Episode 3: Proteus

Dear reader,when I first wrote this post I essentially told you and myself that this episode was incomprehensible, full of allusions I didn't catch, and something I quickly gave up on. Some of that is still true, there are many bits here I don't understand, but I made a breakthrough in reading it yesterday and thought that since I'm currently struggling with how to write up the other episodes I've read beyond this point, I'd give myself a break of sorts and rework my coverage of this one. So here goes.

Stephen spends most of the episode thinking. THe key to reading it, I discovered, is to try and take each new sentence as it comes, without trying too hard to understand it or process it in any way. Joyce does an excellent job of mimicking how people's thoughts actually flow, and Stephen's in this walk along the strand are chaotic and disordered.

He dwells principally on three subjects: philosophy, his family life, and his rebellious trip to Paris which was cut so disastrously short. Philosophically, Stephen is obsessed with understanding what his senses tell him, and here creates the episode's most vivid passage for me as he walks along the beach, eyes closed, noticing the feel and sound of his feet on the shoreline.

Stephen's family life is complicated: he has a strained relationship with his father, Simon, but came home when he received a telegram from him about his mother's illness. FOr his part, Simon dislikes his in-laws, particularly "Uncle Richey," on a visit to who's house Stephen briefly considers embarking. As shall be seen later in the novel,Simon harbors deep feelings for his departed wife. Stephen's family is not respectable in his eyes, and he actually lied to friends at his Catholic prep school about them, ashamed.

The crux of Stephen's anxiety in this episode concerns his abortive trip to Paris. HE feels that he was unable to accomplish self-imposed goals there, and is obsessed with the idea that he is a failure. His trip started badly and  ended badly, and he has nothing to show for it except a few souvenirs, such as the French telegram calling him home to see his mother. He flirted with Irish nationalism whilst their, but again accomplished nothing notable.

All in all, Stephen spends this episode doing what Buck Mulligan advised him not to, brooding. THe most he manages to accomplish is to jot down a few lines of poetry, by tearing off a strip of paper from the letter he is delivering for Mr. Deasy. 

All that over with, we come to the end of part one of this book. I ask myself sometimes why I read it and like it so much, and I can't really provide an answer. THe subject matter covered is certainly not thrilling in the traditional sense, nor are the parallels with the Odyssey very clear. Still, there are moments of profound beauty here, and the prose style is engaging and original if nothing else. I'll keep going, and someday soon will introduce you all to Mr. Leopold Bloom, the titular Ulysses.

Episode 2: Nestor

Dear reader, this is the toughest episode I've had to read yet, in terms of content. Stylistically, its similar to the first, relatively straight-forward. The challenge comes in the person of the aforementioned Mr. Deasy, who is the Nestor analog in this strange retelling of The Odyssey.

Stephen is teaching a class on Roman history to a bunch of more or less inattentive students. He only has their attention for a short while, and is apparently unfamiliar with their school and its program. His thoughts are occupied with scenes of bloody warfare and the chances of history—do the things which happen preclude their opposites? "Had Julius Caesar not been knifed to death…"

One student reads a poem rather badly, and the lecture ends. The students call on Stephen to tell them a riddle, but the one he comes up with is so far beyond their capabilities (and mine) as to be incomprehensible. They leave to play hockey in a rush, though one remains behind to obtain help from Stephen on solving what seem to be fairly basic math problems. Stephen dwells on this boy's unattractiveness and his relationship with a mother who probably cares for him anyway, as he goes to talk to the headmaster, Mr. Deasy, about his pay.

Deasy is an old man who can apparently remember the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. He begins to lecture Stephen on the necessity of saving money, as he counts out the pay he owes him. Stephen has apparently been lectured the exact same way twice before, and is resigned to listening to it over again. Mr. Deasy claims that the national pride of the British is that they can say they "paid their own way," and never needed a loan from anyone. Stephen reflects gloomily on his own debts, which are considerable. His pay is worthless.

Deasy then asks Stephen to do him a favor. He has a letter he wants to publish in a couple newspapers, who's editors Stephen apparently knows. It concerns the "foot and mouth," disease, which afflicts cattle. Deasy begins slowly typing the last portion of the manuscript on an old typewriter, while Stephen admires pictures of racehorses on his wall. THe letter is full of cliches and rambling, though Deasy apparently doesn't think so.

It is at this point that the episode becomes hard to read. Deasy claims to be beset on all sides by difficulties, and makes a number of classic accusations against Jews, whom he claims are causing the downfall of "old England." Stephen tries to deflect his tirade with questions about the job of a merchant, be he Jew or gentile, but Deasy will have none of it. Stephen asks him at one point which country has not persecuted the Jews, and Deasy does not immediately have a reply.

