Lost in thought

 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 16^th celebrates the main character, Leopold Bloom’s day in Dublin .