Ulysses Conjectures

I know this is kind of Jorn Barger's thing, but I have some Ulysses conjectures of my own. 

Any criticism is very welcome.

1.  Haines fired--or attempted to fire--his gun the morning before Bloomsday.  It is partly why Stephen leaves the tower that morning.

-Haines is a hobbyist hunter, has a gun, and his nightmare was of a black panther.  That he would reflexively grab his gun is not a long stretch.

-Stephen asks Mulligan where Haines' guncase is.

-Stephen is freaked out that morning, and avoids Haines until they absolutely have to talk;

-There is talk of a gun going off as Joyce's reason for leaving Martello tower, so the fictional account may also use that same event;

-Haines is a bit of a nutcase;

2.  The various styles of Ulysses are mentally real (to the characters).

-The initial episodes are not stylistically crazy because, as Stephen says, "We're always tired in the morning...And it is rather long to tell"(U 18)  Once they get some mental energy, the craziness starts.

-Aeolus expresses the minds ability to generalize-hence the headlines;

-Lestrygonians is sluggish and depressed until Bloom eats lunch, the style then picks up;

-The musical combinations of Sirens are easy to see as real mental events;

-The epic interludes of Cyclops are the only problem with this conjecture, since Bloom is not present for a few of them, though, the drunken patrons of the bar could be thinking these overblown descriptions.

-Nausicaa is all theatre of the mind;

-The styles of Oxen reflect the attitudes of the characters narrating;

-Circe is definitely mentally real, all hallucinations;

-Eumeus is the tired but lucid style of the exhausted mind, like a college kid writing a paper till 4am;

-Ithaca is a personal catechism, when the mind is trying to sort out the day;

-Penelope is mentally real just like Proteus was mentally real;

3.  Ulysses was written as a memory device after the theories of Giordano Bruno and Thomas Aquinas. 

-The styles and symbols given by the schema support the symbolism of Giordano Bruno's system;

-Understanding the book requires a very good memory of the text;

-The unusual symbolism supports Aquinas' theories on how to use symbols for memory;

-Joyce was veeery careful with his words.  In fact a single word on page 23 cannot be changed because it occurs 174 pages later.

-Joyce himself was a practitioner of the memory techniques of Bruno and Aquinas (and possibly others). He is documented to have memorized texts as a hobby.

This theory deserves a little more study.

4.  Macintosh is a figment of Blooms imagination.  Gerty is real.

-No one else sees him;

-If Macintosh is real, then he is stalking Bloom.  This is not likely;

-Not likely that Gerty's consciousness could be mimicked in Bloom's mind

-Others interact with Gerty;

5.  Stephen does have his glasses on Bloomsday.

-He helps Sargent with his algebra, teaches class, calls on his students, reads Deasy's letter...etc.  If Stephen's eyes were as bad as he proposes, these things would be very problematic.

-He's worn glasses his entire life, wouldn't people notice if he's not wearing them?

-The quote is: "Lynx eye.  Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday.  Sixteen years ago."(U560), This seems to support that either he broke his glasses yesterday, or that he broke them yesterday sixteen years ago. The "Must get glasses" part is problematic, but then again so is the fact that Stephen is able to read without his glasses.

6.  Bloom is actively setting Molly up with other guys.

-Canvassing ads cannot possibly bring in that much money; 

-The second hand clothes business Molly had also supports this;

-Joyce himself tried to set Nora up with other men, in order to see how he himself would react (but, for art or pleasure?)

-This theory may be involved with #7.

7.  Bloom is involved in some other business, possibly something to do with the Freemasons.

-Lots of evidence that Bloom is a Freemason;

-He seems well off as we know from Ithaca when his drawers are catalogued;

-The Royal Hungarian Lottery tickets and the stocks he owns;

-Also, it is a little weird that Bantom Lyons assumes that Bloom is giving him a tip in Lotus Eaters, could it be because Bloom has a history in this type of business?

