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.

I see your point @BaronMunchausen and my method for this reading is to read each episode cold and to reflect on that first. In this instance I read it twice straight through and I did glean the main gist thematically.

However, for me, the joy in being part of this reading group pacing the reading to one episode per week, is that it allowing me the time to research as many of the references as I feel like pursuing.

I am finding it hugely rewarding and (for me) it's really adding to my enjoyment of the whole experience of the book.

I love history and some of the references are really interesting vignettes in their own right.

Of course we're all free to read this in any way that works for us, but I am less interested in a skim read because I have already done that some years ago. Also, I have a good knowledge of the actual 'storyline' so this is the moment for me to deep dive and really get a better understanding of it.

In between reading up on each episode I am reading Brenda Maddox's biography of Nora which is fascinating and feeds into my reading of Ulysses.

Stephen's mind is super complex and I like that mixing of inner dialogue and narrator being mixed up, it works with the notion of Stephen reflecting on notions of reality (internal / external) etc

There are some sentences that have literally stopped me in my tracks and I have read them and re-read them several times, for the sheer beauty of the writing.

I’ve just re-read the chapter in the same way, @ValentineGreen with more attention to the allusions using the Centenary edition footnotes as help - and with a special dive into Kevin and Patrice Egan and Stephen's banter with them. The French connection is striking, both with Ireland and Joyce. You get the feeling that Stephen will soon be packing his own "new secondhand clothes" (if he ever recovers them from the tower) and heading back to Paris.

In terms of writing, highlights for me include the bellybutton riff, contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality, the description of the jackpriests, and the lyrical passages about the stars and about the water flowing in long lassoes from the Cock lake onto the green goldenly lagoons of sand (even if it is urine).

Also liked the self-deprecating recollections of juvenile ambition (“Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q” etc; “You were going to do wonders, what?”), and the occasional asides to himself. The final sentence is also quite beautiful, and points us forward into the novel.

re allusions, in one of the many callbacks to A Portrait, Stephen mourns the loss of his best friend Cranly. Cranly (JF Byrne IRL) doesn't appear in Ulysses at all, yet 7 Eccles St was Byrne's gaff - his last fixed abode in Dublin. In his memoir, Silent Years, Byrne recalls Joyce's visits in 1909, the key lost in the wrong trousers, climbing over the railings to get in etc. It is also at this point that he (Byrne) mentions that he may emigrate to the USA (which he eventually does). I wonder whether Joyce was retrospectively projecting this onto 1904, and the loss of this significant friendship relates to Byrne's emigration rather than a falling-out.

At any rate, though he is mentioned a few times in Stephen's thoughts, Cranly's absence from Ulysses is striking.

This chapter was a stretch! Very much out of my comfort zone.

I started off looking up the references but then decided to "surf" the chapter and just see where I ended up - which I think was a more successful approach , as I avoided getting bogged down and did get the gist. Then went back and looked up the references - some of which I still do not fully "get" (eg the Aristotle colour theory).

The language is beautiful and evocative - it reminded me somewhat of beat poetry, which then made me wonder what the difference between poetry and prose actually is.... I am left with a strong sense of a lonely figure on a beach, alone with his thoughts, and a sense of anticipation!

@CryingAtTheDiscotheque - what you say in the first line of your last post was exactly what made me fall in love with the modernists in the first place. I wrote an essay on U 20 years ago as an undergraduate, and here I still am ...

As to JJ's interest Aristotle, I've found this document a helpful reference:
Allwisest-Stagyrite.-Joyces-Quotations-from-Aristotle-2.pdf (franorourke.ie)

'Colour' theory derives from the elemental theory set out in his Physics, which relates colour to the four elements related to the sublunary region: earth, wind, fire and water. I have a theory that all these elements (plus aither, the 'heavenly' element) are closely related to all the epiphanies and/or 'climactic sequences', as they've been called, in A Portrait of the Artist. It would be good to think about this from a fuller philosophical backdrop beginning with Aristotle and Aquinas and ending with contemporary pragmatism, humanism and even a pitch for idealism.

