#ulysses challenge

[theulysseschallenge]

Surely a reason so many have turned away from “Ulysses” over the last near-hundred years is that they can’t read it without a suffocating sense of each word’s cultural importance and their duty to respond, a shame in that case, given how often Joyce was trying to be amusing.

Article about Faulkner

[theulysseschallenge]

Ulysses, but the comic

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Ulysses Challenge: Scylla and Charybdis

Are you ready for a chapter summary rap!?

If not then such your trap!

*Yo, hypothetical beatboxer, set me up*

Scylla and Charybdis were like nautical obstacles

Raising all up a bunch uh Greek hackles

Ya had to sail between

Or else you'd wreck an 'cause quite a scene

I read this whole chapta,

and I don't get what Joyce going afta

We back with Dedalus,

who is not on a bus

Nah, he in a library

Acting all contrary

Telling all these intellectuals

'Bout Shakespeare

All them plays are about Will's family life

Son, uncles, and a cheating wife.

Buck Mulligan

is dis theory's biggest fan

Look's like Steve's got some daddy issues

Anyway I thought he was going to chug down some brews

What is he even doing at the library?

My resulting confusion is a little scary.

Anyway, this chapta's got some fly quotes

Not one of which is about stoats

This ain't no Redwall feast

Yeah. Rap over. Ima beast.

Most Revealing Dedalus Monologue-

"The son unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases care. He is a male: his growth is his father's decline, his youth his father's envy, his friend his father's enemy."

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Ulysses Challenge: Lestrygonians

This chapter wasn't nearly as fun as Aeolus or as deep/awesome as Hades. It had its funny bits (Bloom checking out naked statuary, etc.), but it's main point, I think, was to move the central conflict along. With a little help from my friend, who's also reading right now, I figured out that Bloom's wife Molly is cheating on him. (Recall that Leopold is unfaithful or is thinking about adultery himself...)

Anyway, the guy, a musical conductor with the totally awesome name of Blaze B. shows up a few times in this chapter. Whenever he's mentioned, or Leopold thinks of him, total inner monologue shutdown. Bloom just starts flippin' out and tries to leave, even forsakin' a cheese sandwich lovingly crafted by a pub owner. 

He thinks a lot about his relationship with his wife in this chapter. How they're growing old and growing apart. The pivotal moment is the death of Rudy, his infant son. 

In other, fun trivia news- Bloom might be a Freemason! Some guy thinks he is anyway. Plus there is a lot of Irish political history being thrown at you, it is pretty neat. One thing that really made me laugh was when Bloom talked about policemen having happy lives. Policemen. In Ireland. 

Best line- (thinking about sandwiches) Ham and his descendants mustered and bred there.

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Ulysses Challenge: Aeolus

Anybody know what an Aeolus is? 'Cause I only know that it is the best frickin' chapter of Ulysses! I've started to understand the jokes, and there are sooooooo many! Plus there is less craziness going on with inner monologues and stuff (still a lot of that though). And for a special bonus, we get to be both of our central characters so far (I'm told there's a third...) in the same chapter!

He's trying to let his boss know about a change/subscription for an advertisement involving puns and Irish home rule. Unfortunately for him, the ol' coot is too busy mocking a truly horrendous submitted poem with a professorial friend of his. The guys have a utterly hilarious convo and Bloom leaves across town to get the ad finalized (chased by newspaper boys). Stephen shows up, and tempts them over to the dark side of getting hammered instead of working. They talk about Nelson's Column, and some hot babes admiring the column. Yes that was innuendo. Bloom returns, and his boss shows 0 cares. Beer > Advertisements. Bloom sees Steve and we get main character interactio- nope. They go their separate ways.

Did I mention that every section has a fun newspaper heading? Because that was the best part! Some were absurdly long, others poignant, but mostly, they were garish and loud, presumably just like a real early 20th century paper.

Top 5 Heading Countdown:

5: DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE WIMBLES, FLO WANGLES - YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM FOR IT? (Woah)

4. DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN (It's like Dear Abby but...)

3. ??? (Straight out of the RPGs)

2. SAD (Single tear streaking down my face)

1. THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES (Oooohhhh yeah)

See ya next time folks!

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Reading Update

You've probably noticed that the daily Ulysses Challenge posts have been anything but. I do have a not-lame excuse though! Been reading an assortment of other books I received for Christmas- Storm of Swords, three Phillip K. Dick books (Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and The Man in High Castle), and Crime and Punishment.

Crime and Punishment is definitely the best out of those, Dostoevsky can get the ol' emotions a-churning like a blender in the middle of a cyclone. I'm gonna finish it tomorrow morning, just a few pages left.

Storm of Swords is probably number 2, loved all the tying-together of threads from the first two books. Let me just say that Littlefinger is a Grade-A Magnificent Bastard. Grade-A. 

PKD (his name could be made into one-heck of a Mother 3 attack) is okay. Honestly not that impressed. High Castle was good, Palmer Eldritch alright, and Ubik bad. Ubik just had so much cool stuff going on, all these great story elements and set-ups and then... the twist sucked. Like, I would have preferred there to have been no twist at all it was such an anti-climax.

