Ulysses Reading Group 2023

[ValentineGreen]

Hi all, on the back of a thread currently in Chat 'have you read Ulysses' it seemed like it would be a good idea to form a Ulysses Read-a-long group here.

No experience required, this thread is open to anyone who fancies reading it for the first time or the 100th time!

I don't know yet the best way to structure it, as in how many pages we all agree to read given that some 'chapters' are far denser than others. I'm totally open to anyone who has set up something like this before and knows what will work well?

For some context, I did not study English Literature but have always been an avid reader. I read Ulysses once, many years ago and while I say 'read' I mean my eyes read each word but I cannot say my brain decoded them all whatsoever.

Now, nearly 30 years later, and after a lifetime of reading, including Portrait and Dubliners as well as a lot of reading around the meaning of Ulysses, I wish to re-read it. But I would love to read it with others where we can share our thoughts and interpretations and knowledge as we go.

I find myself growing ever more fascinated by Joyce and his life and I really want to 'know' this great masterpiece and understand it (if I can!)

Please don't be shy! Come and join me...

Between us we can work out the best way to structure this undertaking.

Thanks for that link. I'm looking forward to looking at that.

Totally agree that openess & fluidity & multiple viewpoints / understandings are far preferable than a dogmatic approach.

This group is to make reading it & chatting about it fun. Not prepping fit ab exam!

@LaGiaconda thank you so much for posting that. I've just read it & it was exactly the section i couldn't make head nor tail of. I'm delighted now!
That blog is wonderful.

And also perhaps that it's too prone to look back at itself though a distorting glass.
I think both Buck and Stephen are performing for the benefit of Haines, though in different ways. The sub-text is schism, as reinforced by the brief canter through early church heresies. The balance of power between Buck and Stephen has shifted, either because of Buck's dismissive and crass comment about Stephen's mother, or because of the intrusion of Haines.And, additionally, Buck is the usurper, but to what? To the tower, presented as the omphalos and therefore significant, or to something else?

Interesting. I seem to recall Joyce used a different mirror metaphor for Dubliners - he intended to hold up a clear (undistorted) mirror for the citizens of Dublin (at least the class he belonged to) to truly see themselves. Perhaps art is different for Stephen, his character.

Stephen presumably sees Mulligan as a usurper because he feels forced out of the tower. "He wants that key. It is mine, I paid the rent".

I think it's interesting that Stephen, the least financially solvent of them is the one paying for the tower but buck gives the impression that he's the host & he was the one who invited Haines without Stephen's agreement.

The Omphalos was quite important in Ancient Greece - it was the navel of the earth where Zeus had set up the Oracle so it was originally Delphi, but has various connutations around pregnancy and reproduction. Perhaps Buck is a cuckoo in the nest?

https://www.shmoop.com/ulysses-joyce/omphalos-pregnancy-symbol.html

Hello everyone, I'd like to join this reading group!

I mostly read easy contemporary fiction these days, and really feel like I need to stretch myself a bit. I've never been able to get on with stream of consciousness / modernist literature, and have tried and failed to read Mrs Dalloway more times than I can count! So this will be a challenge for me, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to it though.

Bought my copy today.

Really interesting stuff!

There's an odd symmetry in Joyce, and given the epic length of this book in particular, there's an economy of prose in the way he uses and reuses specific events. I wonder if the cracked mirror preempts the breaking of the chandelier in 'Circe' - the point at which Stephen finally seems to sever his emotional dependence on his dead mother and the stranglehold on him still exerted by the RC church.

The 'nets' he seems to want to fly by in POA - nationality, language and religion - seem to fit with some of your observations above.

There's a later explicit reference to Blake's 'wings of excess' which also fits with these ideas.

Hello and glad to see you here @AceOfCups!

I've been reflecting on the first two episodes, as if they were the opening chapters of a more ordinary novel - the sort of thing that might get sent to an agent.

What strikes me is the stress on Stephen's vulnerability. His plan is not to return to the Martello Tower - at the end of Telemachus he surrenders the key. In the next section, Nestor, it becomes clear that he's not very effective or engaged as a teacher. He is haunted by grief and guilt, along with plenty of anger. He's lost one parent - returned from the relative freedom of Paris - and is trapped both by country and Church. What's going to become of him? (Having read the whole thing many years ago, the answer is that the later meeting with Bloom - father figure, fellow outsider, Jew - will save him.)

Sorry about the spoiler!

Hello - I've just got back from a work trip. My copy of the book is arriving today and I am looking forward to making a start! There are some very knowledgeable people on this thread and some great comments which I will keep to hand as I read - this is going to be a steep learning curve for me....