I'm not a philosopher, so this is a tough call, but it's such a fulfilling and fascinating subject to me that I can't resist!

The beat poets are brilliant aren't they! Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' is stuffed full of allusions to modernism, so I'm not surprised it reminded you of this stuff. As for the divide between poetry and prose, it's sometimes not clear. Some poetry can be prosaic, whereas prose like Joyce's, Mansfield's, Richardson's, or Woolf's, is often very poetic.

I've binge-read ahead to 'Hades', but will go back over these episodes and take in more of the detail. As to 'Cranly', in Stephen Hero he is quite aggressive and adversarial toward Stephen and others; in A Portrait he's a milder, more benign figure. In SH he's clearly distancing himself from Stephen - chiefly because of his severance from the church - before he pushes off without leaving a forwarding address. In Portrait it's Stephen who terminates the friendship, apparently because he accepts solitude as the price of his intellectual freedom. Pompous git that he is!

By U, Stephen's 'relationship' with Bloom is much complex than his former friendship with Cranly, who simply serves as an interlocutor for him to bounce off his ideas. That was the chief idea I took from POA - by U the character seems to have served his purpose, even though Stephen hasn't fulfilled his. Or maybe I'm underestimating him?

I think Cranly is the significant friend in both A Portrait and SH - the one that Stephen respects and confides in. In Telemachus he pairs Cranly with Mulligan, echoed again in Proteus: “His arm: Cranly’s arm. He now will leave me.” His brother (Maurice/Stanislaus) - who is significant in SH but if memory serves is entirely absent as a youth or adult from A Portrait? - later joins these two in his mind, but as whetstones for his art: “Him, then Cranly, Mulligan”. Just as Maurice is omitted from A Portrait, so is Cranly from Ulysses. To be replaced by a new friend - tripping and sunny, but soon to be set aside too.

BTW, my favourite scene in SH is Stephen's prolonged confrontation with his mother about his Easter duty. A great dialogue, which is omitted in its entirety from A Portrait and instead outlined when he has a heart-to-heart about it with Cranly (“I will not serve”).

I am just in from a work event and reading all your comments &.just wanted to say quickly - this thread is pure joy for me!
I am loving each & every contribution & its fascinating & totally filling a void IRL to discuss this book & I thank you all immensely for reading & posting.

Off now to eat & ruminate on all the observations today x

Has anyone come across a biography of Harriet Weaver that they can recommend? I'm fascinated by her!

@ValentineGreen the only one I know of is Lidderdale/Nicholson's 'Dear Miss Weaver', which dates back to the 70s. You can get it from sites like Abe Books.

It's strange because I hear her name quite often, as with other modernist patrons/editors like Bryher, Beatrice Hastings, and Anderson and Heap, but not that often in her own right. There is more up to date material on Shaw Weaver but it's usually in the context of her patronage of Joyce or her connections with Pound and Eliot.

Periodical study has been pretty dominant for a few years. You might find something in a history of the Egoist. But sadly, work on her seems sparse, even though women made such an impact as periodical/little magazine editors of the day.

You might be interested in this:

Modernist Journals | About the Project (modjourn.org)

I can't believe it's Thursday again and we're in week 4 now! It's flying by..

Thursday 22 June - Thursday 29 June
Episode 4 - Calypso

Time: 8am
Scene: House
Colour: Orange
Technique: Narrative (mature)
Correspondences: Mr Bloom = Ulysses; Molly Bloom = Calypso, Penelope; The Nymph = Calypso; Zion = Ithaca
Science / Art: Mythology. Economics
Meaning: exile, moon, family, vagina, Israel in bondage
Organ: kidneys
Symbols: exile, family, nymph, Israel, vagina

I am looking forward to spending this week in Leopold's company!

