Readalonga Rosie - Ulysses: Day 23
Dec. 12th, 2007 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enitharmon11. The Sirens
Sirens: bird-women inhabiting a Mediterranean island. Their hypnotic singing lured sailors to be wrecked on the rocks. Odysseus asked his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast to avoid temptation.
"On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand lightly, plumply, leave it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger passed in pity: passed, repassed and, gently touching,.then slid so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through their sliding ring."
It's four in the afternoon and Simon Dedalus and friends are gathered at the bar of the Ormond Hotel. They flirt with and are flirted at in return by the barmaids, Miss Lydia Douce and Miss Mina Kennedy, whose sensuous toing and froing sets the tone for the episode. Lenehan the racing man arrives and asks if anybody has seen Blazes Boylan. Boylan arrives for his meeting with Lenehan. Leopold Bloom arrives for dinner with the solicitor Richie Goulding, who is Stephen Dedalus's uncle. He sees Boylan's car and watches from a distance. Boylan buys a round, leaves. In the dining room, Bloom orders liver and bacon, Goulding steak and kidney pie, so we get a lot of food imagery. Simon Dedalus and friends, including a noted singer Ben Dollard, sing Bellini and Irish folk songs so we get a lot of musical imagery too. Bloom listens to the singing and ogles the barmaids from a distance. He calls for pen and ink, writes a reply (as Henry Flower) to Martha Clifford, inwardly reflects on life, love, the loss of his infant son and his alienation from his wife. Meanwhile, Blazes Boylan makes his way to Eccles Street for his assignation with Molly Bloom. Bloom leaves the hotel. feeling a little squiffy by now, and farts loudly and satisfyingly in the street.
Another rev of the engine, another shifting of the gears. The episode begins with a shower of short sentences and fragments of sentences that seem to make no sense. Two pages of them. Then things get more conventional, but then you begin realise that the fragments at the start reappear in context and make more sense (for some values of 'sense') Some overarching themes are thrown into sharper focus, mainly Bloom's position as an outsider, the wandering jew (although in fact he is not Jewish, as his mother was not.) The singers reflect a thread of Irish nationalism, which has appeared now and then. Both of these themes will doubtless be elaborated on before long. We learn a little more of Bloom's troubled love life, The narrative keeps being interrupted by brief flashes to Blazes Boylan's progress towards cuckolding Bloom, and it seems that Bloom knows this and also knows he is helpless to do anything about it. Lots of food, music and sex. The two barmaids, no doubt the Sirens of the section heading, are very memorable and feed Bloom's masturbatory fantasies with innuendoes that would make Humph blush. This is where we begin to see why Ulysses had such a controversial publishing history. Bloom's interior monologue gets more addled as the drink kicks in (although let's not forget that Bloom is a careful drinker, and we've seen how convoluted Stephen Dedalus's though processes are when he's sober, and heaven only knows what he's been doing all afternoon with his flamboyant friends and his pay packet. No doubt we shall find out soon enough.)
Sirens: bird-women inhabiting a Mediterranean island. Their hypnotic singing lured sailors to be wrecked on the rocks. Odysseus asked his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast to avoid temptation.
"On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand lightly, plumply, leave it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger passed in pity: passed, repassed and, gently touching,.then slid so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through their sliding ring."
It's four in the afternoon and Simon Dedalus and friends are gathered at the bar of the Ormond Hotel. They flirt with and are flirted at in return by the barmaids, Miss Lydia Douce and Miss Mina Kennedy, whose sensuous toing and froing sets the tone for the episode. Lenehan the racing man arrives and asks if anybody has seen Blazes Boylan. Boylan arrives for his meeting with Lenehan. Leopold Bloom arrives for dinner with the solicitor Richie Goulding, who is Stephen Dedalus's uncle. He sees Boylan's car and watches from a distance. Boylan buys a round, leaves. In the dining room, Bloom orders liver and bacon, Goulding steak and kidney pie, so we get a lot of food imagery. Simon Dedalus and friends, including a noted singer Ben Dollard, sing Bellini and Irish folk songs so we get a lot of musical imagery too. Bloom listens to the singing and ogles the barmaids from a distance. He calls for pen and ink, writes a reply (as Henry Flower) to Martha Clifford, inwardly reflects on life, love, the loss of his infant son and his alienation from his wife. Meanwhile, Blazes Boylan makes his way to Eccles Street for his assignation with Molly Bloom. Bloom leaves the hotel. feeling a little squiffy by now, and farts loudly and satisfyingly in the street.
Another rev of the engine, another shifting of the gears. The episode begins with a shower of short sentences and fragments of sentences that seem to make no sense. Two pages of them. Then things get more conventional, but then you begin realise that the fragments at the start reappear in context and make more sense (for some values of 'sense') Some overarching themes are thrown into sharper focus, mainly Bloom's position as an outsider, the wandering jew (although in fact he is not Jewish, as his mother was not.) The singers reflect a thread of Irish nationalism, which has appeared now and then. Both of these themes will doubtless be elaborated on before long. We learn a little more of Bloom's troubled love life, The narrative keeps being interrupted by brief flashes to Blazes Boylan's progress towards cuckolding Bloom, and it seems that Bloom knows this and also knows he is helpless to do anything about it. Lots of food, music and sex. The two barmaids, no doubt the Sirens of the section heading, are very memorable and feed Bloom's masturbatory fantasies with innuendoes that would make Humph blush. This is where we begin to see why Ulysses had such a controversial publishing history. Bloom's interior monologue gets more addled as the drink kicks in (although let's not forget that Bloom is a careful drinker, and we've seen how convoluted Stephen Dedalus's though processes are when he's sober, and heaven only knows what he's been doing all afternoon with his flamboyant friends and his pay packet. No doubt we shall find out soon enough.)
