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almost there posted:https://www.gishgallop.com/plain-english-translation-of-james-joyces-finnegans-wake-exceeds-175000-pages/ I think this is satire. The stock photo however is me, when given the task of reading words Bilirubin posted:Making my way through Cyclops now, and it is hewing fairly close in theme and feel to the story in the Odyssey IMO--more so than any previous chapter did at least. Really funny Yeah Cyclops is both really funny and the moment when the book starts to get looooong. But it's also got a disturbing streak to it, it has a completely unique tone that I don't think you'll find until Pynchon or stuff from this century
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Sep 7, 2020 09:00
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J_RBG posted:Yeah Cyclops is both really funny and the moment when the book starts to get looooong. But it's also got a disturbing streak to it, it has a completely unique tone that I don't think you'll find until Pynchon or stuff from this century It does and does. I'm about 3/4 through it, like 20 pages remaining. The conversation itself progresses fairly normally for the book but the tangents and connecting passages are pretty out there at times--although very funny (the discussion of deforestation of Ireland leading to the tree wedding thing, lol). Its very Pynchonesque in its tone. And the citizen is vaguely menacing
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Sep 8, 2020 04:41
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Just finished. That was a great chapter or whatever these things are but I will need to read it again because lol Soo much going on. I liked the tell all narrative style for sure. Loads of fun
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Sep 9, 2020 07:01
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This next chapter is certainly a change in tone. I wonder why Gertie doesn't like two lights?
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Sep 12, 2020 03:21
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I think 12 + 13 were the last ones to be serialised and lead to legal action against the editors of the Little Review, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, for obscenity. 13 (Nausicaa) is one of the most memorable moments, especially after Bloom has had his heroic moment against the Citizen. (There's a link between Gerty and the Citizen btw) I've not heard that about Gerty not liking two lights, but it would probably have something to do with the face that her world is sort of hemmed in by convention, the style of the episode being this weird mixture of devotional Catholic pablum and pulpy romance tropes. That's the warping lens through which sees the world and it's worth comparing with the perspectives of other female characters in Ulysses, the ones we encountered in Wandering Rocks, the barmaids, and Molly at the end. I think she's given such a prominent place because she sort of stands in for the position of the reader of Ulysses, but you'll need to read on and see what happens I think before I go into that
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Sep 12, 2020 13:31
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J_RBG posted:I think 12 + 13 were the last ones to be serialised and lead to legal action against the editors of the Little Review, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, for obscenity. Yeah I got that the citizen was her grandfather, he even got a name! Continuing on with it.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:12
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Finished episode 13. The transition between Gerty and Bloom was pretty abrupt, the difference between their internal dialogues are quite stark. The temperance retreat coupled with the sexual charge in the air between flirty Gerty and Bloom was neat. Its getting late already (9 pm) but with still half the book to go I wonder how this will resolve Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 03:59
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Good luck with the next episode, imo it's the hardest one. Though there's a lot of good jokes hidden in it. After that, it's all solid gold. Nausicaa is such a strange episode, with this sort of two-sides structure to it. And the last big block of Bloom thoughts. I said before Gerty is kind of like a stand-in for the reader of Ulysses, in that her thoughts are structured by stifling conventions: in romance literature, in Catholic theological wisdom passed down to her as a 17-yo young woman, and in advertising. All of these conventions sort of take over the text at length, it takes time for us to wade through it. Here's an ad in Gerty's mind, structuring how she idealises herself: 'Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive sense of a votary of Dame Fashion [lol I love that] for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it was expected in the Lady's Pictorial that electric blue would be worn) with a smart vee ...' and so on and so on. Gerty has been sold an image of herself in ads, Bloom is an ad canvasser. There's a connection there––Bloom is the one who presents an image to Gerty and Gerty presents her image to Bloom in return, both of whom get off on this, until Bloom in that post-orgasm clarity that recognises his own presence there literally becomes the focus of the text again, at the very moment when the illusion breaks and he realises she's actually disabled. (Though it's possible perhaps to work it out from Gerty's narration, though her narration does all it can to conceal this fact because the disabled body cannot fit into any of the conventions she's stifled by. The episode is also the only one that has baby talk in it. Joyce anticipates all the theoretical talk about the importance of baby talk by presenting with us these scenes of babies just delighting in the sounds of language without giving it any of the structure we usually have for it: 'A jink a jink a jawbo' is how the baby changes 'I want a drink of water'. It doesn't not have meaning I suppose but it's as close to pure nonsense as Joyce ever wrote. I suppose it's not too dissimilar to the beginning of Portrait of the Artist where Stephen is beginning to categorise and sort words according to how they feel when you say them (alongside what they mean). You also close the chapter on the 'non-language' of the cuckoo clock, which can't help but signify but doesn't have that "intention" behind it. That's all over the chapter, how communication happens regardless, that writing is literally everywhere, the act of creation. And the act of creation is never too far away from procreation for Joyce. When Bloom is thinking about writing a letter in the sand and thinks of all the messages that are available in the beach (like for example Gerty waving her handkerchief, isn't that a kind of writing with smell, or dogs communicating by sniffing each other's behinds). Like he writes in sand "I AM A" which is either finished or unfinished depending on how you read it. But then he looks at the rocks around him: 'All these rocks with lines and scars and letters.' We're back with Stephen and his earlier walk on the beach, where he thinks 'Signatures of all things I am here to read'. In short with this interest in nonsense and how everything communicates something he's beginning to think about the kind of linguistic experiments that will take him into ... the Wake
