Tag: Homer

Ulysses: The Lotus Eaters

In Book IX of Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus and his men are blown off course by a terrible storm and arrive at the land of the lotus eaters. In need of supplies, the men disembark and interact with the locals. The people do them no harm, but offer them their local food, which is derived from the lotus flower. The powerful narcotic makes the men sleepy and lackadaisical about heading home. Ultimately, Odysseus ushers his men back onto the boat and they are put back on their journey. This book is about lazy intoxication.

In Ulysses, The Lotus Eaters episode is “action packed” in the midst of the mundane. Bloom has left his house a good bit early for Dignam’s funeral and walks to the post office. From the post office, he walks into a church service and from there he walks to Sweny’s pharmacy to order Molly’s lotion. Recall from Calypso that Bloom, who is willing to bring his wife breakfast in bed, is painfully aware of her impending affair with Blazes Boylan. Aside from his sexual objectification of the neighbor lady in the butcher shop, he seems like a practical, stand up man. The reader is drawn to pity him. We all have the occasional stray thought and it wasn’t as if he was actively pursuing the neighbor lady. In The Lotus Eaters, we catch another side of Bloom. We learn through his trip to the post office that he is carrying on at least a written flirtation with another woman under a pseudonym. His pseudonym, Henry Flower, would indicate that his actions are premeditated. Our hero is in fact a flawed man.

Outside the post office, while Bloom is trying to focus on the letter from his naughty pen pal Martha Clifford, Bloom’s acquaintance McCoy stops for a chat. The stream of consciousness dialogue can be difficult here because Bloom is carrying on his thoughts while McCoy is talking and then Bloom spots a sexy upper class woman across the street. We’re exposed to the inner and outer man simultaneously. The dialogue of McCoy, Bloom’s annoyance of McCoy, Bloom’s wandering thoughts, and Bloom’s desire to see more of the woman across the street are all intermingled.

During the dialogue, McCoy asks Bloom about his wife, Molly, and the discussion turns to singing engagements. McCoy’s wife has gotten a gig and he’s eager to share the news. We again see multiple sides of Bloom here. Internally he scoffs at the comparison between McCoy’s wife and Molly, as he views Molly as the superior. With regards to the sponsorship and organization of Molly’s singing engagement, we also read the first asking of the question, “Who’s getting it up?” With an obvious sexual overtone to the question, Bloom can never bring himself to give the straight answer, which is Blazes Boylan. He gives McCoy a complex round-about answer because he cannot bring himself to verbalize the connection between Boylan and his wife.

After reading the naughty letter from Martha, Bloom goes into a church during mass. Through is inner dialogue as he observes the service, we get his thoughts on the Catholic machinery. He thinks about the whole process with complete detachment and analyzes its effectiveness on the masses.

From the church, Bloom heads over to Sweny’s pharmacy. He realizes that he has left the recipe to Molly’s lotion along with his house key in his other trousers. The chemist is able to pull the recipe from the records. The lotion will be ready for pick up later, so Bloom takes a bar of lemon soap on credit and moves to leave the pharmacy. He then runs into Bantam Lyons who asks to see Bloom’s newspaper to get a tip on the day’s horse race. In another effort to be left alone, Bloom offers his newspaper to Lyons while internally casting judgement on him and the others who seem to be caught up in a recent gambling frenzy. Lyons mistakes Bloom’s statement that he was going to throw the paper away as a tip on a racehorse and rushes off. Bloom is then left to his thoughts and he drifts to thinking about a bath and a massage.

Themes

The connection between Ulysses and The Odyssey in this episode didn’t quite hit me over the head at first. The lotus eaters are satisfied in their lazy stupor, not striving for anything. While this period for Bloom is essentially killing time between the morning and Dignam’s funeral, I was attempting to find the at-rest inertia of the Dublin locals to connect to the Greek lotus eaters. It didn’t seem to be there. McCoy has ambitions, as does his wife. Lyons is in a rush to bet on the horses. Only after considering the themes did I get it. The lotus eater here is Bloom. He doesn’t want to be at home in the face of Molly’s affair and he doesn’t have any particular place to be. He’s free to wander about. As he observes the world around him and his thoughts wander, we are keyed into some of the themes.

