Classics and the Western Canon discussion

OK. Here we go!

Ulysses is divided into three parts, the first of which is composed of the first three episodes. This part is often called the Telemachiad because it focuses on Telemachus’s counterpart in Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus.

Each episode of Ulysses is related to the Odyssey in an indirect but thematic way. In the Odyssey we see Telemachus struggling with the suitors who have overtaken his house in the absence of his father. They have used up the stores of wealth left by Odysseus and are intent on taking away his wife, wrecking his kingdom, and leaving Telemachus out to dry.

In the first episode of Ulysses we have Stephen living rather uncomfortably in a defensive fortification by the sea with two other young men, a medical student named Mulligan and an English Oxford student named Haines. Mulligan is a loudmouth, a bully, and he takes advantage of Stephen. (Am I being too hard on him?)

Haines is less brash than Mulligan, but doesn't seem to recognize that Stephen takes mild offense at his presence. (Haines is enamored of Irish culture but is inexplicably insensitive to the injury inflicted by the English upon the Irish.)

The parallel between Stephen’s situation and Telemachus’s is fairly clear. To drive the point home, Stephen ends the episode with the word "Usurper."

Joyce used the Odyssey as a loose framework for his entirely different story. The parallels are not strict but they offer a thematic element or an element of tone. The episodes that follow operate in a similar manner. Keeping the overall theme of the episode from the Odyssey can be helpful in reading the apposite episode in Ulysses.

It will help to know a little bit about Stephen as you read the first episode. This is Vladimir Nabokov’s summary (from his Lectures on Literature):

“Stephen Dedalus, a young Dubliner, aged twenty-two, a student, philosopher, and poet. He has recently in the beginning of the year 1904 returned to Dublin from Paris where he had spent about a year. He has now been teaching school for three months, getting paid on the day following mid-month a monthly salary of ￡3.12 at contemporaneous rates less than twenty dollars. He had been recalled from Paris by a telegram from his father, "--Mother dying come home father,” to find that she was dying of cancer. When she asked him to kneel down at the recitation of the prayer for the dying, he refused, a refusal that is the clue to Stephen’s dark brooding grief throughout the book. He had placed his newfound spiritual freedom above his mother’s last request, last comfort. Stephen has renounced the Roman Catholic Church, in the bosom of which he had been brought up, and has turned to art and philosophy in a desperate quest for something that would fill the empty chambers vacated by faith in the God of Christians.”

So Stephen has issues with his nation, his religion, and his conscience. These problems will occupy him for most if not all of the novel, and the way they play out will make rich material for discussion.

With these basics I would like to let your questions and observations drive the discussion. There is a lot to unpack and unravel here!

Maybe this is wrong, or just strange, but I thought of Dickens when reading the first two episodes?? When we read Bleak House, Dickens bounced back and forth between different POV's, but between chapters. Joyce does it between paragraphs and sometimes between sentences! It completely threw me. Jarring. But definitely attention-grabbing?

Yes, Thomas, I think you're hard on Buck Mulligan. His bantering assertiveness is rough on Stephen's rather weepy outlook, but with some justified impatience. He rightly accuses Stephen of being rigid, and this will come up again. As a teacher (episode 3) Stephen will prove to be stiff and difficult, I think. But I read the early dialogue to show a good deal of sympathy and protectiveness.

POV. I read the first episode as being up to p5 standard 3rd person direct narration. The first hint of interiority comes at the bottom p5 when Stephen recalls his mother's illness, and this change is introduced gently with the transition "fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream"

The interiority more characteristic of the book first appears p7. Buck says It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God knows you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet...

At this point we are dropped for the first time into Stephen's internal dialogue, and from here we will pass back and forth between (what looks like) external narration and Stephen's mental life. We are never granted the same access to Mulligan or Haines, and it will be the same with Bloom.