8.  Stephen and Mulligan do not have a confrontation at Westland Row station.

-In the three hours that Stephen and Bloom are both present, not once is an altercation mentioned;

-Stephen's hand hurts.  If he had hurt his hand hitting Mulligan, wouldn't Mulligan have hit back? And if Mulligan had fought Stephen he would have done worse than merely hurt Stephen's hand;

The evidence only points at Mulligan and Haines merely avoiding Stephen at the station.

Also:

-Mulligan already has the key to the tower and money from Stephen for pints, so there's no motive;

-Haines has nothing against Stephen;

-Stephen has not offended Mulligan to the point that Mulligan would hit Stephen;

-Mulligan may have offended Bloom, but Stephen has no reason to defend Bloom's honour.  Indeed Stephen is openly opposed to an acquaintance with Bloom during Eumeus and Ithaca.

9. Stephen, at some point in the interval between Oxen and the end of Circe, vomits.

-He has been drinking since around noon;

-He has not eaten since breakfast, which consisted only of tea, bread, and rashers (supposing he ate it all, which is also not likely)

-He mixes his drinks: beer, liquor (Absinthe), and may have been drugged;

-He goes nuts in Circe, dances in circles, gets punched in the face, much agitation;

Considering all of the above, and the fact that he is sober by the end of Eumeus and through Ithaca, how could he not vomit?

Two Senryū

A Senryū (川柳, せんりゅう) is a Japanese form of poetry consisting of three lines like a Haiku, but with no strict form. They usually have 17 syllables or less, and their content is usually more ironic than that of Haikus.

These two Senryū of mine are puns on...well, if you've taken any logic courses you'll get it.

Iffy them be,

to see not bee:

Absurdity!

Iffy them be,

and knotty them be:

Certainly.

Nothing left to see.

Nietzsche wrote the obit,
Joyce led the wake,
and Ortega y Gasset
opened cemetery gate

-BJB

Street Poetry, Literally

This was in 杭州 (HangZhou, China) near a Ferrari store strangely enough. The guy was apparently well educated as he was so consistent with his calligraphy. If the picture isn't clear, here's the poem:


尋尋覓覓自飄零
慘慘戚戚獨遠行
人在天涯腸欲斷
景物依然氣象新
。。。

My translation:

"Seeking himself by drifting like leaves
A mis'rable vagrant alone he believes:
At earth's horizon we forsee a new view,
But the sights are the same, only weather is new..."

In the original there is a cool parallel between lines one and two: both with a duplicated adjective, then a reflexive adverb, finished with a two syllable word for travel. And it rhymes! Lines three and four don't hold a rhyme, but some very cool word play is going on. You can vertically exchange a few of the characters from line three to line four and get an entirely new line three and four. Now I wish I had stayed to see the guy finish writing, he's not bad!

--BJB

魯迅 Lu Xun and 門外 Outsiders Art.

I've been mulling over an essay on Chinese characters by 魯迅 Lu Xun and I thought he raised more than a few good points concerning art and language:

1. Making art or language overly obscure removes it from any sort of dialogue with the public. This is like artistic castration; without any creative power the subject becomes sterile and cannot propagate, thus: it dies alone.

2. Good art appeals to the public, but is not immediately understandable to the public. Then, there must be some middle position between Mallarme and Dickens, between no-one knowing what the hell you're saying and being overly trivial or obvious. What we need is art that is both public and private, commonplace and unique, profane and sacred.

3. Lu Xun also recapitulates (or anticipates?) the lyrical, epical, and dramatic theory of art like the one Joyce gives in A Portrait of the Artist. Language/Art begins with personal utterances that others eventually adopt for their own use along with the author until the author isn't necessary for the art to further propagate.

4. Everyone is an author. Though only a few choose to write.

The link to the essay for those that want to read further: An Outsider's Chats about Written Language

Joycean Horses

Like Google crossing the great firewall of China, the Chinese language translation of Joyce's Ulysses is a bit of a Trojan horse. And like wily Odysseus' strategem, there are uncertainties on both sides of the wall. On our side: will it be left alone and forgotten outside the city walls?, will it be defamed or destroyed?, will it work? Or on the other side: should we even bother with such a monstrosity?, is it just an elaborate trick?. And now the ruse of the Trojan horse is even more important. As China grows at an alarming rate, each side must be able to understand the other to grow in a happy medium. The entertainment industry has surely introduced the east to our western ways, and the eastern entertainment industry has slowly begun to influence our side in the recent decade, but literature is different. While it is a large medium, it is not stressed in the dialogue between east and west. The Journey to the West (西遊記), ironically enough, is not widely read in the west. And equally, Ulysses (itself a sort of an eastern journey) is not widely read in the east. Ulysses is representative of our western media: it contains everything we've come from and describes our artistic trajectory. An ambitious Chinese translation of Ulysses, then, should be a good omen.

Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo--the Chinese translators of Ulysses--are of the opinion that it is more of an elaborate trick than necessary. Not the greatest attitude for anyone translating the most ironic and human work of the west (or the world?). And the attitude shows in the work. The Chinese edition is full of annotations-- a great many more than that included for the English speaking world in Gifford's book--as well as questionable translations and what I feel is awkward and uninspired prose.
Even without looking at the translation, a few episodes necessarily defy the best attempts of any translator. Like the musical allusions, combinations, and recombinations of Sirens, the very English Oxen of the Sun, and the lingually disguised Eumeus: these three episodes are the pinacle of difficult translation into any language, much less the 180deg difference between English and Chinese--difficult, but not insurmountable.

For a simple example of Mr. Xiao's work, take a glance at the opening passage of Ulysses:

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
-- Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
-- Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!" (U1)

And it's Chinese:

"體態豐滿而有風度的勃克·穆利根[1]從樓梯口出現。他手裡托著一缽肥皂沫，上面交叉放了一面鏡子和一把剃胡刀。他沒系腰帶，淡黃色浴衣被習習晨風吹得稍微向后蓬著[2]。他把那隻缽高高舉起，吟誦道：
我要走向上主的祭台。
他停下腳步，朝那昏暗的螺旋狀樓梯下邊瞥了一眼，粗聲粗氣地嚷道：
“上來，金赤[3]。上來，你這敬畏天主的耶酥會士[4]。"

My translation of the Chinese version:

[Full-bodied and with countenance Buck Mulligan appeared at the stairhead. In his hands he held a bowl of lather, on top a mirror and a razor lay crossed. His unbelted light yellow bathrobe was sustained slightly behind him by the morning wind. He lifted the bowl high and recited:
I will go to the altar of God.
He stopped, glanced down the dusky spiral staircase and coarsely called:
"Come up, Kinch. Come up, you godfearing jesuit"]

Not a bad translation, but it reveals some problems. For "... plump..." Xiao gives "體態豐滿..." , which is closer to 'buxom' in the way it would be used to describe full bodied women (Not certain, if anyone can confirm please comment).

Second, the latin phrase "Introibo ad altare Dei." is meant to evoke the feeling of the church, the ritual of the mass, and Bloom's words: " Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first." But Xiao's phrase cannot stupefy us; Xiao merely gives the literal translation of the latin phrase and mentions in the footnotes the fact that it was originally a latin phrase used in the catholic mass. Equally, I suppose I could give you a fake plastic apple with a note that in it's real form it's actually very tasty. Xiao should have left the latin from the original and made a footnote for its meaning, both ways use the same amount of space. Many Chinese may not be able to read the foreign phrase, but that's the point! Like Bloom said it's there to stupefy.  Even a majority of Americans would have trouble with the phrase and even less would know the meaning, so what the hell is wrong with leaving it as is?

Another mistake concerns a single word that Joyce stressed in a conversation with his friend Frank Budgen:
"I stopped at the door as I was about to leave. 'You know, Joyce,' I said, 'when Stephen sees that three-masted schooner's sails brailed up to her crosstrees.'

'Yes,' he said. 'What about it?'

'Only this. I sailed on schooners of that sort once and the only word we ever used for the spars to which the sails are bent was 'yards'. 'Crosstrees' were the lighter spars fixed near the lower masthead. Their function was to give purchase to the topmost standing rigging.'

