[LISTENED TO: Week of September 20, 2010] Ulysses 17-18
The final two Episodes of the Ulysses audio book were a mix of nothing new and massive revelations.
Episode 17, the catechism, doesn’t reveal all that much in the reading. It’s a fairly straightforward Episode, so there’s not very much in the actual reading that would impact it. One or two things do become somewhat clearer with the audible emphases but questions like this one are still a beast to unpack:
What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed?
Although in Episode 18, Molly says:
he says hes an author and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons what is he driving at now
So I guess the Italian lessons plan is settled? Which gives us some account of Stephen’s future.
But back in 17, this time through I became more aware of the
interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus, born Goulding, 26 June 1903.
So Stephen has been “in mourning” for almost a year. Is that standard for Ireland at the time? And how interesting it is that
Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886.
Their parents died on almost the exact same date (different years, obviously). This is another interesting similarity that is not directly mentioned in the Q&A.
There’s also the bit about the museum. A few times Bloom says he went to the museum during the day (in Episodes 16 & 17), but we didn’t know that, right?
And I’m really puzzled by this “revelation”:
What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30 years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the extinction of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend?
Where was Moses when the candle went out?
I also learned this time around that Rudolph owned the hotel where he killed himself:
a photocard of the Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom.
And am I reading that his suicide was maybe because of the death of his wife (according to Molly in Episode 18)?
his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison himself after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost
As for Episode 18, there weren’t a great many revelations, but the reading of it is beautiful and it did convey so much more than I could pick put just by reading it. Stream of consciousness is tough enough to read, so having Miriam Healy-Louie, (who does an amazing job) use inflections and song and incredible expressiveness really brought this Episode to life in a way that it never did when I read it myself. I was delighted with things that I never considered, like hearing her sing the line “Bill Bailey won’t you please come home” (among others) even though there is no indication in the text that she sang the line. It brings a new dimension (and one that makes complete sense in context) to the reading.
And I did notice a few things that I missed while reading. Molly deals herself tarot cards and mentions it a few times. In the first one she believes that Stephen is the subject:
wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th card after that the 10 of spaces for a Journey by land then there was a letter on its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about poetry in it
Bloom himself is in the cards, but he fares much worse
if he knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for Lord knows what he does that I dont know
And as for Stephen himself, Molly has a lengthy fantasy about him. I already mentioned the sexual one, but there’s another component of her fantasy in which Stephen is a regular part of her life. She engages in Italian instruction and general intellectual discourse with him and he proves to be an excellent companion. Did she get this fantasy from Bloom (who imagines similar things) or did they think of the same things independently (looking for something new in their lives?)
I admit that as far as the recording goes, I imagined Molly sounding older, a little rougher perhaps, but it was great hearing her Irish accent reading these manifold ideas. It’s true that, as with other parts in the book, some of the pronouns were still ambiguous, even in the audio version (so many “he’s” in her life) but you could usually tell a little bit by the tone whether she was speaking of Blazes or Bloom or someone else entirely.
The reading also made Molly seem more complex and, I must say less sympathetic. And that may be a subjective read on my part meeting an objective read by Miriam Healy-Louie. She makes Molly seem much more insistent about what she wants and is much more dismissive of Bloom (at least for the first 7/8 of the reading). She knows that Bloom has ejaculated today. And she convinces herself that it was with a prostitute. Several times, in fact, she says that. And we know that that is not true. So, of course, when she says a lot of other things about him, we don’t know for certain if they are true or not. Is this her justification for sleeping with Boylan (who I gather is in fact the only person she has cheated on Bloom with, despite what he thinks). We saw in Episode 17 that he imagined a whole litany of lovers, but that appears to be false too.
Is the whole book about lack of communication, despite all of the ways that Joyce tries to communicate in the different Episodes?
This reading also throws some complications about the Bloom/Molly sexual relationship for me. In Episode 17, their sex life is described as:
there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ.
So he never ejaculated inside of her, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been without sexual activity, right? At one point Molly thinks that she doesn’t want to fart too loudly:
better go easy not wake him have him at it again.
Is the “have at it” that Bloom wants some kind of intimacy? And then there’s this:
because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze
I’m not exactly sure when this is supposed to have been. There’s certainly suggestion of her withholding sex from Bloom and yet he also seems to have ejaculated on her during the incident described.
This is followed by this bit where she imagines arousing Bloom, almost to mock him:
Ill let him do it off on me behind provided he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do the indifferent I or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes
Of course, I can’t help but wonder if this matter is settled by readers and I’m wasting my time trying to puzzle it out.
Nevertheless, she follows this section up with this amusing language mistake:
then Ill wipe him off me just like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill have him eyeing up at the ceiling where is she gone now [emphasis mine]
The “Omission” joke begins earlier when she laughs about the doctor
asking me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words they have
This is similar to the whole argument about met him pike hoses, of course. Joyce gives us many more examples of her mistaken understanding of language, but I only caught this one this time:
Dedalus I wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia
Despite this, there’s the amusing thing that she brings up in the same section showing that even if she’s not an intellectual she does (as Bloom said) have a good sense of humor:
Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like her
[The reading aloud of the name Opisso made the joke all the more funny].
One thing is for certain, Molly is a sensualist. And this reading really accentuates that (the ways that Miriam says “Yes” with so many different inflections and tones brings so much more to the story than those three letters did for me. Molly had a great time with Blazes and is really looking forward to doing it again on Monday. Bloom be damned. And yet, she still has feelings for him, possibly even still loves him. She also gets a bit cranky about Blazes:
he no manners nor no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because I didn’t call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something better to say for himself an old Lion would
It’s hard to know what to think of Molly since we have very little else to go on but this monologue. I can’t help but wonder what she did all day (before 4PM) or what a typical day is like for her. Does she leave the house? Does she clean the house? (she’s annoyed that she doesn’t have a servant anymore). She talks about making her own dinner and about preparing dinner the next day, but despite all of we learn about her, we still know very little. She’s a complex character.
I can’t encourage readers to listen to all 40 hours of Ulysses. But there are definitely a few chapters that are much more enjoyable/understandable with this audio guide. If you’ve enjoyed the book or are interested in parts of the book, track down Molly’s soliloquy (in my version it was 3 discs, about 3 hours). It will really bring the character of Molly Bloom to life, flaws and all. Although I must admit, I found the very end of the book, the “yes I said yes I will yes” to be a bit anticlimactic in this reading.
After two reads of the book, I still have a number of things left unanswered from the book. Of course, that’s to be expected with the way the book is written (all happening in one day with no “conclusion” per se), but it’s still a fascinating book. And I will say that the audio was much “easier” than reading it. (Although, again, you miss some of the printed jokes in this version (as well as the dot at the end of Episode 17–whatever it is supposed to mean).
The very end of the audio disc has 4 “End” sections which are the Gabler Afterword. I listened to it but honestly it was nothing exciting to hear read aloud.
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