(Thomas -- my point about Buck's solicitousness here)

Since the choice of incidents and events are all dependent on Stephen in the classic Jamesian realist mode it could be argued that we have only one POV here -- Stephen's. Except for the brief passage with Buck at the beginning we are limited to what Stephen takes part in, see or hear nothing which he does not. What is new is this internal dialogue and the way it is handled.

This is part of the difficulty of the Telemachiad. Stephen is classically trained, with a deep understanding of Catholic thought, sharply intelligent -- a difficult person for someone without this education and little sympathy for his intellectual interests or spiritual difficulties to understand or empathize with. So to be dumped into the mind of this mopey egghead presents a challenge. Joyce makes no apology. You get Stephen just as he is.

Thomas wrote @1: "This is Vladimir Nabokov’s summary (from his Lectures on Literature):..."

What is Nabokov's source? Ulysses? Or Joyce's biography (in which case more questions may follow)? B.t.w. it is not A Portrait.

Charles wrote: "This is part of the difficulty of the Telemachiad. Stephen is classically trained, with a deep understanding of Catholic thought, sharply intelligent -- a difficult person for someone without this education and little sympathy for his intellectual interests or spiritual difficulties to understand or empathize with. So to be dumped into the mind of this mopey egghead presents a challenge. Joyce makes no apology. You get Stephen just as he is...

Is Stephen really difficult to empathise with or is it that we're seeing his thoughts without the sugar coating that usually comes out when we speak (i.e. the little white lies)? Social sciences routinely report that people often want to appear better than they really are. I wonder how many people we could actually empathise with if we were able to read their minds just as they are.

Tiffany wrote: "Is Stephen really difficult to empathise with or is it that we're seeing his thoughts without the sugar coating that usually comes out when we speak (i.e. the little white lies)? Social sciences routinely report that people often want to appear better than they really are. I wonder how many people we could actually empathise with if we were able to read their minds just as they are.."

I think you're quite right, and this is the bottom of what so offended people about the book -- we (will) get Bloom's thoughts unbound in the same way, and encounter him thinking things about which we ordinarily remain silent. But with regard to Stephen I meant that his education and intellect make him difficult understand, to follow, all apart from his personality. People like him can be hard to like. Buck himself has trouble -- the nickname Kinch is not entirely friendly.

Speaking of the nickname, Kinch, why does Buck call him that?

Charles wrote: "But with regard to Stephen I meant that his education and intellect make him difficult understand, to follow..."

True, I did find my mind wander during quite a bit of episode 3 because I didn't understand the references. However, I am curious to know if he was as hard to follow when the book was originally published. Or would a reader today who was a Catholic priest or a religious studies scholar find him as difficult to follow?

Thomas wrote @1: "Mulligan is a loudmouth, a bully, and he takes advantage of Stephen. (Am I being too hard on him?) ..."

No, a bully is just what he is. The archetypical false friend, I would add. Only interested in using his companions, his jocularity just failing to mask his fundamental indifference. It is not difficult to see him as one of Penelope's (Ireland’s?) ravenous suitors.

Haines is, as a suitor, a more interesting case. Most of us, born and raised in the 'first world’, should be able to identify with him. There is not much good he (we) can do in the eyes of the oppressed, being hold responsible for the evil deeds of his (our) 'race'. Being the only one present able to speak at least some Irish does not help a bit. Casting poor Haines among the suitors may be a bit 'racist' - but well, he is something of a bore (the threat of German Jews..), so we should not pity him (us?) too much.

But what to think of the tormented Stephen, so superior and insecure, too earnest to accede to his dying mothers last wish?

PS: from an outside comment I learned that the milk-woman is supposed to represent Athena. Does that add something? I rather saw her as the common Irish(wo)man, not much concerned with the debates of gentle folks living in towers.

Well, I went and did what we're being advised not to get tangled up in -- I tried to find out what the meaning of "kinch" is. This necessitated a trip to the full 30-volume OED, where I find that it dates from 1600 and refers to a loop in a knot, particularly a noose, and is obsolete in its extended senses of control, catch hold, advantage over another, superiority, destiny or lot.

