Reading the Chunksters discussion

WEEK 2 - Ulysses BY James Joyce


February 1 – February 22: Part II (the longest part of the book)
• Part II: The Odyssey – approximate pages 45 – 505 (the paperback is from 53 to 565)

February 1 – February 6: around 113 pages
o Episode 4: Calypso
o Episode 5: The Lotus Eaters
o Episode 6: Hades
o Episode 7: Aeolus
o Episode 8: The Lestrygonians

I am mostly through this section, so I am going to comment. I have fallen asleep about 5 times trying to read Episode 8, so I figure that one may take a bit more effort before I can finish and I might as well get started writing...

I was very pleasantly surprised by Part II and Bloom's storyline. It was an even easier read that the opening Dedalus sections, and I found myself caring just a bit more. Through every section up until 8, I have actually been at least somewhat interested in the story and it has held my attention. Every section up until 7 where it got more difficult with the random news headlines (and 8 that apparently triggers hidden narcolepsy) was quite readable, and I had no difficulties sitting down, reading the chapters, and understanding the general plot.

I especially enjoyed Episode 6: Hades. In this section, we see a lot of what is going on inside Bloom's head, learn a bit of his relationship with Molly, about his dead son, and his relationship with his father. The scenes at the grave site were also especially poetical and even a bit moving.

There is still so much, though, that I am not "getting" and therefore just glossing over (even with spark notes!). I feel like I'm not really smart enough to be trying this, and maybe not Joyce's target audience. I still just don't quite care enough to put in the amount of effort I feel a better level of understanding will entail. I am hoping that some discussions open up and help out with this a bit, too!

Kaycie - Hades was one of my favorite episodes! Also, I'm trying to remember if The Lestrygonians episode is the one where you feel like you are reading something from back in King Arthur days or something similar? If it is, I definitely see why you would fall asleep, that episode took me for a loop, and it was only after having the moderator in the other group I read it with explain how that episode worked that I could appreciate it, although it was still very difficult to read.

There is still so much, though, that I am not "getting" and therefore just glossing over (even with spark notes!). I feel like I'm not really smart enough to be trying this, and maybe not Joyce's target audience.

This is exactly how I felt! :)

Linda - I don't know if its good or bad that Hades was one of your favorites! It was only 20% of the way through the book, so I don't want the "best" over yet!

I don't think Lestrygonians is like from King Arthur days...I hope I am not missing something that big. It was just a long episode that seemed to have especially more rambling than some of the others while describing just Bloom walking down a street, running into various people that he spoke with for a few minutes, and stopping for some food. Oh, and lots of thoughts about food.

So Episode 8 wasn't a favorite, but it did have my favorite quote: "Do ptake some ptarmigan." I am not usually so amused by Joyce's wordplay, but for some reason this one was particularly funny to me.

Overall, after finishing Episode 8, I found myself suddenly already at 26% progress in the book. After this section, I am pleasantly surprised with how much I don't hate this book, which I was honestly kind of expecting. There is MUCH I am not getting, but I can see that Joyce is obviously very smart (and a bit...full of himself), and he does have an amazing grasp of language. I am much more interested than I thought I would be, and have actually enjoyed several snippets!

Oh no, that's not the episode I was thinking of. Sorry, Kaycie! I know which one it is now, and I'm pretty sure you'll know it when you get to it. :)

As far as Hades being one of my favorites, I just remember that I found it more enjoyable than the episodes I had read up to that point, and I found a lot of humor in it. But that doesn't mean I didn't find all the episodes after that less enjoyable.

Ghad! I'm doomed! I kept falling asleep through Hades! I kept thinking, I could ATTEND a funeral in less time that it takes to read these pages. Just bury the guy, already!

Okay, I understand how going to a funeral with your aging buddies would churn up the mortal coil. And once I woke from the serial napping, I could appreciate that JJ is essentially writing the way we think. Jumping from thought to thought. Sad. Judgmental. Nostalgic. All threading together.

