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Ulysses: some random afterthoughts
Dec. 31st, 2007 12:16 pmThe first time I visited New York City in 1986, I stayed in the Milford Plaza on Eighth Avenue at (I think) 45th street, and in the evenings I ate and drank in the small cafes and bars that littered the area. I never felt all that uptight, no more so than I did in much more salubrious areas. It was only after I returned to Britain that I read in a guide book that the most dangerous part of midtown was "Eighth Avenue, north of Times Square." Now, I have no way of knowing whether thatr advice was accurate or not, but the point is that once I read it, panic set in. The conclusion I drew was that places and things are only dangerous when somebody tells you they are.
Why are people scared of Ulysses? I don't doubt it's because they have heard it said over and over again that it is difficult, and therefore scary. And probably dangerous. Nobody's going to pretend it's easy going, for sure. In one or two places the language comes close to impenetrable, but those sections are not long ones. Most of Ulysses is written in perfectly orthodox prose. It's not a cosy story and it doesn't give up its secrets easily. Even after my second reading I'm pretty sure I've done little more than scratch the surface of its complexity and I know I missed a lot. Does it matter? No, not at all. Like another Modernist piece published in the same year, The Waste Land, it is full of complex and often obscure detail and many, many puzzles. But you don't have to grasp the meaning of The Waste Land to feel a thrill at reading
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Well, I do anyway. And then you have a whole lifetime to explore it and discover new things. So it is with Ulysses. You don't have to know everything about it to find it funny, sexy, disturbing, revealing, and compellingly readable, which it is, provided you don't take on too much at once and get verbal indigestion. Is it, as some charge, a piece of clever-dick showing off? A work of intellectual masturbation by a man who looks down on the common hordes? Far from it. The really difficult stuff is what Joyce places in the head of Stephen Dedalus. Stephen represents the young James Joyce, and it's a far from flattering portrait. Middle-aged Joyce knew damned well what a pain in the arse he was when he was younger. What's more refreshing is the celebration of the ordinary Dubliner in a city both cosmopolitan and parochial, people portrayed with affection for all their lack of heroism; the lack of heroics in a book with a heroic title is of course a heavy irony. Leopold Bloom has many human failings, but ultimately he is likeable, and there one really magical moment, when Bloom stands up to the bullying Citizen. Bloom isn't Jewish in the strict sense, but when taken to task he doesn't deny it; he stands withe the oppressed people.
Anyway, before I get carried away and produce a third-class offering to the Ulysses exegesis industry, I'll just say that I enjoyed reading it again, I found lots of new stuff in there, I'm glad I was challeneged, I shall read it again one day (but not soon), and that it towered above any other book I read in 2007.
Why are people scared of Ulysses? I don't doubt it's because they have heard it said over and over again that it is difficult, and therefore scary. And probably dangerous. Nobody's going to pretend it's easy going, for sure. In one or two places the language comes close to impenetrable, but those sections are not long ones. Most of Ulysses is written in perfectly orthodox prose. It's not a cosy story and it doesn't give up its secrets easily. Even after my second reading I'm pretty sure I've done little more than scratch the surface of its complexity and I know I missed a lot. Does it matter? No, not at all. Like another Modernist piece published in the same year, The Waste Land, it is full of complex and often obscure detail and many, many puzzles. But you don't have to grasp the meaning of The Waste Land to feel a thrill at reading
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Well, I do anyway. And then you have a whole lifetime to explore it and discover new things. So it is with Ulysses. You don't have to know everything about it to find it funny, sexy, disturbing, revealing, and compellingly readable, which it is, provided you don't take on too much at once and get verbal indigestion. Is it, as some charge, a piece of clever-dick showing off? A work of intellectual masturbation by a man who looks down on the common hordes? Far from it. The really difficult stuff is what Joyce places in the head of Stephen Dedalus. Stephen represents the young James Joyce, and it's a far from flattering portrait. Middle-aged Joyce knew damned well what a pain in the arse he was when he was younger. What's more refreshing is the celebration of the ordinary Dubliner in a city both cosmopolitan and parochial, people portrayed with affection for all their lack of heroism; the lack of heroics in a book with a heroic title is of course a heavy irony. Leopold Bloom has many human failings, but ultimately he is likeable, and there one really magical moment, when Bloom stands up to the bullying Citizen. Bloom isn't Jewish in the strict sense, but when taken to task he doesn't deny it; he stands withe the oppressed people.
Anyway, before I get carried away and produce a third-class offering to the Ulysses exegesis industry, I'll just say that I enjoyed reading it again, I found lots of new stuff in there, I'm glad I was challeneged, I shall read it again one day (but not soon), and that it towered above any other book I read in 2007.