@SerafinasGoose thank you for the reply and that link which I shall read later. It's quite a fascinating phenomenon isn't it? The female patron of male genius.

When did it become a thing and when did it die out? I can't imagine it still happens, though it's not my world so I have no actual clue.

It's amazing how many of these literary giants were propped up by women, and not just the ones they bedded or married!

I love this thread too... I am learning a lot. @SerafinasGoose thank you - I have saved your links and will read at the weekend.

I'd like to learn more about Harriet Shaw Weaver too, as what I do know is only in relation to Joyce. Owner of Ulysses copy number one, and his literary archivist, she was financier, midwife and undertaker for his literary works. She also got deeply involved in his personal life. While all the 'dirty letters' saw the light of day, it seems she destroyed some that concerned Lucia.

Heritage Open Days did a write-up on her as part of their 2018 Extraordinary Women initiative.

Agree about the Beat Poets. I went back to 'Proteus' and saw it straight away. I knew it evoked something but couldn't put my finger on it. Made me smile.
'Proteus' made my brain hurt, but I enjoyed it.
Thanks to this thread I found it much more accessible than previously (I was 'almosting' it quite often!).
Perkin Warbeck holds no obscurity for me, nor Lambert Simnel. It's all in '1066 And All That'.
Now for the man a dear friend of mine calls 'darling Poldy' and, yes, she talks about him often. In love with him I think.

I thought the Radical Teatowel Company might have done a Harriet Shaw Weaver. Very much their style. Sadly not. I should suggest it...

And how many of those male genuises were self-indulgent egoarchs! Joyce drank Shaw-Weaver's money away and behaved like a spoilt child when she expressed mild reservations about Finnegans Wake or suggested he could drink less. Everything was his way or the highway. Stephen voices that towards the end of Proteus: "And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all".

Joyce was an angel though compared to Dylan Thomas and his obnoxious treatment of Margaret Taylor.

Leaves me wondering if any nice people ever produced works of genius!

Maybe stopped being a thing when women started to find their own voices@ValentineGreen
Much sublimation, I imagine, in some cases.
Back in my youth I knew AJP Taylor whose wife was just one of the women Dylan Thomas destroyed. AJP never stopped being bitter, and he was a good hater. It was a shoddy business, as anything to do with DT was. Little shit, he was.

Just popping in to say I’m still reading, and that I can’t say my knowledge of the Odyssey is really adding to my appreciation.

I think Joyce only uses the Odyssey as a general framework. Molly is, after all, Calypso in this chapter, and Penelope in the final chapter.

And one of the links here comes from the etymology of 'Calypso' rather than the narrative of Homer's fifth book (Molly and Bloom are both hiding things).

Thoughts on Calypso. Interior monologue switches to a warmer man who is knowledgeable but not pretentious, and more engaged with the outside world. There are consequently fewer glossary footnotes to the Centenary edition, and many of them concern people and places (we’ve moved to the heart of the metropolis).

There are subtle hints of Molly’s secret affair with Boylan - most obviously that she won’t open his letter on receipt, but also, according to Margot Norris in the Centenary edition, it being addressed to “Mrs Marion Bloom” as this is supposedly "more intimate: a "bold flouting of the contemporary convention of referring to married women by their husband’s Christian name”.

I’m sceptical of that: we’ve just had “Mrs Florence MacCabe” in Proteus; Mrs Mina Purefoy awaits; and there’s a whole raft of such missuses in one of Cyclops’ epic sequences. Perhaps Norris intends it specifically in the context of formal address on an envelope - but I think back to the inquest report on "Mrs Emily Sinico" in the evening paper (in A Painful Case - Mrs ES also pops up later in Ulysses).

I may be wrong, but I suspect Prof Norris is projecting a convention that was alive and kicking in the USA well within her own lifetime. Anyways, I imagine a letter addressed to a Mrs Leopold Bloom ran a much greater risk of being opened by a Mr Leopold Bloom!