But if that was the high point, I'm doomed! :P

Almost finished this section. I can see what Linda said in the last thread about needing to read this more than once.

Right now I'm torn between boredom because it seems an endless description of an old guy's average doings on an average day. With every single one of his average thoughts. And fascination with the near poetry of the average.

I started to say something in the last thread about this being a work that would mostly appeal to men. The things that men think about. It might possibly mirror more closely the thought process of the average guy going through his day. Even the bits with Stephen Daedalus. Anyway, if that's the case it must have knocked socks off the male reading public back in the day.

I'm getting through a section or two a day when I can, so I'm only done with "Calypso," which I found very random (I mean, who really needs to know that much detail about a guy's actions on a toilet?) but SparkNotes analysis of it is rather interesting:

(view spoiler)[Episodes One, Two, and Three constituted a prologue centering on Stephen as a Telemachus figure. With Episode Four, the morning begins again—it is 8:00 A.M., and this chapter takes place simultaneously to Episode One as we begin the adventures of “Odysseus,” Leopold Bloom. Joyce subtly emphasizes this simultaneity by having both Stephen and Bloom notice the same cloud move briefly over the sun. Thematic correspondences also emphasize the simultaneity: both Stephen and Bloom prepare breakfast for others; both are dressed in mourning; both leave without their house keys.

Aside from these thematic correspondences, Episode Four also serves to set up differences between Bloom and Stephen. Whereas Stephen resentfully helped serve breakfast to Haines in Episode One, Bloom solicitously prepares his wife’s and his cat’s breakfasts before his own. The movements of Bloom’s body are foregrounded while Stephen’s body was virtually absent from Episode One’s narrative. Finally, Stephen’s last word in Episode One—“Usurper”—was theatrically bitter, while Bloom’s last line in Episode Four—“Poor Dignam!”—is sympathetic and mundane.

The character differences between Bloom and Stephen are most clearly evident in their respective thought processes. As we see in Episode Three, a concrete thing turns into an abstract thought in Stephen’s consciousness, and these abstractions often lead back to Stephen himself. Bloom, however, perceives details by putting them in a larger context outside himself. ...Whereas Stephen’s trains of thought take him further and further from reality, Bloom checks himself when his imaginings become unrealistic, as with his colorful mental image of walking around the globe.

The nature of Bloom’s Judaism is not fully revealed in Ulysses—instead, Joyce shows that judgments about Bloom’s Judaism reveal more about the other characters than they reveal about Bloom himself. (hide spoiler)]

I would never have picked up on the Bloom/Stephen similarities and contrasts by myself. Somehow I feel like Bloom's character may be more interesting to explore, however; Stephen seems so brooding and melancholy that he would be extremely tedious to be around after awhile. Bloom seems much more optimistic.

Here's a source: joyceimages.com For every episode, there are period pics, stereo viewer pics, drawings, theater programs, or whatever applies. For the Hades section in particular, as they are driving through Dublin passing a lot of monuments or pubs, there are pictures and a bit of commentary. The Nelson monument referred to no longer exists; it was blown up by republicans in 1966.
In Hades, I liked the way Bloom comments on all the dead, much as Odysseus enumerated all the dead warriors or women he met.

Nice connection!

I've been reading Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson with another group and it made me think more about this section and how the two portrayals connect. Here, Leopold Bloom is traveling with friends to a funeral. Bloom is a mid-life character and his destination causes him to reflect on his life events and, well, Life. Which made me think about the Odysseus portrayed by Tennyson. Tennyson's Ulysses is home in Ithaca, thinking about where he is in his life and his past glories and wondering whether he should get a little more adventure in before the end. (The poem is great, so here's a link...
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/... )

So especially these two portrayals are connected because of all the reflection from the position of a certain age/life experience. Bloom is an average middle-aged man of his time and place; not a heroic larger-than-life character as was Odysseus, but they have some reflections in common. They have both grown older with women they love, have adult children, have lost companions to death, and face the ultimate destination of life.

