The Ulysses Experiment

Well on top of being rather later this week (technically last week), I don’t have much to say. I must admit, this section was a bit too oblique for me, and it was only with the help of my fellow experimenters that I understood some parts. And even then knowing what I was supposed to be looking out for, and following Ben’s advise reading the last 4 pages, I stil hardly noticed it e.g. the wank scene. I also misunderstood, thinking he had visited an uncle. Again thanks to fellow experimenters for putting me straight on that. I suppose the thing I find most frustrating is the number of words I don’t understand (perhaps Israel has it a bit worse and i shouldn’t complain.) and the number cultural / historical references I know nothing about. I feel like I should be sitting with a dictionary and Encyclopedia Britanica or something. But I have to say after reading Israel’s post, I’m going to approach how to read this in from different angle and try not get bogged down in what I don’t understand. Rather enjoy what I do, and try to just flow along in what I don’t. So thanks to my fellow experimenters once again. Sorry for not adding much this week and for only really talking about myself I just realised. Oh well, I’m sure I’ve broken another rule now

A “paja mental” is a spanish expression that I think it fits with the pages we read this time. Literary means a “mental jerk” which is what I think Stephen suffers in his brain before having a real one. The author tries to put on words every single thought Stephen has while having a stroll in the beach. So any attempt to find a meaning is useless (unless you are Freud or an argentinian…) I did read once that this is what made Joyce´s book so relevant at the time. It supposed a revolution in the rule of writing, basically becouse he does not follow any. The sense of being lost in translation when reading the story can make you throwing the towel and stop reading it… till you realize that you need to change the traditional way of reading a story in order to enjoy the book. Here there is not an structure, just strokes without an aparent conection. In this sense it is like an abstract painting, you cannot approach it as realist picture where you can identify the pictures and the landscape but like a mass of colours put in such a way that can provoke a strong feeling in you without knowing the reason why. This is the success of the Ulysses, you like it but you dont know why.

I agree with Sasha, this section was particularly difficult to follow.

What’s more difficult to follow though may be my notes- e.g. “a man, a woman, a dog, paranoia” and “placed a booger on a ledge”- valuable stuff. “Diaphane?” “Elsinore’s tempting flood.” “Danevikings.”

The basic summary goes like this:

Stephen leaves the school, and considers a visit to his Aunt’s house while walking on the beach. A man, a woman, a dog, and apparently some paranoia, walk by, while Stephen is almost entirely preoccupied by his own thoughts. He thinks back to his time in Paris, where he learned that his mother was dying.

Done.

So simple.  Except for that part where he worries that his ashplant will float away.  Because that’s the part of the story where Stephen rubs one out to the memory of a passing foot belonging to a young French lass.

Now, I must admit to cheating. First I looked up both the words “ineluctable” and “diaphane”. Second, I re-read a lot. A lot a lot. I’ve re-read the last 4 pages about five times now, and you should too. The words made no sense whatsoever, and I found myself completely lost from sentence to sentence, so I kept going back.

Just as the man can shroud the act of completing math exercises in a few mystifyingly esoteric sentences, here we receive four monstrous pages, gridlocked with words, all to describe a single session of public masturbation.  Insane, really.

“Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all.”

That is apparently Joycian for “my penis is in my hand.”

There are other parts to the passage, and they’re probably quite important. Stephen tears the end of the headmaster’s letter off to make a note for himself, I have no idea what it is or why he writes it.  He’s also losing his teeth.  He puts his nose pickings carefully on a rock ledge.  The end.

as sasha has noted its getting a bit denser…… i had to re-read many sentences and paragraphs, though in the end, scarcely anything in the way of action happens in this section. stephen walks along the shore and he thinks. he thinks of the history of his country and the land he walks and of the history of himself—of his father (who is maybe dead? or at least estranged) and his mother and his aunt and uncle (who he thinks about visiting but in the end does not) and his brother and of Paris and of a woman. [he also sees a dead dog and thinks about that drowned man. some other people are walking along the shore and their dog finds the dead dog and then digs something up and the much beloved  fox burying his grandmother riddle makes an encore.] eventually he tears off a piece of the headmaster’s letter and he sits down and writes a bit. then he jerks off, using language and morbidity to get off—’in a quivering of minnows’. awesome. also awesome: ‘oomb, all-wombing tomb’. [i hope to do drawings on these eventually but if i don't in the end at least know i meant to.] he has no handkerchief—-mulligan took it?—so he leaves his seed where it has fallen and leaves some snot on a rock.

i also wanted to say that i like how joyce uses these very tangible items like the letter and the handkerchief to carry what action there is through these heady sections.