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Sep 14, 2020 16:54
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J_RBG posted:Good luck with the next episode, imo it's the hardest one. Though there's a lot of good jokes hidden in it. After that, it's all solid gold. That all makes complete sense to me. I had thought about the parallel between Bloom and Stephen on the beach, but that there are signs written on the beach I missed. Very cool. I could not decide whether she was actually disabled or just had been sitting on an uncomfortable rock for so long that she was effectively so, but it doesn't really matter. Thanks for that analysis of the episode, I really appreciate it!
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Sep 14, 2020 17:28
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Have to give a shout out to Vintage for the quality of their books. Despite being an original 1961 print, the binding glue is still holding solid, although the cover is wearing and I reinforced it with tape to be sure it wouldn't tear off. The nicely yellowed pages are easy to read. Once finished I'll post a picture of this now well worn thing.
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Sep 14, 2020 17:45
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Just remembered the narrator's pathological hatred of the Citizen's dog in Cyclops and lol'd
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Sep 15, 2020 22:34
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LMAO this 4th paragraph of two sentences desperately searching for a comma yet still showing complete grammatical solidity despite running on like a river fllowing cold clear past the residence where Joyce first decided to inflict this upon an unsuspecting world in response to perceived slights due to activist judges and ancient obscenity laws
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Sep 18, 2020 02:38
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LMAO and again but this time with the commas
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Sep 18, 2020 02:39
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Oh so we are working our way though story telling throughout the ages
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Sep 18, 2020 03:34
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Bilirubin posted:Oh so we are working our way though story telling throughout the ages Fun seeing you figure that one out. That beginning is what happens if you translate Latin literally without punctuation (as it wouldn't have had in the original). This ep is Oxen of the Sun, and ... my feelings are mixed about it (It was referred to by Joyce in his letters as 'bloody Oxen of the bloody Sun')
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Sep 18, 2020 15:04
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Old author whose voices I think I recognize: whoever wrote Beowulf, Mallory, Shakespeare, Dante, Donne(?), St Augustine, Bunyan, Chaucer. Various biblical voices. It gets harder for me as we approach modernity. About 27 pages left in this episode.
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Sep 18, 2020 16:32
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Finished the bloody oxen and bloody sun. I liked how it swerved over into drunken babble at the end. First time Bloom and Stephen actually interact as I recall. Was a bit dense to get through but once I figured out the gimmick it was fun to compare prose styles (the science bit was very Royal Society of the end of the 19th century). Now we're off to a brothel it seems!
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Sep 19, 2020 23:45
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lol it appears I was mostly off with my author styles! Ah well, I'm barely literate as it is
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Sep 19, 2020 23:51
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I mean I think Joyce isn't just limited to the authors people have picked up in that section, he likes to put in things people don't always detect. For example people don't tend to pick up on Chaucer but there's definitely snatches of the Parson's Tale in there: "Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among the common folk" or however it goes (of all the Canterbury Tales he chooses the one nobody likes lol––he wrote an essay on it, in Italian, as part of his examinations. I think he got full marks for it). It's definitely dense, and it's interesting seeing the quasi-father-son relationship develop in this episode. For me it's got a hint of Tristram Shandy, with the men downstairs discussing things at length while this one woman is audibly in labour. It's the most extended meditation on birth and sex in the English comic novel tradition after all. I'm just not so interested in the medicals' banter about 'copulation without population' or other birth-related things, and it sort of sours my impression of Buck Mulligan too with his weird eugenics schemes. Now I think of it, that adds another layer to the whole 'omphalos' thing, with his Dr. Strangelove style idea of the tower being a kind of starting point for a stronger Irish race. But it's a hump (in my view) and you got over it––the rest of the novel is a fantastic whirlwind of different ideas that all begin to tie the whole novel together. Especially the next one, which is like a weird burlesque simulacrum of things that have come before and things that have been up until now only subtextual. It's a novel within a novel, practically, can't wait to hear what you make of it. And how it caps off the 'Wanderings of Ulysses' section of the novel.