Anyway, these thoughts made this section a bit more interesting to me.

And once I woke from the serial napping,

This made me laugh so hard...and I think is a common theme for reading this book!

And Alana - I wouldn't have picked up on...well, very much at all if it weren't for Spark Notes telling me. Even with the episodes named for Odyssey sections, I still can't really see that connection except as a very thin thread!

SusanK - THANK YOU for the link to the images! It is really SO much to go through, (19 pages for the episode I just looked at!), but VERY helpful! I am a very visual person, and I think that has been part of my struggle with this one. It seems to be quite the auditory adventure, but that is always a secondary sense for me!

Especially section 8. There was very little there to really grasp, as it was mainly deep workings of a human mind. The images are something very concrete to latch on to and are really going to help me step through this book! Spark Notes is priceless as well, but so often I am left scratching my head thinking "did we just read the same section? I didn't see that at all!"

I like Simon Dedalus's description of Buck Mulligan (from Hades): That Mulligan is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

Alana wrote: "I'm getting through a section or two a day when I can, so I'm only done with "Calypso," which I found very random (I mean, who really needs to know that much detail about a guy's actions on a toile..."

Why indeed? Keep wondering if I would enjoy this book more if I was male. But I am enjoying the Sparknotes.

Lisa wrote: "Alana wrote: "I'm getting through a section or two a day when I can, so I'm only done with "Calypso," which I found very random (I mean, who really needs to know that much detail about a guy's acti..."

Both of your comments are amazing, and really made me smile! I am right there with you!

I honestly don't think I care enough about this one (this may change by the end of my read-through! I am trying to keep an open mind!) to invest the energy it would take to do a more-than-spark-notes-and-group-discussion analysis of the book.

Lisa - as per your point of the description of Mulligan - I was thinking that Joyce is quite colorful. I wouldn't want to have been an enemy of his that ended up in one of his books...

I think if I were reading this on my own it would already be in the "Did Not Finish" pile, but I confess, I haven't been that opposed to picking it up a section at a time, as I've been enjoying everyone's insights and discussion.

I completely agree! The group dynamic is really helping. So glad we're in it together!

That funeral section really did seem to go by so slowly.

Honestly, I have kept trying to pick this up several times over the last couple of weeks, and as much as I want the bragging rights of "I'm one of the few who braved the daunting Ulysses," I think my version of "braving" it is going to have to be that I attempted it. I might try it again some other time, but as I am in the midst of a book I'm greatly enjoying (thank you all immensely for introducing me to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I'd never heard of before) and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't keep trying to finish books that I'm not liking, just because they are supposed to be classics, I am going to have to set this one aside.

Looking forward to our next read, though!

So I read Lestrygonians once and listened twice... I think. I could not pay attention. I'm not convinced that I care enough about the characters to continue.

Oh, sadness! I made it through this section, using the audio/read method where I mostly listen and follow along in the ebook when I have time. The discussion here has really helped me, but I totally understand the need to put this aside. (I didn't make it to Volume 2 of Don Quixote.) Thanks for all your comments and your honesty. I haven't started Section 3 yet, I'm gonna give it a shot. I definitely won't finish within the original timeframe.

Renee wrote: "Oh, sadness! I made it through this section, using the audio/read method where I mostly listen and follow along in the ebook when I have time. The discussion here has really helped me, but I totall..."

Rene, I am going to continue too. I figure that I'm halfway through, might as well finish, but I'm not really invested in the story

Yeah. I know what you mean. I felt more connection to the Ancient Greeks!

I believe it when they say you could spend a lifetime with this book. I just finished Aeolus (had to read My Brilliant Friend-Elena Ferrante for a live bookclub, speed reading by comparison). I delved deeply into two pages and found references to types of rhetoric, Irish journalists, rarely-seen 19th century English opera, the Moses of Michaelangelo, and more! I want to keep up, so I can only do that once in a while. I think Aeolus' bag of winds are the journalistic wind-bags. The book of Guinness, ha!