila advised me to go with its flow, something I could do with the first two chapters but failed to here, doubling back to the annotations time and time again to make heads or tails of passages. When I looked up her post on this chapter, I saw that line again, and also a helpful tip that Stephen broke his glasses (something apparently mentioned only once and at a later time). With that in mind, I went back and just read through, not even looking up the translations. To my delight, it worked much better.
Even the notes included for the chapter clearly speculate where earlier they offered confident pointers for the uninitiated, helpful clues to guide us through Joyce's Dublin. But when I looked at the vague summary given for the Proteus chapter, I saw a question mark employed. Damn, even the scholars had to guess.
Then, I went and looked at the notes of the only Joyce expert I know -- though she might object to that term; and maybe there can never be an expert on such a man. Well, save perhaps Richard Ellmann (oh my God, Jake, focus) -- Sheila O'Malley. When I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to read the book, Sheila advised me to go with its flow, something I could do with the first two chapters but failed to here, doubling back to the annotations time and time again to make heads or tails of passages. When I looked up her post on this chapter, I saw that line again, and also a helpful tip that Stephen broke his glasses (something apparently mentioned only once and at a later time). With that in mind, I went back and just read through, not even looking up the translations. To my delight, it worked much better.
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