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Sep 20, 2020 00:06
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Also, if you 'found' authors in there but they aren't in the official lists of people Joyce pastiched, it's not really a 'mistake' on your part in my opinion. This is kind of just how Joyce works. I don't think there are really 'mistakes' in that vein, in a way that they would be in other authors. If the echo exists, the echo exists
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Sep 20, 2020 00:07
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J_RBG posted:Now I think of it, that adds another layer to the whole 'omphalos' thing, with his Dr. Strangelove style idea of the tower being a kind of starting point for a stronger Irish race. He actually states it explicitly, with the omphalos being an obelisk he will construct in the center of the island. And the idea of the navel cords weaving the generations together came out of this chapter (or came up again) as well. Bloom's meditation on age and sons and his admiration for Stephen but disdain for how he "wastes" himself on this rabble was great. I might actually get through this damned thing! Hell I'm half tempted to email my old professor and give him the old "ok I know its late but I've finally managed to get through this and only have Absalom Absalom to finish from the reading list so anytime you want to email me the exam that would be great also could you reverse that F I got over 30 years ago? TIA" as a joke J_RBG posted:Also, if you 'found' authors in there but they aren't in the official lists of people Joyce pastiched, it's not really a 'mistake' on your part in my opinion. This is kind of just how Joyce works. I don't think there are really 'mistakes' in that vein, in a way that they would be in other authors. If the echo exists, the echo exists Good to know. I assumed I would miss a ton because I have not read what commonly would have been read in the late 19th century but he seems to specifically take the piss out of certain authors. Glad I wasn't completely on crack with thinking I heard the voice of Chaucer though!
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Sep 20, 2020 01:48
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The Yale Modernism lab section on this chapter says thisquote:Don Gifford identifies thirty-three different authors and styles that Joyce parodies in the episode and admits many more can be found in the text. drat. Also quote:The multiplicity of styles in Oxen of the Sun shows at once the triviality and the power of form. In the midst of quick stylistic shifts—an imitation lasts as little as twelve lines—the plot remains consistent, and form is show to be inessential to the plot. At the same time, the style shifts dramatically alter our overall impression of the scene. With each shift, we can begin to isolate the salient features of each author or style parodied and find that, although plot is not contained in style, our changed perspective on it can enhance our understanding of it. Like a Cubist painting, Joyce’s use of multiple narrative voices in the same plot allows us to see it from every perspective at once. Totally Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Sep 20, 2020 |
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Sep 20, 2020 02:32
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HA!!!quote:For example, the episode contains several catalogues of the characters present at the party, and we gain a new understanding of the group with every style shift. The catalogue given in the style of Sir Thomas Malory’s (d. 1741) Morte d’Arthur describes the group in terms of their occupations: EAT IT SPARKSNOTES 
Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 20, 2020 |
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Sep 20, 2020 02:36
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Oxen and the Sun rules. I get that people consider it a slump but if u take your time with it and be patient it's really the stylistic pinnacle of the book and seems pivotal for what comes after in the Wake. Its as if Joyce gets the idea to write that section of Ulysses underneath a patina of made up etmologyical history. If Joyce hated writing it it definitely doesn't show lol. I'm enjoying it don't get me wrong, but it's so proto 1963 (somehow) I keep tripping.
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Sep 20, 2020 19:23
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This next section is something else. Very funny, dreamlike, so I wonder what is actually happening. It really is reprising everything that has come before. It seems to go on for a while so if better buckle in. It's the court scene right now...