Stephen claims that history is "a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," whereas Deasy claims that history has but one purpose, the manifestation of God. GOd is, according to Stephen, "A shout in the street," or the sounds of the distant hockey players enjoying themselves. At length, despite Deasy's chronic rambling, Stephen is able to understand what he wants to be done with the letter, though Deasy doesn't seem to actually care which journals it gets posted in. As Stephen leaves, Deasy runs after him to answer his earlier question: "Ireland, they say, has the honor of being the only country which never persecuted the Jews, because she never let them in." Deasy laughs his head off at this.

The most difficult thing about this episode, as I mentioned, was the frankness of the antisemitic remarks made by one of the characters. I'm not sure how much of this was Joyce's own viewpoint and how much a depiction of an old, bitter man. Stephen's reaction, or lack of it, also troubles me: he never expresses discomfort at being forced to listen to the rant, seeming rather to let it roll over him.

If this episode was hard to take  due to its content, the next is almost impossible because of its style. Episode 3 is the place I gave up most of my previous attempts to read this novel. Prepare for massive stream of consciousness.

Episode I: Telemachus

Well, dear reader, here we go. I'm cribbing episode titles from the Ulysses wikipedia page, which is a rather informative article all around. We begin at 8 AM in Dublin, on Thursday, June 16, 1904.

Stephen Dedalus is a young writer renting a "martello tower," with his friend Buck Mulligan and an Englishman whom he does not know, Haines. Mulligan is at the very least irreverent, parodying the Catholic mass upon waking up and driving the gloomy Stephen to distraction with his antics. It soon emerges that Stephen is tormented by the recent death of his mother, though he refused to kneel down and pray for her as she lay dying. Mulligan inadvertently insulted him soon afterwards, and refuses to take Stephen seriously when he tries to explain how unhappy that made him feel. Stephen also has a gaff with Haines, who apparently suffers nightmares about a black panther which keep Stephen awake.

The three men descend to breakfast, and Mulligan continues to treat Stephen as he would a servant, demanding money from him and the tower's key. It emerges that Stephen has a job teaching, and will be collecting his pay later that morning. A woman enters with milk, and Haines tries to speak with her in Gaelic, but she doesn't understand him. She fawns over Mulligan, who turns out to be a medical student, but snubs Stephen. THe three men pay a part of their debt to her and leave, planning to meet up later in the day for drinks. Stephen resolves not to return to the tower that night, as Mulligan has usurped his place in it.

Stephen has been tormented throughout the episode by the image of his mother, particularly in one memorable scene when she appears to him in her graveclothes and seems to find him wanting. This scene struck a chord with me, being vividly written and oppressive from Stephen's internal point of view. Similarly, Mulligan's treatment of his "friend" was uncomfortable, particularly his callousness and refusal to understand why Stephen might have felt insulted by his behavior. Haines emerges as a relatively mild anti-Semite, especially when compared with Mr. Deasy in the next episode.

This chapter is relatively straight-forward, the biggest challenge in reading it for me was realizing what was internal stream of consciousness and what was dialog. Reading it in Braille helps quite a bit with this, as does reading it aloud. As shall be seen, there's more complicated stuff to come.

Introduction, or Why I'm DOing This

Dear reader, you may ask, who are you and why are you going to blog about you're reading of one of the most difficult novels ever written? I'm Zack Kline, a college student from the Pacific northwest who is not an english major, though I have a couple friends who are. I have wanted to try reading Ulysses for quite a few years now, and have made several abortive attempts before. I want to read the book because of its reputation, and, like the man who climbed Everest, because it's there.

So why the blog? It will serve to keep me going at tough moments, of which their will certainly be many, and I've been wanting to get back into blogging for quite a while now, and … So, I have several reasons to do this, some better than others. I also hope it will be fun for everyone, including me and any readers I might have.

How will I do this? Episode by episode seems most promising: (for the uninitiated, this book isn't split into conventional chapters, but rather episodes, marked by sometimes abrupt changes in writing style and point of view. THere are eighteen of these, and I'm presently on the fifth.) So that's how I'll do this, cover one episode per post, ideally, though some are longer than others and might need to be split. I'll summarize my thoughts on the episode, synopsize what happened, etc.

A final word on spoilers: it goes without saying there will be plenty. Don't expect to come away from this blog without them. THen again, I'll be discussing a novel many people claim is unreadable, so perhaps it won't matter so much. In any case, enjoy.