Joyce thought for a moment. 'Thank you for pointing it out,' he said. 'There's no sort of criticism I value more than that. But the word 'crosstrees' is essential. It comes in later on and I can't change it. After all, a yard is also a crosstree for the onlooking landlubber.'" (Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses pg56)

'Crosstrees' is used once in episode three, and once again in episode nine. Xiao's version uses two different terms: '桅顶横桁' in episode 3 and '十字架' in episode nine. Joyce had good reason for using that exact phrase twice, a good translator would acknowledge that.

Oxen is easily the most difficult to translate. It's technique recapitulates the history of the English language, the history of English Literature, and western history. How would this be possible using Chinese? Each style within the episode is representative of a writer during a period in western literature, unexpressable in Chinese. And the words themselves represent a linear change that can be linked backward or forward through the episode. The only way around would be to use various authors from Chinese literary history to convey the intended artistic feeling and the correspondance developed between the prose and the characters it represents. This flaw is especially present in the free for all babel of the final paragraphs. Most of this is grossly translated into less confusing Chinese and the rest is left on the floor of the editing room.

Here is a snippet from the final few paragraphs of Oxen, first the original:

"Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads? Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous! Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann will yu help, yung man hoose frend tuk bungalo kee to find plais whear to lay crown off his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestest putties longbreakyet. Item, curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time. Who wander through the world. Health all. A la votre!"

And the Chinese:

"打烊了，先生們，呃？給那神氣活現的布盧姆來杯朗姆酒， 我聽你說過蔥頭[376] ？布盧？那個兜攬廣告的？那個照相姑娘的爹[377]，這可讓我吃了一驚。小聲點兒，伙計。悄悄地溜掉吧。各位，晚安[378]衛我於梅毒魔鬼。[379]那個花花公子和女模女樣[380]的家伙哪兒去啦？上當了吧？逃走了。啊，好的，你們愛到哪兒就到哪兒去吧。將軍。王移到象的位置。善良的基督徒，請你幫助這個被朋友奪走住處鑰匙的小伙子[381]找個今晚睡覺的地方。唷，我快要酩酊大醉啦。媽的，我敢說這是最好的、最開心的假日。喂。伙計，給這孩子幾塊點心。扯蛋，我才不吃那白蘭地夾心糖呢！那是哄女人孩子的，我才不吃呢！把海毒丟到地獄裡去吧。連同那領了執照的烈性酒。[382]時間到了，先生們！祝大家健康！祝你！[383]"

My translation of the Chinese version:

[It's closing time, Gentlemen. Eh? Give that mannequin Bloom a cup of Rome liquor. I heard you say onion? Bloo? That canvasser of ads? That photo girl's pa, shocking! Quiet, buddy. Quietly slide. Patrons, night guard me from pox devils. Where did that playboy and feminine model guy go? Duped? Escaped. Ah, Ok. Wherever you want to go, go. General. King to elephant position. Good and honest disciple of Christ, please help me a lad who's key has been stolen by friends find a place to sleep this night. Woah, I'm about dead drunk. Fuck, I dare say this is the best, the happiest of holidays. Hey. Buddy, give this grandson some candy. Chedan, I will not eat that brandy bonbon! That's for lulling women and children, I however will not eat it! Take that poison and throw it down to hell. Even the licensed liquors. The time has come, gentlemen! To all your health! To you!]

As you can see, the general disorder of the language has been dampened by the translation and is no longer effective as babel. Also, a good chunk of the original is taken out, likely because Xiao didn't know what the hell Joyce was saying.

As an Idea, this translation makes me optimistic: I think a good translation of Ulysses into Chinese is very possible and potentially successful. As an actuality, it makes me cringe. Like a paint-by-numbers Van Gogh, it's too hokey, too 'fill-in-the-blank'. Don't let this paint me in the wrong colors, translation is possible. Why would it not be? And if it were impossible, by what standards would we judge it so?
A translation is as good as it's acceptance from both sides. Again reusing the Trojan Horse theme: the Greeks accepted the horse as a plan, the Trojans accepted it as a gift. Both sides were willing, and if both had been benevolent the horse would have been a playful ruse--no more than an April fools joke--and the result would have been peace.

One last thought: Joyce spent eight years of his life writing this one book, and that anyone wanting to understand it needs to spend at least that much time reading it. Xiao's translation took less than five.

