Wandering Rocks
Update on summer reading project.
For those of you who have successfully read James Joyce’s Ulysses, you will now infer that I am near the midpoint, having passed the “Wandering Rocks” episode. The most encouraging aspect of Patrick Hastings’s guide is his reassurance that to really appreciate this novel, you have to have already read it once. This takes pressure off my first pass, which feels like a first encounter with a new friend. In fact, as I am reading, I feel like I am in a foreign country where I miss about half of every conversation I hear. But in this case, half is enough to feel moments of deep understanding and pleasure and—to my surprise—get at least some of the jokes!
I am still on the island, a place with many wandering rocks. Well, the big ones sit still, but depending on the tide level, they appear to move. And perhaps that’s what Joyce had in mind as he wrote about his city on the Liffey. People in movement on an average day, some familiar by now, others strangers. Errands to run, meals to eat in pubs along the way, random encounters and near collisions, awkward encounters barely avoided. And my favorite wanderer in this chapter, a crumpled religious advertisement (Elijah is Coming!) first encountered several chapters earlier, now bobbing and weaving—a soggy boat of mangled paper—on its way out to sea along with the rest of the river’s detritus.
“Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks…”
What a sight Dublin harbor must have been then, awash in trash and debris, not to mention the effluvia of human waste, since there was no proper sewage treatment at the time. Here on the island, we find all sorts of flotsam. Pieces of lumber, broken lobster traps, buoys, and, unfortunately, so much plastic—water bottles, empty oil, and fuel containers. A reminder of where most of our efforts, small and large, end up, but also, in my reading, that our most sincere efforts are still worth pursuing even if they are not immediately successful.
I have now read the “Sirens” episode in which the musical narration and dialog—best read aloud—echo the lilt of Simon Dedalus singing in a pub and the inner thoughts of Leopold Bloom that are by now familiar refrains.
And I am through the “Cyclops” episode—in which an unnamed narrator spins a long winding yarn—interrupted with parodies of other examples of absurd and convoluted public speech, religious and political—about his encounter with Leopold Bloom in a Dublin pub at 5 pm on June 16, 1904. As the day ends, the place is populated with frequent patrons, including a beer-soaked someone referred to as “the citizen” and his mangy dog. The citizen quickly begins to hurl anti-Semitic invective at Bloom, who has only come to the pub in search of another fellow he needs to chat with about business, not to drink himself into oblivion. Poor Bloom, he is in violation of The Rule that one must drink when drink is offered and then reciprocate, his own plans be damned. As the narrator spins his story, we see Bloom—a secular Jew as am I—pushed to justify his very existence in Ireland. He explains that he is Jewish, and Irish, born in Ireland, but this effort only inflames the Citizen and the narrator who have a narrower view of citizenship. By the end of the chapter, the blind-drunk citizen is ready for fighting. Bloom narrowly escapes a beating, much as Odysseus managed to escape the blinded Cyclops.
It seems that not enough has changed. Here we are, so many years later, as Trump launches into similar diatribes about who qualifies as a “real American.” As I dipped into news this week, I received too many reminders that humans can be truly unhinged and vile. As if we needed more reminders…but there always is more: the latest Russian bombing in Ukraine, ongoing Israeli military assaults in Gaza, the murder of six Israeli hostages, yet another school shooting with four fatalities, and videos of Trump and Vance and their surrogates lying as easily as they breathe.
“Cyclops” is an indictment of prejudice and petty grievance that can explode so easily into physical violence. It captures the way we humans love to gossip at the expense of others, to entertain ourselves and our friends, or, as in this chapter, to secure another free drink. The genius of the writing is that the narrator’s yarn-spinning is hilarious. We receive Joyce’s message loud and clear, while laughing and cringing. For a taste of the episode, I invite you to listen to the actor Stephen Rea read this edited version, which had me howling:
Speaking of yarns…it seems that our long-delayed house construction project on the island may move forward at last. I tell myself that the current hole in the ground is just a step towards the fulfillment of a completely irrational dream. We are on the list for a foundation pour sometime before 2024 closes. And then, with luck and more luck, a house will be built that in five years, with some wind and weather, will look like a version of its predecessor we could not save. There is a long and winding story here and I hope to tell it—all jokes at my expense—on a sunny porch in the late afternoon, looking at this view, with a glass of wine in hand.
Thank you for reading and as with all posts here, I’d love to hear from you! More to follow each Friday at noon. I hope you’ll subscribe and share with other readers. You can find out more about my memoirs Perfection and Eva and Eve here and purchase here. I work privately with writers on creative non-fiction projects. If you are interested, you can contact me through my website: juliemetz.com. A first consultation is free of charge.
Oh boy, you really tackle it, that unfathomable novel, which I, when i was reading English Literature at University could not get through beyond a few pages although it was so much held in awe by all the professors (and the more intelligent students). As you describe it, it seems to me, it is like the Wagner operas (especially the about 20 hours of the "Ring of the Nibelungs"). Which is equally unfathomably long and winding and complex and becomes intoxicating only with repeated listening (reading), actually esch time more so. Maybe. I don't know. But you have certainly made me courages to tackle " Ulysses" myself again, one day...
The reading and the setting. Love them both. And the model:)