  • Intoxicants: Bloom thinks of the Far East as a lazy intoxicating place. He observes the stupefied horses drawing the tram. He considers the calming narcotic effect of smoking a cigar. At the chemist, Bloom thinks about alchemy and sedatives.
  • Marital Infidelity: Molly is forever on Bloom’s mind even though he has left home for the day and essentially knows that Molly will have an affair. Bloom sexualizes an upper class woman across the street and hopes to catch a glimpse of her legs. We also learn that Bloom is carrying on a secret correspondence with another woman who knows he is married. She asks, “Are you not happy in your home?” and “Tell me, what perfume does your wife wear?”
  • False Cordiality: In both cases of Bloom’s interaction with people he knows, he is cordial but – because we’re treated to his thoughts – we see that he is being false. He tries to avoid McCoy but is accosted. During the conversation, Bloom only marginally focuses on what McCoy is saying. His interest is piqued when McCoy tries to compare his wife to Molly, at which Bloom internally scoffs. At Sweny’s, Bloom considers the shortest way possible to get rid of Lyons. Ironically, Lyons takes Bloom’s castoff comment as a tip on the horse race, which we’ll revisit later.
  • Criticism of Catholicism: There is scarcely any other way to interpret Bloom’s objective evaluation of than catholic mass than as critical. By this point in Joyce’s life, he has had a full crisis of faith. Given his treatment of the mass in this lotus eating episode, I would be remiss if I didn’t connect back to Karl Marx’s assertion that “[religion] is the opium of the people.” It is never stated, but that’s not Joyce. He shows the reader rather than telling them.

As I close, I am sitting in marvel at the literary giant that is James Joyce. In giving us the flawed hero with a flawed wife who lives in a flawed community, and whose adventure spans 24 hours of an everyday middle class life in early 1900’s Dublin, Joyce essentially stopped the clocks and examined life at a depth rarely glimpsed elsewhere. If nothing else, Ulysses is intensely human.

Ulysses: Calypso

Happy Bloomsday! Today is June 16, which is the day James Joyce’s Ulysses is celebrated around the world. In the last couple of years, I have taken to reading Ulysses and done my level best to wrap up the reading on June 16. This year I decided to blog about each episode along the way, which, as I have learned, dramatically slows the process. However, I’m also finding that I’m getting more out of the reading this time around, so I’m happy with the process. With that said, it is time for another installment.

Calypso

“In the act of going, he stayed.” In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is ensnared by Calypso on an island during his travels. The nature of the ensnarement isn’t all bad. Although Calypso is ego-centric and selfishly wants to keep Odysseus as her own, she is a beautiful goddess-nymph  and she generally treats Odysseus well. Their relationship is carnal. But after some time – Homer’s timeline has it at 7 years – Odysseus misses his wife Penelope and wants to make his way home. It takes an appeal to the gods and Hermès finally frees him at the behest of Zeus himself.

The Cast

Now in the fourth episode of Ulysses, we finally meet our hero, Leopold Bloom. Much like the earlier parts of the book, we’re treated to a continuum of thoughts and actions, although we are limited to reading the thoughts of Bloom and Stephen. We meet Bloom’s wife, Molly, and we learn that they have a daughter, Milly. We also learn that they had a son named Rudy who died in infancy.

Relatively speaking, there is a ton of action in this episode. We have rewound to start the day at 8 AM – this time with Bloom. He goes to the butcher to pick up a pork kidney and observes the Dublin of 1904 around him. He comes home and cooks breakfast, which is a bit of a gender role reversal for this timeframe. Bloom picks up the mail dropped from the mail slot, which includes a letter for him from Milly, a card for Molly from Milly, and a letter for Molly from the antagonist, Blazes Boylan. The Blooms have a conversation about reincarnation and several polite exchanges. Leopold then eats his own breakfast and heads to the outhouse to finish off his morning ritual. There are also several interactions with the family cat throughout.

Themes

There are themes aplenty in the Calypso episode. Like Calypso, the episode has sexual references throughout. Also like the goddess, who would have been a champion for women’s equal rights, we get the strong indication that Molly will soon stray from the marriage with Boylan and that Leopold is aware. Bloom gives a lot of thought about staying and going. 