How you get from there to "knifeblade" I don't know.

Just above it in the OED is the word "kinboot" from 1425 meaning a wergild or compensation money paid to the family of a man murdered in lieu of the right to retaliation. There is a character Charles Kinbote in Nabokov's Pale Fire who is a pretty clear reference to this word.

I personally find this stuff fascinating, but it is also illuminating on the point I was making about the character of Dedalus. Mulligan has the same sort of education, one which would make it not unnatural to know this word and apply it casually as a nickname. This is very far from our experience. But maybe not. Possibly we know of a pedantic, humorless person who can be very off-putting.

I was reluctant to bring up something like this because can indeed be off-putting. But my idea is that part of the magic of the book is that one can sense this sort of thing without having to look it up, so that if you remain alive to your intuitions you don't have to look it up.

Then pedantic people like me look it up later on and find a word in Joyce's alter ego Nabokov never before suspected. Magic.

Thomas, you're going to have to put a lid on me. I wouldn't ordinarily think of or pursue these things, but the fizz and thrill of being in such a group talking about something I like so much kind of sets me off. I will probably tire myself out and wane after a time.

Wendel wrote: "Thomas wrote @1: "This is Vladimir Nabokov’s summary (from his Lectures on Literature):..."

What is Nabokov's source? Ulysses? Or Joyce's biography (in which case more questions may follow)? B.t.w..."

Nabokov would have relied on his own reading of Ulysses. He was a very astute and precise reader, with a power of attention few can command. He certainly knew and used sources, as his translation of Eugene Onegin shows, but he didn't really need them for his reading. I wonder what it must have been like to sit through his lectures at Cornell. Thomas Pynchon did, and was I think gestating V at the time. Not surprising.

Wendel wrote: "Thomas wrote @1: "Mulligan is a loudmouth, a bully, and he takes advantage of Stephen. (Am I being too hard on him?) ..."

No, a bully is just what he is. The archetypical false friend, I would add..."

Oh, excellent! To re-interpret these two (Mulligan and Haines) this way as suitors never occurred to me, nor this different reading (especially Haines) of their characters. Very helpful (and delightful.)

Charles wrote: "POV. I read the first episode as being up to p5 standard 3rd person direct narration. The first hint of interiority comes at the bottom p5 when Stephen recalls his mother's illness, and this change..."

Appreciate these comments Charles. I am a first time reader, and was having difficulty with even this first chapter. Reviewing over & over to figure out, when characters were speaking, when was this internal dialogue & sometimes to whom they were referring! I must admit, I also had to look up quite a few words.

Thomas wrote: "OK. Here we go!

Ulysses is divided into three parts, the first of which is composed of the first three episodes. This part is often called the Telemachiad because it focuses on Telemachus’s count..."

So I didn't find the parallels between Telemachus & Stephen as clear. T's mother is alive and her home is being overrun with suitors, he wants to help but doesn't know how and goes in search of his father who he apparently reveres. S.D.'s mother is dead & appears to be haunting him in his grief, there are no suitors or others awaiting to take his estate, his relationship with his father is unknown in this chapter or did I miss something ( as a first time reader, I found even this chap difficult to follow). So "Usurper" is at the end....I realize many sources equate the subjugation of Ireland by England as the usurpation Joyce is referring to and reflected by the Haines character. Yes?

Quite. Ulysses is not a straightforward or detailed reworking of the Odyssey. Joyce himself removed the overt labeling and left the parallels to live under the surface.

I have mixed feelings about Mulligan. While he's certainly a loud-mouth and a bully, Dedalus seems to be the sort that doesn't need to say anything in reply. I think it shows supreme self-confidence on the part of Dedalus to refrain from saying what he's thinking. While a weaker ego might need to confront Mulligan, Dedalus doesn't seem to need to reply. You only reply to your equals. Mulligan is too much of a buffoon. At the same time, he's quite funny. It could be the perverse pleasure of a circumspect personality to watch another person play the fool.

