I'll organize these by page number -- I'll use the page numbers in parentheses in the margins.
(6) Who is Algy? I notice he's mentioned on p. (37) as well.
(6) Does hyperborean mean "athiest"? Why?
(8) "I'll bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe." Who are Seymour and Clive Kempthorpe? Seymour shows up again on (22).
(8) What the heck is omphalos? (Okay, Wiki says omphalos stones (a religious artifact) were said to allow direct communication with the gods. There was one at Delphi.)
(10) Why does Buck call Haines "the Sassenach"?
(12) Stephen remembers how he carried the boat of incense at Clongowes. Was he an altar boy? Or is that where his mother's funeral was held?
(14) An unusual euphemism for God, I guess: "the collector of prepuces." (A prepuce is a foreskin or clitoral hood; since the foreskin is removed at a briss, God must have a collection. Naturally, this is Buck's joke.
(16) and (17) Okay, "Agenbite of inwit" has me baffled. Is he a character Stephen and Buck are creating to tell Haines about? Wiki says its a poorly translated piece of prose that gives clues to what 14th century Kentish dialect was like.
(18) They call their tower an omphalos. Interesting.
(18) Buck calls Stephen "Japhet in search of a father." Japhet was one of Noah's sons. This is also in the Hamlet discussion. (And come to think of it, this chapter is informally called "Telemachus," and Telemachus was Odysseu's son, who was searching for news of his father.)
(20) I like the wordplay in "Joking Jesus": "What's bread in the bone cannot fail me to fly." Jesus's bones (his body) were, after all, also Bread. (As would Jack of the Beanstalk's, had the giant his way. But that's probably neither here nor there.)
(20) I like that Haines isn't quite sure how to react to Buck's mocking of religion. Mustn't upset the natives. I also like that Stephen says he hears "Joking Jesus" three times a day, after meals... making it sort of an anti-prayer.
(20) I'm a little lost about Stephen's ashplant. Not sure what's going on there. (I think it's mentioned before this page, come to think of it.)
(21) Haines calls German Jews Britain's "national problem." Considering there's a lot of antisemetism coming from a character in the next chapter as well, I'm guessing this will be a recurring motif.
(22) "Says he found a sweet young thing down there. Photo girl he calls her." "Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure." How I love innuendo. I get the impression (from something I read online, can't remember where) that this is Leopold Bloom's daughter. I've only gotten to Chapter 4, so I haven't met her yet, but from what I recall she works in photography somehow.
"Brief exposure." Heh.
(24) The seal is a usurper? WTF?
So those are some questions I had while reading (and rereading) Chapter 1. If you've got answers, toss 'em in the comments (or if they're long, make a post of their own. I'll do some looking into this myself, too, and post what I find.
Rob
Showing posts with label telemachus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telemachus. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
I Can Read Again!
For a while there, I was really worried.
I mean, I could see the words, and I knew what a good 80 percent of them meant, but somehow, it wasn't coming together. I put four chapters behind me, and had really only a tenuous grasp of what was going on.
And so I didn't blog. I just didn't have much to say. But I didn't read any further, either -- I didn't want to put too much distance between what I was reading and what I was commenting on.
But I had to say something. I started this thing, and it seems like everyone's waiting on me to pipe up. So this morning on my way to work, I flipped through the first chapter to refresh my memory on the few notes I took. And somehow, instead, I started to read the book again.
And suddenly I got it. I understood what was going on at that breakfast a lot better than I had before. I'm sure there's a lot of nuance I'm missing (heck, I haven't even found translation for the Latin yet), but there are things that completely eluded me on my first go-round. The text was too dense (or I was) for me to realize what Haines is doing in Ireland (he's a Brit writer, working on an "among the natives" type piece about the Irish). It seems to me that Stephen is pissed at him, partially because of jealousy (he's a frustrated writer himself -- he's a schoolteacher that Buck keeps calling "the bard") and partially because of a dislike of the egotism of the whole project and archaeological stance. Which is why he feeds him bullshit facts, like when he mentions they pay rent on the tower "to the secretary of state for war," as he says on page 17 (18).* Somehow, the intent and flow of this opening conversation connected with me this time, when it hadn't before.