Sexual overtones: Bloom notices his wife’s feminine form and features as he interacts with her. Bloom also takes notice of the “vigorous hips” on the next-door girl in front of him at the butcher’s shop and wishes the butcher would hurry so he could walk behind her towards home. It’s “Pleasant to see first thing in the morning.” His thoughts drift off to this woman having an affair with a constable. When he misses out on walking behind the lady, his thoughts drift to his wife, Molly and pleasant evenings of the past. Back home, he thinks of being near Molly’s “ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.” The reference to the word “yes” here also will have overt sexual tones once we get to the final episode and get the chance to spend some time with Molly’s thoughts.” Additionally in this episode, Bloom recognizes that his daughter Milly, who has turned 15 yesterday is coming of age. As he considers his wife’s interest in Blazes Boylan and his daughter’s interest in Bannon, he concedes that it is impossible to prevent in either case.

Staying and Going: For me, the most important sentence of the whole episode is, “In the act of going, he stayed.” This is Calypso in a nutshell – both in Homer’s Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses. This sentence comes after he notices the opened letter from Boylan tucked under Molly’s pillow. He has seen the flirtation between the two. He knows they’ll be working together and he knows his wife is interested in him. However, there are faraway thoughts throughout the episode as well. Bloom thinks of Molly’s father in the Middle East and in Gibraltar. He considers investing in the tracts of land offered in Turkey to be a farmer. Bloom considers the plight of the Jewish people (Bloom is a Jew), and also considers traveling for several weeks to Mullingar, which is where the daughter Milly is staying. But at the same time, Bloom is wavering back and forth about also staying. Notably, when he goes to the outhouse he thinks about the back garden and how the soil is bad. He has a distinct thought to “Reclaim the whole place.” I believe this is poignant. Joyce is showing us rather than telling us that our hero is conflicted about what to do. Should he stay or go? Or both? Like Odysseus, maybe he will go and then come back to “reclaim his rightful place.”

Other prominent themes in the episode include business, jews, and death. The prominent public event in the story involves going to the funeral of Patrick Dignam, who died suddenly in recent days. The episode ends with the words “Poor Dignam!” as Blooms thoughts shift on a dime to close.

In Contrast

When contrasted with the other 8 AM and simultaneous episode, Telemachus, in which Stephen Daedalus is the focal point, we see several stark differences. Bloom is older and more practical about his thoughts, while Stephen is more ego-centric or fanciful. Stephen is off contemplating the stars while Bloom is calculating return on investment. Bloom is considering “staying and going” in the face of his wife’s imminent stray from the marital bedroom while Stephen is holding a grudge over his friend’s comment that his mother was “beastly dead.” These contrasts demonstrate the mastery that Joyce had over the human psyche. By showing us a difference in maturity in human thoughts while interweaving so many other themes, Ulysses is perhaps the richest case of demonstrated human understanding in the literary world.

Photo credit: Odysseus und Kalypso by Arnold Böcklin (1883), by The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147930

 

Ulysses: Telemachus

It is May, which means it is time for my annual reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Since I’m back to my blog this year and I’ve removed my personal restriction on Quixote Goes from being a travel blog, I thought I’d spend some time introducing my faithful readers to this amazing book.

Before jumping in to the first episode, I want to introduce you to the cult behind Ulysses. First, it took Joyce roughly 5 years to write this book. He first serialized the beginning chapters in The American Review in 1918 and it was eventually published by an American woman named Sylvia Beach in Paris on Joyce’s 40th birthday, February 2, 1922. It was immediately banned in all English-speaking countries for what was at the time far too explicit content. The history of the book is well documented. In fact, there are plenty of books about the book Ulysses, my favorite of which is The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses. The book is now celebrated around the world. There are round-the-clock public readings in New York City and a full location-to-location reenactment of the story in Dublin, all celebrated on Bloomsday, June 16.

Perhaps the other thing to note about Ulysses is that it is roughly structured on Homer’s The Odyssey and it switches literary techniques from episode to episode, which makes it a challenging read. Joyce intended Ulysses not to be a story for a million readers, but one a single reader could read a million times. This book is densely packed with multiple layers and plenty of plot connections throughout. Finally, a note about the plot. The book is set in Dublin, Ireland and takes place over one 24-hour period set on June 16, 1904. The Gilbert schema is a great reference to keep track of the times and themes of the book. 