Another obvious reading would be that Dedalus has an extreme lack of confidence. I think it's difficult to disentangle these two traits (confidence and insecurity) within a single personality since confidence is often a front for deeper insecurities. This tension in Dedalus is something I'll keep my eye on.

The literal detail of Joyce's Dublin has been said to be so accurate that, should Dublin be destroyed, it could be recreated from Joyce's words. What would drive that level of precision in a work of fiction? Is it important that we can follow characters' precise travels through the city minute to minute?

Charles wrote: "Since the choice of incidents and events are all dependent on Stephen in the classic Jamesian realist mode it could be argued that we have only one POV here -- Stephen's."

That's an excellent reminder. While the book isn't written specifically in the first person, these three first episodes seem as though might as well be. We don't get an objective look at Buck Mulligan or Haines, but see them almost exclusively (except for the very beginning of the book) through Stephen's eyes, which may or may not be fair to Mulligan or Haines.

Wendel wrote: "Thomas wrote @1: "This is Vladimir Nabokov’s summary (from his Lectures on Literature):..."

What is Nabokov's source? Ulysses? Or Joyce's biography (in which case more questions may follow)? B.t.w..."

I'd be shocked if VN were confusing Joyce's bio with Ulysses or Portrait. Both of these writers were sticklers for detail. But please feel free to correct this precis of Stephen -- does it conflict with Portrait? (As far as I can tell, Charles is right in saying this info comes from Ulysses.)

Charles wrote: "...this mopey egghead [Stephen].."

LOL!!

Charles wrote: "Thomas, you're going to have to put a lid on me. ..."

Negative.

Some of us will relish these excursions into exegesis. Others will not, but they can skip them. If you're worried about dissuading others by getting too entangled in minutiae, you could preface such posts with a "Minutiae Ahead" warning so those not wanting to deal with that depth of analysis could skip them, but as long as those not so interested also have plenty of more general discussion to enthrall them, go for it.

First time Ulysses reader here. I've looked up a few summaries to help me grasp a bit of what I was reading, but I'm enjoying all the input from everyone here so far. I have not read the Odyssey, so all of those references and parallels are going right over my head.

Charles - please don't ask Thomas to put a lid on you! Your POV insights and the kinch info were interesting. I had also looked up what "kinch" meant, and had come up with "a knifeblade, and the sound it makes". I had not come across the reference to a noose.

Jacob - I felt similarly to your descriptions of Mulligan and Dedalus, specifically: While he's certainly a loud-mouth and a bully, Dedalus seems to be the sort that doesn't need to say anything in reply. I think it shows supreme self-confidence on the part of Dedalus to refrain from saying what he's thinking. I wonder how long Buck and Stephen have been friends. They reminded me of friends who went way back, growing up together they just learned to live with each other's quirks. Stephen puts up with Buck because underneath he really means no harm. Anyway, that was my first impression of these two from what little I was able to understand.

Chris wrote: "I am a first time reader, and was having difficulty with even this first chapter. Reviewing over & over to figure out, when characters were speaking, when was this internal dialogue & sometimes to whom they were referring! "

This is where I found the audio version from archive.org (Thomas linked it in the resources thread, but I've added the link below too) to be particularly useful, since it uses a narrator voice and character voices to separate out who is talking when. I'm not sure it's always accurate, but arguing with it is part of the fun. (And in episode 3, when we get there, it uses different voices for characters speaking in Stephen's imagination, so at first I thought he was actually going into those places.) But overall, I'm finding it very helpful to listen to it as I follow along in the text.


https://archive.org/details/Ulysses-A...

One thing I wondered about in Telemarchus: are Stephen and Buck lovers?

There's this brief passage:

— Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
— Yes, my love?
— How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Does that imply a homosexual relationship, whether requited or unrequited? Is Stephen concerned about Haines's presence because it interferes with their relationship (homosexuality at the time being a serious crime)? Or am I reading way too much into a few words?