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Sep 20, 2020 23:45
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That extended 'hallucination' leading us through Bloom's rapid changes in public status is the funniest poo poo in the book imo. The court scene especially. But later on when Bloom meets Bella Cohen is also incredible, as prescient as literature gets in terms of 'postmodern' humour and tastes. Astonishing how well it holds upalmost there posted:Oxen and the Sun rules. I get that people consider it a slump but if u take your time with it and be patient it's really the stylistic pinnacle of the book and seems pivotal for what comes after in the Wake. Its as if Joyce gets the idea to write that section of Ulysses underneath a patina of made up etmologyical history. If Joyce hated writing it it definitely doesn't show lol. Yeah this is true to be fair, in fact this latter section of the novel, where he isn't thinking so much about serialisation was all written relatively quickly compared to the rest of the novel (1920 onwards really) and contains a lot of the germs of FW which he started in 1923. But especially Oxen, the idea of all of written history being made visible to us simultaneously within this small contemporary moment ... it's remarkable really how much carries across from Ulysses to FW really. We tend to treat the two as entirely separate works but they share a lot of similar ideas.
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Sep 21, 2020 00:31
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J_RBG posted:That extended 'hallucination' leading us through Bloom's rapid changes in public status is the funniest poo poo in the book imo. The court scene especially. But later on when Bloom meets Bella Cohen is also incredible, as prescient as literature gets in terms of 'postmodern' humour and tastes. Astonishing how well it holds up Holy poo poo
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Sep 22, 2020 06:42
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That was pretty amazing all around if sometimes confusing with the torrent of references coming rapid fire. It reprised all of the themes from earlier, and I loved how the hallucination started to wane after Stephen hit the light, and completely snapped back to normal after the soldier knocked him the gently caress out. Absinthe hallucinations I guess? Helluva thing.
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Sep 25, 2020 04:23
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About half way through the next episode, which is written in the overwrought, circuitous style I associate with the late 19th century, which makes me feel a bit of Stephen's presumably growing hangover. Also matches they wandering through Dublin. Right now they are in the can stand Stephen trying to suck down a coffee, discussing the stories of the sailor.
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Sep 26, 2020 23:03
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Just finished Eumaeus. I think I really liked it, despite the writing style. Was strange that when we finally have Bloom and Stephen speaking one to another Stephen gave so little--of course he's still blotto, but really has his head stuck deep in his references and analogies. And Bloom tried so hard to. The horse making GBS threads at the end was a really nice touch. Also the recap of many of the events of the Odyssey and earlier day was perfect
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Sep 28, 2020 03:58
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I think Eumaeus really grew on me after my first readthrough, I think the deliberately circuitous writing style is hilarious in parts. I've heard it described as what would happen if Bloom were writing a novel. It's got that special semi-sleepy atmosphere that the first chapter has, which is a huge achievement I think (and in fact the final three episodes mirror the first three in some interesting ways). It's a bit like a comedown after the heights of Circe. The next episode is probably my favourite one, by the way. It's got a similar kind of 'tired' style to it but it's also got some of the most beautiful writing, ever imo.
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Sep 28, 2020 09:05
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More beautiful than The Dead even? 
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Sep 28, 2020 16:07
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That was pretty great. I wasn't put off by the interrigational style in the least, I actually found it really refreshing to read, and the episode went by in a breeze. Again most people and events from the day get catalogued at some point or other. It's interesting how all of the climactic moments in the book seem to fall so flat--well not so much flat, as in the delivery never lives up to the build up, but end in kind of a wet fart. It's really human and real. I see what you meant about it being in that sleepy style again, was a nice wind down, getting ready for bed, banging your head in the dark (who hasn't done that?). I'm still interested in the whole nature of his relationship with Molly, apparently that is coming next chapter from her perspective, but his rationalization of the affair(s) was again very human and believable to me.