Episode One – Telemachus

In Telemachus, who is the son of Odysseus in The Odyssey, we meet several characters – none of which are the main character. We start off with Malachi “Buck” Mulligan, the boisterous, blasphemous, fast-talking “friend” of Stephen Daedalus. We also meet Daedalus, who Joyce introduced us to in an earlier work titled, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. As that book title suggests, Daedalus represents Joyce. He is incredibly well-educated, but pensive and brooding, and certainly not one for hygiene by modern standards, as we learn about his monthly bathing policy. We’re also introduced to Haines, an Englishman who is “hanging out” in Dublin and has latched on to Mulligan and Daedalus for some exposure to Ireland and the Irish. The trio are staying in the Martello Tower on the Sandymount Beach looking out onto Dublin Bay.

This episode is based on real-life events in which Joyce, his compatriot, Oliver Gogarty (note the syllabic match to Malachi Mulligan), and an Englishman stayed in the tower. The book version doesn’t exactly match the facts available, which are well detailed in many other resources available, so I’ll stick to the plot of the book.

Over the course of the chapter, we learn that Stephen Daedalus has harbored an offense that he took when he overheard Mulligan tell his mother that Stephen’s mother was “beastly dead.” We also get introduced to the memory of Stephen’s dying mother and a sense that her death haunts Stephen. Stephen has raised societal eyebrows himself because he refused to pray over his mother when she asked him to do so as she lay dying. Like much of Ulysses, the action here isn’t very action-based. It is a book of dialogue – both outer and inner. We read the spoken words of the characters as well as the unspoken thoughts all without quotations and – as mentioned earlier – it can be a difficult thing for a new reader to sort out. 

The three young men – Daedalus, Mulligan, and Haines – have breakfast, interact with the milk maid, and then go to the bay where Mulligan has a swim. The episode ends when Mulligan demands the key for the Martello Tower and money from Daedalus. Stephen gives up the key and some money and then decides he will not return to stay there. It ends with Daedalus thinking / muttering the word “Usurper.” Several themes come out for me in the opening chapter.

  1. Ireland / the Irish people – There are several references to Ireland throughout Telemachus. Haines speaks the Irish language to the milk maid, but she – a poor Irishwoman – at first thinks he’s speaking French because she doesn’t speak or understand it. Daedalus mentions that the “cracked looking glass is the symbol of Irish art.” And in defense of his infrequent bathing habits, Daedalus remarks, “all Ireland is washed by the Gulf Stream.” Finally, and most demonstrative, Daedalus remarks to Haines about having two masters, and a third “who wants me for odd jobs.” When Haines inquires about the masters, Daedalus quips, “a crazy [English] queen, old and jealous” and “the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.” There’s plenty of commentary here about Ireland at the time: the politics of language, English rule, and the influence of the Catholic church. 
  2. Mother – I mentioned earlier about Stephen’s mother and her untimely death; as well as Stephen’s refusal to pray over her as she lay dying. This will be brought to the fore in later chapters. Mulligan was speaking to his own mother when the “beastly dead” comment was made. There is also a passage about the sea being “our great sweet mother.”
  3. The Greeks – The chapter title is Telemachus. Stephen’s last name is Greek; in mythology, Daedalus was the father of Icharus, who famously flew too close to the sun. Mulligan mentions that Daedalus “must learn Greek, so he can read the classics in the native language.” For me, the reference to the word “usurper” harkens back to Homer’s The Odyssey, in which several suitors come to Odysseus’ house and effectively usurp his lands and livestock as they set up camp and try to marry his wife Penelope while Odysseus is away.

I’m sure there are more themes than what I’ve called out. I’m sure the academics will say that I’ve gotten the major themes wrong. But that’s what I love about this book. Ulysses is for everyone who is brave enough to have a go. It is written between the lines so everyone will take different things from it and learn a little more with each new read. I hope you’ve enjoyed my take on the first Episode. I’ll continue to share as I make my way through the book with this – my fourth annual reading. I’m hoping to be done on Bloomsday (June 16), but I’m off to a slow start. Now for the questions!

Have you read Ulysses? What are your thoughts about my review of Telemachus?

Is there another book that you can read over and over?