An Addendum: Gordon

In [A Few Ulysses Supplements] I mentioned a handful of good commentaries of Joyce's work, especially of Ulysses; these were the few I relied on and thought would be the most helpful to anyone trying for a better grasp of Ulysses. I recently finished "Joyce and Reality" and "James Joyce's Metamorphoses" by the Connecticut College professor John Gordon--whom I have never heard even a mention of before three weeks ago--and I want to tell all of Joyce's readers out there to read Gordon's work. His own theories on Joyce's work are spot on and oh so obvious when he walks through the arguments. And he has kindly euthanized the stubbornly held beliefs of the old guard.
The most important ideas are:

1. Joyce was a realist in the strict sense of the word.
2. The chapters 10-18 are progressively more "real" than 1-9.
3. The identity of the Man in the Makintosh and other puzzles have real solutions, and these solutions are found in the text of Ulysses (go figure, right?).
4. The Oxen and Circe episodes run far deeper than previously thought.
5. Finnegans Wake is just as real an account as Ulysses, as Portrait, as Dubliners,...

It would be easy to propose these theories as interesting fantasies, and indeed some have been proposed before; proving them, on the other hand would be extremely difficult. But Gordon gives his proofs with scientific rigor and clarity. This is the kind of criticism literature needs.

Anyway, start out with "Metamorphoses" before hitting the more complex "Joyce and Reality".

I AM A ?

Near the end of the Nausikaa episode--after completing the rite of Onan--Bloom considers writing a message to the (illusional?) Gerty. His thoughts lead us to believe that he is considering a possible physical confrontation--or another sexual encounter--with the young girl if she indeed returns to the strand. Regardless of the evidence that Gerty may be a mirage (I think she is real but redressed by Bloom's mastrubatory theatre of the mind), let us consider what Bloom had in mind to write.

The idea of a message begins three paragraphs previous, when B observes the discarded scrap of Stephen's from earlier. He begins to read, then decides "No. Can't read. Better go". (U381) [Why can't he read it? Can't see in the dark, or is it written illegibly?] The scrap brings to mind the things people throw in the sea, he finds a stick, wonders if he should return [murderers do]. Will he?

Bloom writes "I" and immediately considers its destruction by some careless boot [consider the rusty boot stephen saw this morn], sees a tide pool [a moment of Narcissus], and recalls Martha's letter from earlier that day--specifically the "other world" she mistakenly wrote.
He continues: "AM. A." then dashes the idea because "No room."
He considers a nap, bothered by bat, and concludes with a sleepy jumble of his voyeurism and Molly's adultery.

The first allusion here is the instance in John 8:3 when the Pharisees try to entrap Jesus with the adulterer. They say the woman had been caught in the act of adultery which of old testament law demands a stoning. Jesus doesn't immediately answer , but instead writes in the sand with his finger. They ask again, and he responds: 'The sinless of you -- let him first cast the stone at her;' (John 8:7 Young's Literal Trans.) They leave. When the Pharisees have left, Jesus stands and asks who is it that accusers her. She answers: No one, Sir.
Joyce would have intended the reader to recall this popular biblical story, but the situation is ironically inverted. Bloom is alone on the strand and the adulterer at large is not Gerty but Bloom's wife. And he is not sinnless, he has just spilled his own seed without copulation [though technically Onan sinned because his hit the ground; Bloom's stays in his trousers].

Also, "Bend, see my face there, dark mirror, breathe on it, stirs" (U381) recalls the first lines of Genesis: "In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth, the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:1-2 Young's Literal Translation).

These two allusions lend to the idea that Bloom's writtings may recall the name of God used both by God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New: I am that I am from the hebrew Ehyeh asher ehyeh. But there's no way he intends for Gerty to get this allusion (Bloom is unaware he is odysseus/jesus/etc...) the intention of his scribbling is to continue their sexual encounter; Bloom wants to impart some informaton that will excite Gerty, or create some tie between them.