Charles, thank you for taking the time to do the research on Kinch! I fear to say that I just went a dictionary website which then said I had to subscribe to get the definition and gave up. I enjoy hearing about it's various definitions and connotations. Especially since it's more obsolete definitions seem to have more relevance to the relationship between Stephen and Buck.

Everyman wrote: "One thing I wondered about in Telemarchus: are Stephen and Buck lovers?

There's this brief passage:

— Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
— Yes, my love?
— How long is Haines going to stay..."

Perhaps there are unacknowledged feelings?

I read the answer, "Yes, my love?" as just one more example of Mulligan's irreverent, absurd sense of humor. Homoerotic humor is so common amongst young heterosexual men that I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet, especially since such an affectionate turn of phrase seems thoroughly contrary to Mulligan's character.

Charles wrote: "Well, I went and did what we're being advised not to get tangled up in -- I tried to find out what the meaning of "kinch" is. This necessitated a trip to the full 30-volume OED, where I find that i..."

Frank Delaney adds that "kinch" is also old Irish slang for the son of a convict. I'm not sure how that fits in exactly, but there it is.

It's interesting that Mulligan is the one holding the knifeblade (the razor) crossed with the mirror while he conducts a parody of the mass. Meanwhile he calls Stephen a "fearful jesuit" and a "jejune jesuit" -- presumably Mulligan knows that Stephen has educated in Jesuit schools, but he also knows that he has rejected the Church. (Jesuits have a reputation as the intellectuals of the Catholic Church, and like Stephen, they wear black. The Superior General of the Jesuits is sometimes known as "the Black Pope." They were founded as a military order to aid in the counter-reformation, including the Holy Office of the Inquisition.)

Tiffany wrote: "Charles, thank you for taking the time to do the research on Kinch! I fear to say that I just went a dictionary website which then said I had to subscribe to get the definition and gave up. I enjoy..."

Yes. The 30-volume OED from which my information came is available only in the physical library or the electronic version to persons having privileges at such a library. The electronic version has some additions like a very nice historical thesaurus. Incidentally, the OED is one of only three such historical dictionaries, and the model for such. The other ones are the unfinished Swedish and French (Tresor de la langue Francaise). The various shortened OEDs truncate or eliminate the history.

Curiously, my google request for information produced only articles about the rock band Kinch based here in Phoenix. Never heard of them. Have heard of a 15th century Old English word cynebot. Hmm.

I would also add that to my American ear, terms of endearment like that, in addition to 'darling' etc., seems to have broader, non-romantic meanings in the British Isles. My mind immediately jumps to a line from the film Inception in which one character (played by Tom Hardy) calls his male friend 'darling.' I've seen this a lot in film.

Everyman wrote: "Charles wrote: "Since the choice of incidents and events are all dependent on Stephen in the classic Jamesian realist mode it could be argued that we have only one POV here -- Stephen's."

That's a..."

I agree that this is an excellent point. And I think the timing of Stephen's feelings, and the view we are getting of Buck within this small timeframe, is important to remember. After all, Stephen's mother has recently died and he is harboring resentment and hurt feelings about Buck's admittedly insensitive remark about Stephen's mother being "beastly dead".

I do find it interesting, a little tidbit I noticed on my second reading. Sounds like this cycle of hurt feelings has been going on for quite a while...when Buck says "Then what is it? Cough it up. I'm quite frank with you. What have you against me now?".

What have you against me now...interesting.

So we have a very sensitive, gloomy young man paired with this larger than life character (who does seem to genuinely care for Stephen). And, I imagine Buck is just as irritated with Stephen. Buck was appalled at Stephen's behavior at his mother's death bed. I confess I found it appalling as well. Not to provide that simple comfort. Putting the feelings of another in front of your own. Hardly the time and the place to take some philosophical position. At your own mother's death bed?

