Brain Pain discussion

Episode 7, Aeolus – pp 147 – 189 new (page 108 old)


Scene: The Newspaper
Hour: 12 noon
Organ: Lungs
Art: Rhetoric
Color: Red
Symbol: Editor
Technic: Enthymemic


Break out your copy of Aristotle’s Rhetoric for this episode!

Mr. Bloom is in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal working out some advertising issues with the staff. He heads out on an errand and just misses Stephen Dedalus who’s come to the office to deliver Mr. Deasy’s hoof-and-mouth disease letter. Much witty banter ensues before they head out to lunch.

This does seem like a break for the reader, doesn't it?

Bloom's stream of consciousness was getting a little tiresome, so let's bring in some "old hands" from the newspaper (some of which were in DUBLINERS.. or so I've been told).

I'm not sure each one is straight in my mind.

Over the decades Aeolus has become one of the least favored of the early episodes. The "late" addition of the "headlines" gravely interferes with reading comprehension, the critics say.

A curious ambiguity occurs at the end of the third section: the final lone "We". In who's voice? Who is being referenced? What is the tone? (sincere or mocking).

I liked the headlines. Apparently some were inserted in the wrong place.

You know, I looked at that "We," and I don't know, but how about this- It is part of the "windiness" of the episode. It represents an exhalation.. "We" as in "wheee.." - Bloom breathing a little easier now that he's making progress in his "canvassing."

Just speculating.

"All of the above."

I like that! "wheee..."
I used to think it was Bloom's thought, responding to Red Murray's using "we" in the previous sentence, when he says, "we can do him one." And so it seems that when Red used "we" it was in a business sense: representing the paper, and maybe Bloom as a part-time employee feels like Red is including him, as a participant in this work discussion.
More recently I have felt that the final "we" is said by the narrator, mocking silly readers like myself thinking Bloom could belong to any "we" today.

royal we

that's an interesting idea, but from who's voice do you hear it?

I thought maybe to understand this section, it might help to go back to Homer. Aeolus is a god of wind, who gave Odysseus a bag of winds that was missing the West Wind that would take him home. His buddies thought it was full of treasures and let them all out.

What's that got to do with all this newspaper canvassing? The others must be the folks who let the wind out, if Bloom is Odysseus

Mark wrote: "that's an interesting idea, but from who's voice do you hear it?"

Not sure--the "we" starts with that storyMyles Crawford inserts that begins:" We were always loyal to lost causes...never loyal to the successful"..."we serve them"...

In this part I take this to mean the Irish--not following the Brit king successor?

Tracy wrote: "I thought maybe to understand this section, it might help to go back to Homer. Aeolus is a god of wind, who gave Odysseus a bag of winds that was missing the West Wind that would take him home. His..."

The Italian on p. 139 is about the wind--silent while the men talk--and all throughout this section they seem to be wanting someone else, like Stephen, to say something of substance(in writing). They seem Fenian. Seems like they are waiting for some sort of savior. It strikes me that they are more well read than many of our present day journalists. Quoting Shakespeare, the law in Latin, the Greeks etc. A story in praise of reviving Gaelic.

Tracy wrote: "I thought maybe to understand this section, it might help to go back to Homer. Aeolus is a god of wind, who gave Odysseus a bag of winds that was missing the West Wind that would take him home. His..."

Yes, "wind" = "rhetoric." "The Divine Afflatus" is one of the headlines, I think.

The 'old boys' are hanging around, amusing themselves with a particularly florid speech by "Doughy Daw."

Bloom himself uses a lot of "windy" idioms, like "something's in the wind," "sees which way the wind blows."

The big printing press is noisy, and even generates wind in the paper's offices.

My impression is that Joyce half loves these old geezers, and half despises them.

They aren't all journalists, by the way. Some of them are lawyers.

We shows up 427 times in Ulysses; 29 times in the Aeolus chapter. The we that I am particularly interested in is the last word (both a sentence and a paragraph) of the third section: under the headline: GENTLEMAN OF THE PRESS.
It ends:

--Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind his, we can do him one.
--Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in.
We. (117)

For me it is very ambiguous who thinks this last word.

I think Aeolus is pretty straight forward: A lot of conversation about nothing in particular: wind?

Mark wrote: "that's an interesting idea, but from who's voice do you hear it?"