Reading Calypso after so many decades, it does seem like a portrait of a very real marriage. The kind where you know that your partner may be thinking of other people, and where you've shared losses, but where you are bound together. Where people are faithful even while being unfaithful, if you like. (How would Mumsnet advise Leopold Bloom I wonder?)

Would be interesting to compose an AIBU for LB and see what comes up!

Suitably anonymised of course.

I have been dying to get back to this thread, but work has been super intense and I haven't had a minute till now.

I enjoyed the change of pace in this episode. My immediate observation on reading it 'cold' was how visceral this chapter is compared to the cerebral nature of our meeting with Stephen.

It immediately makes us aware that Leopold is very aware of his body and at ease with his bodily functions, where as Stephen is almost repelled by his (not bathing etc)

But it's described in an almost repulsive way, it's not attractive at all - all the talk of offal and body smells etc

I wondered why Joyce had Bloom eating pork kidneys when he's Jewish and then started thinking that perhaps it was to show we ascribe that 'otherness' to him even if he himself identified more as an Irish man than an orthodox / kosher jew?

We expect him to behave in a certain way but he doesn't. I have not read any notes on this chapter yet but feel that Stephen is reflective of young Joyce, railing against the system and searching for meaning and his place in the world.

Bloom is older Joyce, as an Irish man abroad railing against the stereotype of 'Irish', married, domesticated, far more aware of his own corporeality etc

The Jewish element is interesting and perhaps surprising for Dublin in 1904? There can't have been a huge Jewish population there then? Is it another trope for exploring 'outsider' - Stephan is an outsider because he rejects Catholicism and Bloom is an outsider because he is Jewish.

I think he comes across as far more real, and grounded but from this episode alone I am not sure if he is a more likeable character - he's quite lecherous and the girls he's focusing on are younger and more vulnerable.

I agree with @LaGiaconda that the realism of being in a long partnership rings true. There are so many shared things that bind them together beyond sex. We know they've lost a child but we don't know why their physical relationship has ended or who ended it as they are both clearly still interested in sex but just not with each other...I think grief has killed their emotional intimacy which in turn makes the physical impossible now.

I am going to re-read it tonight so I'll be back.

I don't think he's particularly lecherous - well, not in the context of the times anyway. I think he appreciates and likes women. He's interested in what they wear, for instance, chooses clothes, perhaps. And not only the purple garters, as later he remembers what Molly was wearing for particular concerts. He obviously made a good job of choosing Milly's new hat and Joyce really enjoys his parody of a fifteen year old girl's thank you letter: 'It suits me splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the belle of the ball in my new tam.' He is particular about his own appearance, wonders whether he has time for a bath before the funeral.
I like him. He is empathetic and thoughtful, pragmatic and tolerant. Agree about the marriage@LaGiaconda.

Bloom get his particular kicks from voyeurism. From the timing of the chapters his naughty scene with Gerty McDowell in Nausicaa - which is curiously reciprocal although it's been viewed as exploitative - occurs at exactly the same time as Molly's 4pm assignation with Blazes Boylan.

Bloom's kicks don't come from physical contact but that doesn't mean he's asexual. There are many possible reasons why he and Molly don't have penetrative sex - issues after Rudy's death, possibly contraception, or he's impotent. He does like to ogle. In the lotus eaters, when he's trying to eye up the woman's legs, he's prevented from seeing her by a passing tram. He exchanges erotic but ridiculous letters with Martha, safe in the knowledge that he'll never meet her. As for his fantasy in 'Circe', it's clear he's not only jealous but actually gets his kicks in some perverse sense out of being cuckolded by Boylan.

Molly is no fool. She no more in ignorance of his doings than he's in the dark about her affair. She knows exactly what drives him. In 'Penelope', the last episode, she makes reference to his whoring her out.

It seems they have something of a very strange, unconventional mutual understanding, even if both parties are not necessarily aware it exists.