Hi @CryingAtTheDiscotheque welcome! This is a great time to start as we're only on Episode 1 for the moment.

There are some incredibly knowledgeable people on here, I am not one of them (!), I am hoping that doing a structured read-a-long like this will help me, and anyone else in the same boat of interested amateur, to get more out of the experience of reading it and to stay encouraged to keep going.

If Episode 1 and the level of discussion is anything to go by, I feel we will all have a great appreciation of both Ulysses and Joyce by the end of the 18 weeks.

I will post the context info for Episode 2 on Thursday morning.

Over the weekend I started rereading Nuala O'Connor's 'Nora' and it's been fun reading this whilst thinking about him writing Dubliners and Ulysses etc.

I read it when it first came out in 2021 I think and a friend borrowed it and gave it back recently so I thought it might make some light background reading at the moment. I'm really enjoying it.

Buck Mulligan is the one who makes reference to the snotgreen sea, and is seen jumping in the water (in which case he's likely a crude appropriation of Poseidon). Stephen (who must really stink if he only washes once a month) watches him but doesn't join in, same as he does in A Portrait when his school-mates' white nakedness disgusts him as they jump into the river.

Stephen does seem to have a real aversion to corporeality, and seems to represent the more abstract (perhaps more spiritual) domain of consciousness.

Joyce is a steep learning curve for me every time I pick up one of his books. There always seems to be so much more to learn about them. It's great to be doing this alongside so many like-minded people!

Oh this sounds fabulous, but I am already committed to the Anna Karenina readalong, have to finish 2 other books by certain deadlines, plus have two non fic on the go, but I am going to lurk.

Well, I have read chapter 1... My edition is annotated with notes explaining the Greek/Latin/literary references which is a good thing as frankly most of them would otherwise have gone straight over my head. Good to have the schema to hand too.

The humour was a pleasant surprise, I enjoyed Buck's banter and the Joking Jesus poem made me laugh. And the bit where he says Stephen kills his mother but won't wear grey trousers.

Also enjoyed the bits where the narrative segues into Stephen's thoughts.

Thursday 8 June - Thursday 15 June
Episode 2 - Nestor

Time: 10am
Scene: School
Colour: Brown
Technique: Catechism (personal)
Correspondences: Deasy = Nestor; Stephen = Telemachus; Sargent =

Pisisratus; Mrs O'Shea = Helen
Science / Art: History
Meaning: Wisdom of the Old World
Organ: None
Symbols: Horse, Ulster, Woman, Common Sense

It's been a great week reading and researching and reflecting on Episode 1 and I'm so delighted we have so many people reading along here. I am looking forward to getting my teeth in to Episode 2 tonight and I'll be along later with thoughts and no doubt questions!

I have read several episodes ahead.

Looking back my impressions of Nestor are/were about the awkwardness of the exchange between Mr Deasy and Stephen. Mr Deasy's anti-Jewish 'joke' pave the way for our later meeting with Bloom, the outsider. Though Stephen too has put himself outside the mainstream, by his actions and his lack of faith.

What is odd for me rereading Ulysses at this point is that my identifications have changed. I am much more 'with' the older characters, by and large. The parents rather than the chlldren.

I would recommend the RTE reading/dramatisation of this episode. The dialogue comes over really well. https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/21785562-episode-2-nestor/

Thanks @LaGiaconda I have resisted reading ahead despite temptations!
I am usually a fast reader but I have to say I am enjoying this slower pace and having the time to read up on any part I don't understand or 'get' whereas I would usually just gloss over and keep going.

Plus work is really busy just now and some days I don't have the brain space to read it.

I'll read the Episode 'cold' and then I'll have a listen to the link you shared.

This is the shortest episode! And I suppose relatively straightforward.

We know some things from Joyce's schema that aren't in the text. For example, Stephen told Buck he'd be paid this morning, but we only know from the schema it takes place between 9 and 10am (same time as Lotus Eaters), I don’t think there’s any explicit mention of the time?

Location is also implicit throughout Ulysses - at least in the sense that places aren’t explicitly introduced or even flagged up. In the case of Nestor, Dalkey is only implied as the location when Stephen places one of his charges in Vico Road, Dalkey. And it’s assumed you know Dalkey because the character knows Dalkey (there's no "Dalkey, a wealthy seaside suburb a mile south of Sandycove.."). Vico Road, Dalkey is a real place-name of course, but Giambattista Vico’s philosophy of history fits with the schema’s science/art.