This early morning interaction between Buck and Stephen seems to put us smack dab in the middle of some ongoing interrelationship tension between Buck and Stephen.

So, I am in total agreement with the comments already made that we are in Stephen's head, only able to view others as he is viewing them at this specific point in time. Our perceptions are limited to his own - plus any speculations we bring to the table.

Not authoritative not being English, but to refer to someone as "love" is just a (Cockney?) habit. Not the same as the American "darling" which is in general use only by women. Buck's use of it is just part of his manner. And Joyce himself was the most uxorious family man you can imagine.

Everyman wrote: "Charles wrote: "Thomas, you're going to have to put a lid on me. ..."

Negative.

Some of us will relish these excursions into exegesis. Others will not, but they can skip them. If you're worrie..."

I agree with Everyman, Charles. I'm gaining a lot of insight from your comments. Please don't stop. Actually, if everyone would please comment as much as possible, I would appreciate it. I'm one of those readers who stopped after Section 3 the last time I picked up this book :). I need all the help I can get!

Thomas wrote @22: "I'd be shocked if VN were confusing Joyce's bio with Ulysses or Portrait ..."

Well, you should be, especially when Nabokov is concerned. I just found it hard to believe that Ulysses contains this level of detail - because A Portrait does not (at least not until the last chapter, where I had to abandon Stephen in his long drawn out struggle with his jesuit education). But I have of course no reason to doubt your and Charles's reassurances.

Moreover, I read today in Barsanti’s comments that there is a lot of monetary detail in Ulysses. To give us some feeling for the amounts concerned, Barsanti develops an adapted McDonald index: a pint of beer costs twopence in 1904 Dublin, giving the pound a beer-value of (12 pennies * 20 shilling) 240/2 pints, at a price of 4 USD a pint that would place the pound on a par with 480 USD today. Don't take this too serious (beer was heavily subsidized in Ireland), but it is an indication that Mulligan is trying to relieve Stephen of a considerable amount of cash.

Hm, is it the beer that makes me consider reading one more episode?

Patrice wrote: "l. What does Buck mean when he says Stephan has the cursed jesuit strain, injected the wrong way. Does that mean he is too cerebral? Not enough heart?
"

Stephen has the talent and the ability but he won't use it in a conventional way. Mulligan wants him to use his talent to "touch" Haines for money, but Stephen gently mocks this. In the same way, Mulligan doesn't understand why Stephen can't do the conventional thing and go through the motions of praying at his mother's deathbed, even if it would be completely dishonest.

Stephen says he has two masters -- and English and an Italian -- and a third who wants him for odd jobs. Mulligan (and Ireland) is the third. (He calls Stephen "poor dogsbody," which is a kind of servant, and Stephen calls the cracked looking glass that Mulligan has stolen from his aunt's servant a "symbol of Irish art." ) Stephen says rather bluntly in Portrait of the Artist, "I will not serve."

2. Coincidence. When his mother is dying she is described as picking buttercups off of the quilt. That is just how the Hostess describes the death of Falstaff in Henry V.

Nice observation! I doubt that it's a coincidence. Joyce had a prodigious memory for stuff like this, and we'll see it littered all over the place. Hamlet has a special place in Ulysses, but Joyce will pick from virtually anywhere.

Martello Tower is apparently not the specific name of the tower in the book, but is a generic term for a form of small fort that were built all around the world during the first half or so of the 19th century. About 50 were built in Ireland alone. Wikipedia has a nice description of them -- round stone towers usually three stories high with a single gun able to rotate (or move, it's not clear) over 360 degrees to shoot in any direction. The living quarters, usually for one officer and about 20 men, were on the top level. Joyce apparently lived in the Sandycove Martello tower for a few days with Oliver St. John Gogarty, a medical student on whom Buck Mulligan was based.

Here's a link to the general Wikipedia article on Mortello towers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martello...
and here to the specific James Joyce tower which is now a museum on Joyce
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jo...