3 good possibilities for the sense of his message:

i Apologetic/Masochistic (I AM A: SINNER, PIG, CUCKOLD, ...)
ii Identity (I AM A: JEW, MARRIED MAN,...)
iii Affirmation (of masc.) (I AM A: MAN, or "A" = "ALPHA"..)

Of these, i and ii seem the most likely to be for Gerty to read while iii seems like Bloom reasserting his power. But we must remember the technique of this chapter: tumescence and detumescence. Bloom has finished mastrubating and is just coming down from that high. He may feel guilt and in this case "sinner", "pig", "cuckhold", and "married man" all make sense.
He never finishes his message for there is "no room". This clue lends us a few ideas as to why he erases the message and to what the message could have been. If we interpret "no room" to mean a lack of space for writing, then the longer words seem more plausible. Though if interpreted as "no room" for another woman in his life, then all seem likely and we're back at square one.

What he says immediately before writing "AM. A." may help us eliminate a few of the options.
"Besides they don't know. What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like." (U381)
Martha is here indicating a word that Bloom had used in his previous letter, a word similar to "naughty boy",not commonly known--like "metempsychosis" earlier in the morning, and indicitive of instability in his household. Because the phrase pops in his head as he is writing in the sand, it can be assumed that the word he wants to write is exactly the word he had used in his letter. Whatever word he used, it was not oozing with confidence, so "MAN", "ALPHA", etc. can be crossed out. "JEW", "MARRIED MAN" and the like are too neutral in conotation to be replaced by "naughty boy". What we're left with is the masochistic vocabulary, which fits with Bloom's attitude throughout the day. The longer of these are "CUCKOLD" and "SINNER", so if there is indeed no room to write Bloom may have had one in mind. What we do know is what the narrator has in mind by juxtapositioning Gerty's thought that "that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was" (U382) with the "cuckoo" of the nearby clock.

One more interesting bit.

If we compare the Proteus and Nausicaa episodes, we find many little bits of speech eroded from Stephen's soliloquy and deposited nonrandomly in the thoughts of both Gerty and Bloom. I don't think its merely chance. First of all, Proteus and Nausicaa happen in the exact same spot on Sandymount Strand. Secondly, the same act of mastrubation is commited (or at least implied in Stephen's case) at this spot. Third, at corresponding times during the two hour-long chapters, words pop up as though they were found on the beach. For example, from Proteus: "Soft soft soft.." (U49), "As I am. As I am. All or not at all." (U49), "Vehement breath of waters" (U49), "What is that word known to all men?" (U49). And from Nausicaa: "O so lovely! O so soft, sweet, soft!" (U367), "I."..."AM. A." (U381), "see my face there, dark mirror, breathe on it, stirs" (U381), "What is the meaning of that other world." (U381).
Also, as Jorn Barger has mentioned, these two episodes are the only two staged completely out of doors.

And of course there's that bat...

Another Small Limerick

One million zealots in Iraq,
One million strong for barack,
In between a hard place an' a rock,
Let me find some wood for me to knock.

A Stupid Little Rhyme

By God, He's Dead!:


In singing this news
I grieve most of all,
so allow me to speak
of His life and His fall:

His guises were carpenter,
Maker, and pigeon.
His consort was mortal,
He cared not a smidgeon.

He published a book,
in the name of the prophets.
but gave up the rights,
and sees not the profits

As maker his skills
were second to none
save Mara or Pangu
or Yuanshi Tianzun

Bearded, breaded,
He lived in a biscuit.
The pious they loved him
in the form of a triscuit.

He roared and he bellowed
in old Testament times,
and censured his mortals
with blowhardy rhymes.

He outlived his son,
Jesu' consubstantiate
who bled on a cross
after bread at a banquet.

Now Heaven or Hell,
to where will he go?
He's unwelcome down,
so up He will go.

I now leave the mourners
with one final thought:
Yaweh was great,
and now he is Naught.


-BJB

Telemachia in Tagclouds

These are simple word frequency tagclouds for each chapter of the Telemachia in Ulysses. Visualizations like this may offer some insights into the themes Joyce worked in.

A few things I found interesting:

The ratio of "asked" to "answered" in Telemachus and Nestor is about 2:1 ; more questions than answers.  Proteus has very few of either.