Deasy's anti-Semitism amplifies that of Haines in the preceding chapter, Telemachus ("I don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either”). Bloom, with a Jewish father, will at different points claim that he is and is not Jewish.

There's a lot of allusion to conflict. Pyrrhic victory, 'from a hill a corpse-strewn plain', toppling masonry, the hockey game compared to a joust, Deasy saying 'I like to break a lance with you.'
There's an undertext of a final battle, Troy in flames, perhaps, but all shoehorned into a scene of everyday banality.
Nestor was an old warrior, left over from a previous generation. Homer pokes fun at him. Deasy displays well-observed old man traits: the cash box with various compartments, the preoccupation with writing to the papers, The bee in his bonnet about foot and mouth, the pontification about avoiding debt (cf Polonius in Hamlet). He's a figure of fun on one level, but on another, misogynistic and virulently antisemitic. The anti-semitism points us to Bloom, as does (oddly enough) the Austrian foot and mouth stuff. Bloom's father was a Hungarian Jew and therefore a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Emperor Franz Joseph makes a guest appearance later in the book, saved from an assassination attempt by an Irishman. Leopold and Rudolph are Habsburg names: Joyce does nothing by accident. It's all so intricate and complex. The more you look, the more there is to see. Or not? Because does any of this really matter?
Then there's the mother thing, and Stephen's reaction to the unfortunate Cyril Sargent. Stephen is really not a very appealing character, is he?

Well, in defence of Stephen! And not entirely devil's (non serviam) advocate. His thoughts about the boy may be unpleasant but his actions are supportive and sympathetic. Not least in the context of early 20th century schooling in Ireland, which was generally very harsh.

As for the mother thing: Stephen is an apostate. Non serviam: "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church". The oppressive nature of Irish Catholicism, and the difficulty of standing away from a fundamentalist religion so deeply-ingrained into the life of family and community - into the fabric of life itself - may be hard to understand in a modern culture that doesn’t take religion seriously. 21st century British atheists comfortable with a bit of Anglican lip-service to get their offspring into a school won’t understand Stephen refusing to kneel for his dying mother. Or the reality of spiritual friction, of not being true to yourself.

Mulligan may be right that he has "the cursed jesuit strain ..injected the wrong way", but his apostasy is fundamental to his being. IMO that was the main reason why Joyce was vilified by the Irish establishment until relatively recently (the smuttiness was just supporting evidence). The whole oppressive edifice of fundamentalist Irish Catholicism would not have disintegrated without people like Stephen. (And Father Ted of course!).

Sure, Stephen isn’t cuddly. He’s aloof, self-centred etc etc. But sympathy does depend on the reader - and isn't zero-sum.

I've just seen this, so will be joining a bit late if that's OK.

This is a great idea, thanks OP. I've tried to read Ulysseys a couple of seen before - when I was 16 and again in my 20s but I couldn't get into it. In my 50s now, so will give it another go, and as with some PPs, expect to sympathise with the older characters!

I'm reading along and enjoying the commentary. Thanks to all!

But@BaronMunchausen he only washes once a month!
I think, however, that Stephen is morally admirable and one of Life's sea-green incorruptibles. He refuses to pay even lip service to the great shibboleths of church and nationalism although his justifications, according to Mulligan, are based on jesuitical reasoning processes. Which shows of course how utterly ingrained the Catholic Church is when even its deniers are moulded by forms of indoctrination. But sea green incorruptibles aren't always the easiest people to like and if he was around today somebody on MN would be shrieking autism!
Mind you, introspection is always handy if you're a character in a stream of consciousness novel.
In any case, you are right. He was kind to poor dim Cyril (seasoned with a degree of self identification) and he did call out Deasy on anti-semitism. I wonder to what degree he is a retrospective self-portrait. Not as much as one would suspect, perhaps, since Joyce is too great a writer to do the obvious.
I don't think he comes off well in contrast the Bloom, but that would be anticipating the appearance of lovely (to me) Leopold.

Forgot about Stephen's hygiene issue - perhaps he takes the 'cleanliness is next to godliness' aphorism literally! I guess there may be an element of exaggeration - perhaps the young artist cultivating the 'hyperborean' image. Also I assume that like most of the male characters he shaves regularly (facial hair of other characters is remarked on) and therefore basically had a bowl of water in his bedroom. We only see Buck Mulligan at his morning ablutions (Bloom's is another matter!)

Hygiene is of course mediated by class and family size. I dare say Buck washes more frequently than Stephen - and that Stephen washes more frequently than the (largely invisible) urban poor.