So Joyce was intimately familiar with this tower and living in it; one wonders whether he, too, ever went up to the top of the tower to shave.

An unattributed contention is that "Joyce left after an incident in which Gogarty fired a gun in his direction." An event not replicated in the novel (at least so far)!

Wendel wrote: "Hm, is it the beer that makes me consider reading one more episode? "

:-)

The discussion here on Stephen not praying at his mother's bedside fascinates me, especially Wendel's comment @10 (But what to think of the tormented Stephen, so superior and insecure, too earnest to accede to his dying mothers last wish?),

Paula's position @35 (So we have a very sensitive, gloomy young man paired with this larger than life character (who does seem to genuinely care for Stephen). And, I imagine Buck is just as irritated with Stephen. Buck was appalled at Stephen's behavior at his mother's death bed. I confess I found it appalling as well. Not to provide that simple comfort. Putting the feelings of another in front of your own. Hardly the time and the place to take some philosophical position. At your own mother's death bed?)

and Thomas @40 (Stephen has the talent and the ability but he won't use it in a conventional way. Mulligan wants him to use his talent to "touch" Haines for money, but Stephen gently mocks this. In the same way, Mulligan doesn't understand why Stephen can't do the conventional thing and go through the motions of praying at his mother's deathbed, even if it would be completely dishonest.)

I sat in on a community discussion of John Williams's Stoner last night and there was a very parallel discussion of the protagonist's treatment of his parents. I was intrigued by the intensity of those who saw disloyalty to familial bonds versus those who perceived individual integrity was at play. I don't know how to put names to those competing perspectives (values?). Yet, although we may lean one way or the other on our respective choices, who among us has not experienced such conflict?

Lily wrote: "The discussion here on Stephen not praying at his mother's bedside fascinates me...... I was intrigued by the intensity of those who saw disloyalty to familial bonds versus those who perceived individual integrity was at play. I don't know how to put names to those competing perspectives (values?)."

Lily, I have also been thinking of this topic, especially in light of some of the comments you mentioned. My first reaction when I read this part in the book was that I was on Stephen's "side". I could not see Buck's point of view. I felt that if Stephen prayed, he would only be pretending and almost be in jest of the whole idea of praying if he didn't believe it in the first place, and wouldn't that be worse than not doing so at all? But when I read Paula's comment, that he should have just done it for his mother, it got me thinking more. I obviously don't know the answer. I wonder if Stephen's mother knew that Stephen had renounced the church? I'm guessing not if she had asked him to pray for her. Would he have done anyone else damage by going through the motions of praying for her sake? How much damage would it have caused his self for doing so? Anyway, interesting topic.

Lily wrote: "The discussion here on Stephen not praying at his mother's bedside fascinates me, especially Wendel's comment @10 (But what to think of the tormented Stephen, so superior and insecure, too earnest ..."

That's what make reading - and discussing with other what we bring to our reading - so great!

And...isn't that really just life? There are people we like and people we don't. But those people we don't like are liked by others.

But I think we can all agree that Stephen and Buck are a bit appalled by each other :). Hence, the tension.

Charles wrote: "Wendel wrote: "Hm, is it the beer that makes me consider reading one more episode? "

:-)"

Ha!!!

Linda wrote: "I have also been thinking of this topic, especially in light of some of the comments you mentioned. My first reaction when I read this part in the book was that I was on Stephen's "side". I could not see Buck's point of view. I felt that if Stephen prayed, he would only be pretending and almost be in jest of the whole idea "

It does make one think about our own personal experiences and what we bring to the table.

I grew up in a very, very (very) strict religion. When I turned 21, I walked away from it. I felt as if a great stone had been lifted from me.

But...the process of formally leaving that church requires excommunication and my parents, who were kind, loving people who I loved so very much, really believed wholeheartedly in the church and all of its teachings. Had I requested excommunication, it would have caused them great sadness and grief. They would have been just as loving and supportive of me, none of that would have changed one iota, but they would have grieved.