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Oct 4, 2020 03:45
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also once I'm done I'm going to dig up some academic articles on how Bloom's lapsed jewishness plays out in the novel, seems rife for analysis
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Oct 4, 2020 04:02
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Bilirubin posted:That was pretty great. I wasn't put off by the interrigational style in the least, I actually found it really refreshing to read, and the episode went by in a breeze. Again most people and events from the day get catalogued at some point or other. I think only Sirens ends in a wet fart (  )... the end of this chapter is my favourite ending, I think - the way the language just falls asleep on the page is wonderful.Regarding Bloom's Jewishness: do we learn anything about his mum? If I remember correctly he's not actually Jewish. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Oct 4, 2020 |
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Oct 4, 2020 04:52
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Safety Biscuits posted:I think only Sirens ends in a wet fart (:v)... the end of this chapter is my favourite ending, I think - the way the language just falls asleep on the page is wonderful. His father converted to protestantism, Bloom converted to catholicism. Still he in this chapter fussed over not keeping kosher. Although I forgot its a matrilineal thing good point By wet fart I mean the payoff of the conversation with Bloom and Stephen, the meeting itself didn't deliver catharsis. Just more awkwardness as Bloom felt the need to display education he didn't have, and Stephen was required to display human communication skills he doesn't possess (although he got better at this as he sobered up). The falling asleep but, with the hypnogogic text and giant full stop were excellent. I'm already seeing how I will need to reread this: a friend (edit: from another site) just started reading it and posted a bit he was reading from episode 2 and I noticed that Gerty was a student in Stephen's class LMAO Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Oct 4, 2020 |
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Oct 4, 2020 05:28
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Bilirubin posted:By wet fart I mean the payoff of the conversation with Bloom and Stephen, the meeting itself didn't deliver catharsis. Just more awkwardness as Bloom felt the need to display education he didn't have, and Stephen was required to display human communication skills he doesn't possess (although he got better at this as he sobered up). The falling asleep but, with the hypnogogic text and giant full stop were excellent. I was just making a fart joke. It's not cathartic but I found it satisfying, anyway: Bloom is home at last and Stephen strides off into the future.
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Oct 4, 2020 12:54
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Ithaca is 'home', and musically home is the 'key', and Joyce called Ithaca kind of like a 'key' for the rest of the book. Something that contains all the information you need, perhaps, for decoding the book, laid out in cold fact and abstract patterning. My favourite part of Ithaca, and by extension Ulysses, is the water sentence. Something about this endless list generated from something so simple. It's a distillation of everything Ulysses is about I think, a manifesto moment––a simple molecule with endless variety, like 16 June 1904, or Leopold Bloom. (That sentence also ends in a kind of deflated way). The book has basically ended by the huge full stop. Penelope is like its own book, a sealed-off circular world. But once you read it I find it spills backwards from its ending position and comes to encompass the whole book (again, just like Circe and Ithaca). I actually wonder what Joyce is doing with those deflated endings, possibly avoiding the notion of a satisfying conclusion. He ends Finnegans Wake on the word 'the', which he says is deliberately one of the weakest possible endings to a sentence. But that comes with the more uplifting corollary that nothing is ever really finished. Essentially: Safety Biscuits posted:It's not cathartic but I found it satisfying, anyway: Bloom is home at last and Stephen strides off into the future. The other thing I don't think I noted before but you could describe Bloom's journey of the day literally as a circle, as in he goes out from Eccles St and comes back again. But on the Homeric level it's a line, not a circle. He starts his day on Calypso's island, Ogygia, and then finally gets to Ithaca. Ogygia is right in the centre of the sea, the furthest possible point from human civilisation, and Ithaca is obviously Odysseus' destination. But in Ulysses they're the same place. I have to admit I don't quite know what Joyce is doing there
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Oct 4, 2020 14:11
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May as well post the water sentence in full: quote:What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier,
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Oct 4, 2020 14:16
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Safety Biscuits posted:I was just making a fart joke. It's not cathartic but I found it satisfying, anyway: Bloom is home at last and Stephen strides off into the future. Sorry I missed  . It was certainly satisfying.J_RBG posted:Ithaca is 'home', and musically home is the 'key', and Joyce called Ithaca kind of like a 'key' for the rest of the book. Something that contains all the information you need, perhaps, for decoding the book, laid out in cold fact and abstract patterning. My favourite part of Ithaca, and by extension Ulysses, is the water sentence. Something about this endless list generated from something so simple. It's a distillation of everything Ulysses is about I think, a manifesto moment––a simple molecule with endless variety, like 16 June 1904, or Leopold Bloom. (That sentence also ends in a kind of deflated way). The book has basically ended by the huge full stop. Penelope is like its own book, a sealed-off circular world. But once you read it I find it spills backwards from its ending position and comes to encompass the whole book (again, just like Circe and Ithaca). The medieval story Stephen tells of the kid murdered by the jew's daughter was an odd note. I get that Stephen was trying to say they were both outsiders and thus at greater risk but it seemed really a sour note (and Bloom took it as such). It's another reason why I think Stephen has a lot to learn about human interaction. Then again, good poets jarr you from your comfortable normalcy so maybe not?
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Oct 4, 2020 16:08
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