Lots of wind references--

KMRIA--Kiss My ROYAL Irish Ass--is Crawford, to Keyes to be conveyed via Bloom. It's apparent that their lockstep excludes Bloom. Stephen is inclusive. I'm not certain where the "we" you all are talking about. Funny that Nelson's Pillar was blown up by the IRA in 1966.

oh, got it p. 119. I think it's Bloom's voice, wondering if Red includes him in the royal Irish we.

Stephen has money and has offered to buy everyone drinks. There is nothing a 1904 Dublin male could do better than to offer to buy drinks. - )

Mark wrote: "Stephen has money and has offered to buy everyone drinks. There is nothing a 1904 Dublin male could do better than to offer to buy drinks. - )"

For sure (to be sure) he'd have a lot of takers.

Plot wise, notice that Stephen is taking out the old timers in order to blow off (more wind? But I think that's my expression) his agreement to meet Haines and Mulligan "at the ship," wherever that is.

The Ship is the name of a local pub. As someone else noted some of these fellows are educated, literate men: the type of people Stephen likes to hang around with. Interestingly, with Mulligan not present Stephen's story does not get interrupted.

Well, he comes to the paper to drop off Deasy's letter on foot and mouth disease, and he finds a lot of his father's cronies hanging out, shooting the breeze.
(I could be wrong about that, since Simon D. skips out.. maybe this is a tangentially related crowd?)

Certainly, his "parable of the plums" is a different kind of rhetoric from the statue of Moses guy.. the birth of the modern.

Christopher wrote: "Well, he comes to the paper to drop off Deasy's letter on foot and mouth disease, and he finds a lot of his father's cronies hanging out, shooting the breeze.
(I could be wrong about that, since Si..."

Other than knowing there's some sexual joke there, not sure I get the full voltage of the plum story. Something to do with Nelson's hand sticking out and holding a cane/sword? I can not find any good pictures of the former statue. Does anyone know if it looks anything like the one in Trafalgar Square? Ah, he had one arm and one eye.

I have read commentary to the effect that the gals are spitting viable plum seeds down onto the pavement below where they will never be able to grow. Interesting about the statue, the Irish blew it up in 1966! - )

I found this episode the hardest to read so far. I wasn't able to go through much without the context of what they were talking about. I had to reread twice with a lot of other research. I've fallen behind!

Overall after understanding the episode I realize that mostly it was an episode about nothing. Just winds of dublin at the time. I found the bloom sequences to be interesting for the way everyone regards him. Some of the tones suggested a somewhat light disregard.

We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.
— All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics...
— The turf, Lenehan put in.
— Literature, the press.
— If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of advertisement.
— And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's prime favourite.
Lenehan gave a loud cough.
— Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open.


So what is lenehan insinuating here? Has he had a scene with molly?

And I read somewhere that when MacHugh mentions Bloom as a master of the gentle art of advertisement, he does so mockingly.

I didn't get that sense when I was reading however. But then again, sometime later the editor Myles gets a call from Bloom, he asks him to go to hell essentially. And the paperboys outside the office chase him and mimic his gait. So maybe they do mock him.

Overall I'm glad this episode is done haha

Somebody tells a story on Mrs. Bloom in The Wandering Rocks, but I forget who is talking to whom.. I get those old guys mixed up.

But looking at my clippings, I decided to post this from Aeolus:

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP.     

— You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.*     

Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.*     

They made ready to cross O’Connell street.

(self-referential again. For what does Ulysses do but give the palm to poor Penelope, in an Antisthenical fasion? And that headline... so funny.)

Interestingly, a lot of criticism points to Aeolus as beginning of Joyce's disregard for his readers.

Yes, the way Bloom is treated by the others is the central event of this chapter. It is a continuation, in a sense, of the previous chapter.

Yes, Lenehan can insinuate that he has had some sort of assignation with Molly, but whether it is true or not is questionable.

Yes! Mocking! Especially the narrator!

Avishek wrote: "I found this episode the hardest to read so far. I wasn't able to go through much without the context of what they were talking about. I had to reread twice with a lot of other research. I've falle..."

Not my favorite either.. but, it beats The Wake.

I think Aeolus is a fun! - )

In Rocks Lenehan tells the story about Molly to McCoy.
Love the last line: "...touch of the artist...". So evocative!