Proteus has more color words.

Telemachus is "god" heavy, Proteus is "dog" heavy.

Proteus has 5 "ineluctable"s, stressing Stephen's imprisonment.

Telemachus

air (7) answered (11) asked (20) bay (6) buck (73) called (6) coming (7) cried (8) dedalus (10) eyes (13) face (15) father (8) followed (6) god (16) going (7) green (6) grey (7) haines (45) hair (6) hands (10) head (8) held (7) himself (13) irish (8) key (8) kinch (20) laid (6) man (8) milk (8) mirror (10) morning (9) mother (21) mulligan (84) open (7) parapet (6) sea (16) sir (15) stephen (92) stood (9) tea (10) think (7) towards (11) tower (9) turned (10) voice (18) walked (7) water (15) woman (11) words (7) yes (6)

created at TagCrowd.com

Nestor

air (5) answered (5) armstrong (5) asked (13) book (6) boy (5) brightness (4) brought (4) cried (5) deasy (35) eyes (11) field (5) hear (5) history (5) knew (8) lay (4) life (5) looked (4) man (5) moment (6) money (8) mr (40) open (5) pier (5) playfield (4) possible (4) pyrrhus (6) riddle (5) sargent (7) scraped (4) sheets (4) shells (5) shout (4) sir (40) soft (4) soul (5) stephen (44) sternly (4) stood (6) talbot (5) ten (5) towards (4) voice (4) voices (4) woman (5) words (7) work (4) world (6) years (4) yes (10)

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Proteus

air (7) aunt (5) away (6) blue (5) breath (5) brother (7) de (8) dead (6) dog (10) egan (5) ever (6) eyes (15) face (7) father (9) feet (12) five (5) going (7) green (6) hat (7) ineluctable (5) lay (5) man (12) mine (6) mother (5) mouth (7) naked (5) night (11) paris (7) poor (5) richie (5) rock (6) rocks (6) sand (18) sea (6) sir (8) sit (5) soft (5) stephen (9) sun (5) thy (5) tide (7) uncle (5) walking (7) water (6) waves (5) wild (5) woman (5) wonder (5) yes (9) young (6)

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A Few Ulysses Supplements

For anyone just beginning--or continuing--Ulysses, I have found the works below to be most helpful.

Ulysses Annotated by Dan Gifford

By far this is the book most used for all the obscure allusions and references.  Best to use this on the second go, as you'll be referring to it every few lines.

Robot Wisdom's Ulysses pages

Jorn Barger's site supplies much of what Gifford missed or botched up. 

Dublin's Joyce and Joyce's Voices by Hugh Kenner

Very detailed analysis of all Joyce's works, which is immensely helpful to understanding Ulysses (by parallax?).

James Joyce by Richard Ellmann

Joyce is heavily autobiographical, so outside of Gifford's annotations this work will supply much of the background info.

The Masks of God Volume 4: Creative Mythology by Joseph Campbell

Campbell discusses Joyce's art in the context of modern myth.  For those interested, Thomas Mann is also discussed and compared with Joyce.

James Joyce's Ulysses by Stuart Gilbert

Gilbert supplies summaries of each episode along with Homeric references and themes.

Ulysses by Algebra

The Ithaca episode of Ulysses made me think of a particle collider, when two particles of different types meet each other they interact for a brief speck of time, exchange their stuff, and move on to infinity.  This idea led me to a simple algebraic/geom. model of this collision of infinitesimal masses--it is written as a mathematical catechism after all.

The two axes x and y are Bloom and Stephen respectively. The Ithaca chapter and the general personality of the two throughout the book (ie. their micturations in Ithaca) support the Stephen=Vertical, Bloom=Horizontal substitution.  Molly would be the Z-axis: always present but not seen in this two-d world; she fleshes-out the graph.

The rest is simple enough.  Stephen and Bloom each have their own time, linked up by the story itself.  Thus the line Stephen=Bloom is exactly Ulysses.  After they collide and separate sometime in the Circe chapter, they move on to infinity though not without an exchange of momentum and ideas (ie 'Stoom' and 'Blephen' in Ithaca).