Sculpture by Juan Muñoz
Documenta,
the modern art festival is celebrated in Kassel every five years. This year it
is back.
Kassel is
near Baunatal, the twin city in Germany of San Sebastián De Los Reyes.
There you
can see a sculpture similar to this one
by Juan Muñoz.
It conveys
the idea that although they are being pushed this way and that, people tend to
follow their own minds.
Last Wednesday 15th Juana made the wise suggestion to skip that day’s talks because of the terrible heat wave we are suffering here in Madrid.
Our next and final meeting in this school year will go ahead on June 22nd.
We have opted to have a drink together in a nearby bar, those of us who can be
there.
To the others, have a wonderful summer holiday and we will see you again
in September.
For somebody who studied at U.C.D. and got locked in Martello Tower on a Friday afternoon with her friend Mary the opening chapters of Ulysses were fun to read and I determined to read the novel through to the end on this centenary of its publication.
Buck (Malachi) Mulligan rents the tower as a place to live. Medical students were known for being a cut above the
rest and came well-armed with the classics. Law students too were admired for their
oratory skills. So young and so confident these people from the south. Certainly
we met characters like the Citizen and the others who are introduced to us in
the novel by their first name and surname.
Stephen
Dedalus, son of a highly respected citizen.
Tom
Rochford robin red breasted in cap and breeches.
Blazes Boylan and his smart tan shoes.
Zoe Higgins,
Jack Power, Lenehan O Madden, Professor Mac Hugh, Father Crohley, Myles
Crawford, Martin Cunningham. Little Harry Hughes.
The
remarkable progenitor Theodore.
They are
all making their way to Dignam’s funeral.
Leopold
Bloom in his dark suit stays outside and observes beautiful Gerty.
Gerty knew
one thing: The man who lifts his hand to a woman, save in kindness, deserves to
be branded the lowest of the low.
Bloom had
been wandering the streets of Dublin with a bar of lemon soap in one pocket and
a wrapped up piece of kidney in the other, which eventually gets eaten thankfully.
O’ Connell
St, Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Blackrock,Dalkey, Sandmount Eccles St, Donneybrook,Palmerston Park,
Bachelor’s Walk, Dorset St, Malahide. All these
places bring back fond memories of Dublin to anyone who has lived there. I do hope they have added Boulevard Bloom to the street map.
And then
there are the real characters, his contemporaries. Joyce is kind when he
mentions Oscar Wilde’s love that dares not speak its name. He mentions The
Platonic dialogues.
Bloom is
the witness of Irish politics at a time when the new state is being born. Arthur
Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin. Parnell, Maud Gonne and Gladstone are all
mentioned.
Leo Bloom,
careful spender, careful drinker jumps to the defence of his friend, Stephen.
‘You hit him without provocation,’ he said angrily to the English soldier.
At another
time, ‘I resent violence and intolerance in anything. It never reaches anything
nor stops anything’
He
shepherds Stephen home to the house he lives in with Molly and it is Molly who
finishes the novel remembering her life in Gibraltar, her powers of seduction.
The affinity between the moon and women. Her power to render men insane.
But this is
Bloom’s day.
Joyce through
Leopold explores the points of contact between the Irish and the Hebrew
languages both ancient languages that go back to the time of Noah’s Ark, their
dispersal persecution, survival and revivals. Leopold the Hungarian Jew whose
family is Presbyterian by conversion and Catholic by marriage is able to draw
on a wealth of knowledge. Perhaps this explains the impression that he is not
as reckless as the others who view horse racing as a means to opulence.
Dismissive
of priests. ‘No families themselves to feed….No guests. All for number one.’
He can
paraphrase the Credo to the detriment of the English. But these are his
characters speaking, the Citizen, the medical students, ‘votaries of levity,
seminaries of such frivolity.’ Another example is Taylor’s magnificent speech
in the press office where Leopold works and where they congregate before
closing shop and heading for Mooney's pub. The scholarly repartee provides great entertainment to anyone missing Ireland. You will go back to the book for their company.
There are moments as
lovely as this:
‘His soul
is far away. It is as powerful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.
Malachi observing Stephen’s remorse or remembrances preserved a Druid’s
silence. But it was a misconception on Malachi’s part. The debate which ensued
was an epitome of the course of life.’
And his
prodigious memory of special places in Ireland such as Ballykinler beach where
St Patrick landed.
St Brigid’s
elm at Kildare.
Lynch’s
castle.
Isolde’s
tower
Glendalough
The Bog of
Allen
The Salmon
leap
Monasterboice
Clonmacnois
Killarney
Croagh
Patrick
The Rock of
Cashel
Cong Abbey
Lough Neagh
Tallaght’s
green hills
Jury’s
Hotel
Maynooth college
The Golden
Vale of Tipperary
James Joyce 1882 – 1941.
He moved
abroad in 1902.
Ulysses was
published in1922
Bloom’s Day
on June 16th celebrates the main character, Leopold Bloom’s day in
Dublin .
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction;
While the worst are full of passionate intensity.
This is from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
The quote is also beside Pablo Picasso's painting of Guernica at the Reina Sofía Art Museum in Madrid
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming
Flexibility
BBC Learning English - 6 Minute English / Flexible working
Our talking point for Wednesday 8th June 2022