At least, I hope I'm getting the intent.
So of our three main characters in this segment, we have Buck Mulligan (stately, plump Buck Mulligan) who's a jovial athiest medical student, happily making light of religion whenever he can. We've got his friend Stephen Dedalus, an unreligious man haunted by his denial of his mother's dying wish -- the he pray with her at the end. He's no happy athiest (or hyperborean, as they call it, if I've got that right); he's has no faith, but it bothers him. And then there's Haines, who's looking to make money off of his travels to Ireland. Buck thinks they can make money (or gain some sort of status) off of Haines's work, and wants Stephen to feed him choice insights (such as the cracked mirror of a servant being "a symbol of Irish art"). Stephen knows that whatever the value of these insights are, he won't reap the rewards if he gives them to Haines.
Meanwhile, they have breakfast, and the corpse of a man who drowned nine days ago still hasn't turned up. And Stephen's upset with Buck for being callous about his mother's death, but being callous is simply what Buck does. He doesn't really know any other way. The threads of conversation wind and twist into the background before springing back into view, and it's hard to follow for that reason. But this second reading really clarified things for me.
Not everything, though. Not hardly. I'll list some of the things that puzzled me in my next post.
Rob
*Okay, it turns out that might not be bullshit after all. Martello towers were part of Ireland's defenses against Napoleonic armies; it's certainly possible that their rent would go to the war department. That feasibility is certainly why Stephen says it, whether it's true or not.
I mean, I could see the words, and I knew what a good 80 percent of them meant, but somehow, it wasn't coming together. I put four chapters behind me, and had really only a tenuous grasp of what was going on.
And so I didn't blog. I just didn't have much to say. But I didn't read any further, either -- I didn't want to put too much distance between what I was reading and what I was commenting on.
But I had to say something. I started this thing, and it seems like everyone's waiting on me to pipe up. So this morning on my way to work, I flipped through the first chapter to refresh my memory on the few notes I took. And somehow, instead, I started to read the book again.
And suddenly I got it. I understood what was going on at that breakfast a lot better than I had before. I'm sure there's a lot of nuance I'm missing (heck, I haven't even found translation for the Latin yet), but there are things that completely eluded me on my first go-round. The text was too dense (or I was) for me to realize what Haines is doing in Ireland (he's a Brit writer, working on an "among the natives" type piece about the Irish). It seems to me that Stephen is pissed at him, partially because of jealousy (he's a frustrated writer himself -- he's a schoolteacher that Buck keeps calling "the bard") and partially because of a dislike of the egotism of the whole project and archaeological stance. Which is why he feeds him bullshit facts, like when he mentions they pay rent on the tower "to the secretary of state for war," as he says on page 17 (18).* Somehow, the intent and flow of this opening conversation connected with me this time, when it hadn't before.
At least, I hope I'm getting the intent.
So of our three main characters in this segment, we have Buck Mulligan (stately, plump Buck Mulligan) who's a jovial athiest medical student, happily making light of religion whenever he can. We've got his friend Stephen Dedalus, an unreligious man haunted by his denial of his mother's dying wish -- the he pray with her at the end. He's no happy athiest (or hyperborean, as they call it, if I've got that right); he's has no faith, but it bothers him. And then there's Haines, who's looking to make money off of his travels to Ireland. Buck thinks they can make money (or gain some sort of status) off of Haines's work, and wants Stephen to feed him choice insights (such as the cracked mirror of a servant being "a symbol of Irish art"). Stephen knows that whatever the value of these insights are, he won't reap the rewards if he gives them to Haines.
Meanwhile, they have breakfast, and the corpse of a man who drowned nine days ago still hasn't turned up. And Stephen's upset with Buck for being callous about his mother's death, but being callous is simply what Buck does. He doesn't really know any other way. The threads of conversation wind and twist into the background before springing back into view, and it's hard to follow for that reason. But this second reading really clarified things for me.
Not everything, though. Not hardly. I'll list some of the things that puzzled me in my next post.
Rob
*Okay, it turns out that might not be bullshit after all. Martello towers were part of Ireland's defenses against Napoleonic armies; it's certainly possible that their rent would go to the war department. That feasibility is certainly why Stephen says it, whether it's true or not.
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