So instead, I elected not to do that. The church had no power over me or my own thoughts and feelings. It had no meaning for me at all.

But what did have meaning to me was my parents and my deep love and respect for them. I have never felt as if I compromised my own beliefs or integrity in doing so.

@14Charles wrote: "...To re-interpret these two (Mulligan and Haines) this way as suitors never occurred to me,..."

Although I own Gifford (and a lot of good that does me, 'cause at the moment I can't lay my hands on it), I have never dug deeply into the metaphors and double entendres of Ulysses. However, somewhere along the way I have stumbled across the tidbit that suggested that as Stephen parallels Telemachus, Mulligan parallels Antinous.

Ah, here one source is: "The Linati scheme for Telemachus includes the correspondences Stephen - Telemachus; Antinous - Buck Mulligan. Antinous was the most arrogant of Penelope's suitors, and led a campaign to have Telemachus killed."

http://www.joyceimages.com/chapter/1/...

Don't know how "good" that source is, but the images and comments are fun.

(Incidentally, I, too, had "read the early dialogue to show a good deal of sympathy and protectiveness. @3)

The other image of "backwards," which we have heard already in "the cursed Jesuit strain, injected the wrong way" (which I have loosely interpreted to refer to Stephen's use of his considerable intellect to refute Catholicism whereas, of course, Jesuits have used their intellectual prowess to support the faith), that is introduced in Chapter 1 is "dog" in "dogsbody" and which will reappear in "Proteus" -- Chapter 3. Blasphemy?

@48Paula wrote: "...But what did have meaning to me was my parents and my deep love and respect for them. I have never felt as if I compromised my own beliefs or integrity in doing so...."

Thank you, Paula. Well articulated, at least one side of the discussion for which I was probing. I left the meeting last night thinking about this from Stoner. Tonight, it is Ulysses.

Wendel wrote: "PS: from an outside comment I learned that the milk-woman is supposed to represent Athena. Does that add something? I rather saw her as the common Irish(wo)man, not much concerned with the debates of gentle folks living in towers..."

Wendel -- another source (yes, Cliff Notes) posits another possibility:

"The old lady is a parody of the Shan van Vocht, the Poor Old Lady of Irish lore, who will turn into a beautiful young queen when Ireland begins to take her place among the nations of the world. Her most prominent appearance in Irish Renaissance literature is in Yeats's play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, in which she arrives to inspire a young man to take up arms against the British during the Rebellion of 1798." p29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sean...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PDeW...
(Other versions available.)

Actually, the Milk Woman has long been one of my favorite characters in the opening scenes. I own the CDs and look forward to her arrival. (I have never listened to all of Ulysses, however.) This likely poor woman brings the milk for their tea, but is short changed by these young "educated" men. I have long come to visualize her as she walks away.

Patrice wrote: "l. What does Buck mean when he says Stephan has the cursed jesuit strain, injected the wrong way. .."

My take away was that as fervently as a Jesuit would have held to his religion, never denying his God, certainly never mouthing a denial just to humor someone--even his own mother, just as fervently SD would hold the religion away from himself, never mouthing a prayer he didn't believe in just to humor someone--not even his own mother. I think that for either the Jesuit or SD to have done so would have damaged their souls, would have almost irreparably damaged their personal integrity, would have corroded their sense of self.

Like a Jesuit. But the wrong/opposite way.

Couldn't it be merely an observation? Neither praise nor criticism.

Patrice wrote: "As the mother of a 23 year old daughter I'm not surprised that he did not kneel and pray for his mother. At 22 his sense of autonomy is shaky. He's just broken away from his family and the church... "

Nice comment. His decision to disavow the church is clearly fairly recent, though I don't think we're told how recent. But he might think that to kneel and pray would be abandoning a principle he had just recently arrived at, presumably through some serious soul searching

Consider: would you ask a recently reformed alcoholic to take a drink at his mother's wake for auld time's sake?