Anyway, Ulysses Challenge resumes tomorrow.

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Ulysses Challenge: Calypso and Lotus Eaters

Chapters 4-5 Greek mythology background update off the top of my head- Calypso is this sorceress that seduces Ulysses, keeping him on her steamy love estate rather than sending him home. Lotus eaters were some dudes who consumed opiates, forgot a lot of stuff, and generally were drugged up. 

Pretty dramatic shift from my previous reading, because the narration is now tied to the thoughts of... Leopold Bloom! A middle-aged Jewish man with a hankering for da ladies, Bloom, thanks to the cult following of Ulysses, now has his own holiday, Bloomsday. A handy alternative for the Doomsday we so recently escaped.

Anyway, Bloom isn't as much of an intellectual as Dedalus, so I don't have to wrack my brain quite so frequently. His stream of consciousness focuses primarily on events surrounding him, women, and food. To start Bloomquest 1904, he goes out to buy some food for breakfast. Grabs some sausage (a kosher kind I guess?) and heads home to make breakfast for him and his wife, Molly. He burns some food, boils some tea, gives his wife some mail, reads a letter from his teenage daughter, and offhandedly reveals that his infant son died a few years back. :( The big event being talked about is a funeral for Paddy Digham, a friend of Bloom's.

After breakfast, he heads out to do some errands, read the paper, pick up a letter from his would-be mistress, you know, the works. The letter in question was hilariously awkward, as she refers to him as a naughty boy every other phrase. Bloom doesn't decide yet whether to take her up on the offer... He's accosted by a friendly police officer, who wants him to forge his name on the funeral registrar for Digham, so it looks like he came. Heads over to the Catholic Church, listens in on the sermon, but is pretty cynical about the whole business (being Jewish, that's probably fair). A rough-an-tumble fellow peruses his paper to check the latest horse-racing standings, and Bloom decides to take a bath. A flower floats beside him as tonight's reading closes.

Grecian Callback of the Week: "Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year." <- Bloom equating these Catholics with Lotus Eaters

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Ulysses Challenge: Telemachus- Proteus

Howdy y’all, ready for some Ulysses? First some rules, I will translate anything in a foreign tongue to more readily understand (so far some Latin and Greek), and reserve the right to look up any references that interest me. But I’m going to be going off of the unannotated version without any outside information as to the plot or characters. Here’s a link if you’re interested: http://archive.org/stream/ulysses04300gut/ulyss12.txt and a link to an annotated version if you, ya know, want to actually understand what’s going on: http://www.columbia.edu/~fms5/ulys.htm.

Telemachus- first chapter of Ulysses, as well as the name of Ulysses’ (the Greek strategist and hero of The Odyssey) son. I don’t remember too much about the guy, but he does help his dad kill a bunch of his mom’s suitors in the climatic battle.

So we’ve got some guy, Buck Mulligan talking with his friend, Stephen Daedalus (more Greek, this guy’s the one who built the famous labyrinth), while shaving.

Ol’ Steve’s mom has died. The bloke refused her a last prayer, and is pretty torn up about it. Steve’s living at his friend Buck’s place along with a visitor (I forgot his name, starts with an H). They’re all in a bit of trouble with money, but Steve’s getting paid today. They’re all intellectuals, but Daedalus is operating on a whole ‘nother mental level. This isn’t that hard yet- there are some random interjections of *ancient* Greek as well as discussion of some obscure Catholic rituals, but nothing too bad. Occasional thought interjections by Steve into the narrative. Also, Joyce doesn’t use quotation marks, so that’s a little weird.

Hahaha, the version I’m reading doesn’t really have chapter titles, so I kept reading trying to finish Telemachus. Turns out I did! And kept reading because I didn’t realize it. Next chapter is Nestor- I think he was a king of some sort (should I look this up in the future?) Basically, this chapter is Stephen Daedalus at work. He’s a teacher, probably at a middle school level (or whatever the early twentieth century Irish equivalent), and he and his students don’t really get along. They crack jokes, he zones out and treats the reader to lots of disjointed thoughts. The students go out to play some hockey, he helps a poor student with math, all the while thinking of how weak the boy is and how his mother’s love is all that protects him. His boss comes in and pays him, asks him to get a rather horrible letter on the cattle trade published, and then makes a bunch of anti-Semitic comments. Steve is understandably put off, and hightails it outta there.

Proteus- Level 3 of Ulysses is a tough un’. Starts off with Daedalus heading from work to his relatives house. His relatives are pretty poor, and relations are strained because of the whole ‘refusing his dying mother’s last request incident’. And then- stream of consciousness! But it’s more like a flash flood of consciousness. Really hard to make sense of, but here are some common themes: failure (Daedalus was really ambitious as a youth, but hasn’t amounted to anything), the sea, mothers, death!, sex! and naked ladies, the French and France, and dogs.

Best Paragraph Award: “Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street. O SI, CERTO! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still!! On the top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain: Naked women! NAKED WOMEN! What about that, eh?”

  Worst Anti-Semite Award: Mr. Deasy- “Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why?”

“She never let them in,” he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. “That's why.”