Sam Farr > Recent Status Updates

pretty disappointed thus far

have been going through this slowly, experiencing each poem
multiple times, which i have found to be immensely beneficial. this is something really special.

god that religious dialogue was a slog. took me 4 days to read around 20 pages.

left my copy of Ulysses…. somewhere. I’ll find it soon. but now it means I can read this before I watch it again on Saturday

Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun

This was the only episode thus far that made me want to throw this book against a wall. Barely intelligible and unbelievably frustrating. I’m not going to lie, i didn’t enjoy this, and am glad it’s over. Excited to begin Circe though.

Episode 13: Nausicaa

By far the horniest episode, with Bloom staring *really* intensely at Gerty (who is very proud of the colour blue and her 4 pairs of knickers) and realised as a Virgin Mary figure who also represents Nausicaa helping Ulysses. The ending to this episode is brilliant, with the cuckoo being repeated three times to represent (in my opinion) Bloom being cucked.

Episode 12: The Cyclops

Here we see more drinking, the odd and certainly cohesive ramblings of an Irish nationalist who assumes the role of our ‘one-eyed’ cyclops due to his closed-sightedness. We also see loads of parodies: of the justice system, contemporary journalism, cheap literature, sports commentaries, holy worship. This is an overwhelming experience I adore, and probably my favourite book so far.

Episode 11: The Sirens

An immensely difficult and complex episode to read, with an opening hundred lines that is so confusing I assumed it must represent an overture. Bloom gets cucked, hallucinates (kind of) drinks (again) and reminisces about death and the mathematics of music.

Blamires is a wonderful writer and does not just summarise but also interpret and analyse, so I have found myself returning more and more just to see what Blamires may have to say about a certain choice of structure, word choice rather than for help. Using a guide through Ulysses is not cheating, but occasionally needing clues in cracking a puzzle. You would be lost without them, and need a nudge sometimes.

Episode 10: The Wandering Rocks

I have just passed the 1/3 mark of the book (excluding notes). Here we see the lives of the Dubliners through the procession of a viceregal cavalcade. It’s intimate and confusing. This episode could refute the ‘ineluctable modality of the visible’ claim, as we see the lives of the Dubliners in such detail it achieves something few works I’ve read have similarly done.

Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis

WOW. Definitely my favourite book so far, and dare I say one of the finest sections I have read in recent literature. I went through this thoroughly and it took around 4 hours to complete — it felt necessary though. A grand conflict between legacy, family, rationalism and idealism, Shakespeare, desire. ayer again we have this not-quite meeting between Stephen and Bloom.

Episode 8: Lestrygonians

Bloom stalks the streets of Dublin hungry. He sees Dilly, one of Stephen’s sisters and pities the entire family. The second time the two main characters have been linked in such a way. When Bloom finds a place to eat he is repulsed by those around him, hence the cannibal eating people name given to this episode. Probably my least favourite so far.

Episode 7: Aeolus

Blooms attends work, first moment where he and Stephen are in proximity. Loads of chaos, and insults. Had to really go through this slowly to try and find meaning in the chaos. Caught this trinitarian correspondence of characters between Bloom, Stephen, and Molly. Bloom appears unbothered by his wife’s infidelity, or maybe selectively ignorant of it.