April 16 — Episode Nine

Narrative Summary

Stephen Dedalus is one of a group of men in a room in the library, discussing Hamlet and Shakespeare. The focus is on how much of Shakespeare’s actual life impacted or is reflected in his work. Dedalus argues that rather than seeing the character Hamlet as an extension of Shakespeare himself, It is Hamlet’s father (the ghost, or King Hamlet) who represents Shakespeare in the play. They hypothesize about details of Shakepeare’s personal life (why he left Anne Hathaway the “second best bed” in his will . . . whether she was unfaithful to him . . . ), and whether or not these details of an artist’s life matter, when we have the work.

Many things run through Dedalus’ mind during the conversation. We learn that Dedalus sent Mulligan a telegram in the bar, saying Dedalus was not coming. Dedalus remembers borrowing money from one of the men, but thinks “molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound.” Someone mentions a man named Piper and Dedalus thinks “Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper.” Thoughts of sons and fathers, Hamlet and ghost, Christ and Father . . .

Mulligan comes in, irked with Dedalus. A library attendant enters and confers with Mr. Lyster, a librarian, about an inquiry that has just come in, and we learn it is Bloom outside the room waiting (he is there to look at old journals to find a copy of the graphic he wants for Keyes’ ad). Mulligan says “the sheeny!”

Mulligan spouts his own bawdy poetry, the men talk more, they begin to leave, one of the men reminds Mulligan that they will meet that evening (and does not invite Dedalus). Dedalus thinks “What have I learned? Of them? Of me?” Mulligan chides Dedalus for a review of a book Dedalus wrote, panning the work, irritating the author. They pass Bloom on their way out of the library, wish him good day.

Thoughts and Impressions

This episode irritated me. I really enjoyed the last Episode, felt like I was starting to “get” it — to connect with the book, to relate to Bloom. The switch back to Dedalus is somewhat jolting, but the plot content of this Episode is what really bothered me: It is a bunch of men discussing literature for about thirty-four pages. Even in the most recent Episode focussed on Dedalus — the difficult third Episode, when he walks on the beach — I found myself enjoying Dedaus’ thoughts and feeling like I was starting to understand more about him. Here, his thoughts are of course still included, (in addition to other things that are hard to decipher) but they were difficult to plumb. Reading this Episode, I felt like Joyce had decided to make it harder to get to the essential nature of the character by obstructing it with intellectual conversation, a surface distraction. Again, I know that Hamlet and Shakespeare (and Christ and God and fathers and sons and Ireland and England and Jews and Christians and outsiders and elites) are important themes in the book, and there is a point to the discussion, but most of this Episode wasn’t what I wanted to be reading.  

Message from Joyce in that in itself? The “what have I learned, of them, of me” is exactly how I was feeling — there are better things to be doing with my time  — but is Joyce saying that about his own work?  That this Episode, at least, is a waste of the reader’s time?  How very arch!  Perhaps it’s a more general commentary on how we waste much of our lives in discussions (or anything) that doesn’t matter with people who don’t matter.  And I also wonder if I’m just seeing this because there is so much thrown into this book in general that it’s inevitable to find a piece that speaks to me, and if I re-read it again in two weeks I will relate to something else. Now that I’ve been thinking about this (and this thought process didn’t even happen until I started writing) I find I am less irritated by the Episode.  But still annoyed at having read it.

One of Dedalus’ thoughts I loved:

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk thorough ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are . . . is doubtless all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too . . .

——

I have had a hard time making myself sit down to blog about this Episode. I misplaced my copy of Blamires’ The Bloomsday Book, and I really like reading it after I read the text because it distills the narrative and also explains what I may have missed, without so much telling me what to think about an Episode, or giving too much away about what happens later. But that was only part of the reason for my hiatus from blogging. My irritation with the Episode was another factor, and really, the two combined to make it harder for me to overcome my current ambivalence about doing this. It sometimes feels like it’s too hard to dig into myself to figure out what I think (about Ulysses? about everything else?) and write it down. Do I really want to be doing this? Should/Shouldn’t I just do it because I said I would? Oy. Ulysses as metaphor. Am I in or am I out? Sometimes it’s harder to be in than others . . .

Ambivalence remains, will try to keep going.