Moving Day

Annnnd, here we go! The brand new interface for ULYSSES "SEEN" is ready (well, mostly) to go. There's still other features we'll be building into it, and a lot more pages of new content to put up there but, finally, things are contained on the one site allowing you to move freely back and forth between the comic and easy-to-use Readers' Guide that helps people solve some of the novel's mysterious and ask direct question. Heck, no you can even help me get the damn thing done right by including links, suggesting casting for character and telling me just what Stephen's hat is supposed to look like (I really mean that last one, by the way. I haven't found a conclusive answer there yet...).

Make sure you check out the "How to Use This Comic" on the way in. There's some new features to how the comic is presented that we're all pretty proud of, but they're pretty unexpected at first. I'm not going to say any more here because, well, I want you to read it, don't I?

-Rob

http://www.ulyssesseen.com/ 

Making and managing the "Twitter Schema"

Everybody getting read for Bloomsday '09? Good. Because the changes start here tomorrow night.

We've got a brand-new web interface for following and interacting with the novel while reading the comic adaptation. There's a lot of bright, shiny new features there for people to play and, frankly, a lot of ways to help us get this thing done right.

But we can't show it to you yet. Not until tomorrow night.

To get people jazzed up for the new interface and get prepped for Bloomsday, we've been playing around with another nifty new application over on Twitter (to join us there just look for UlyssesSeen in your twitter search).

I've taken my general "schema" for how the novel's events and actions unfold, with some quotes, explanation of themes and links to historical figures, and created a "tweet-file" for getting your ULYSSES on 140 characters at a time. Starting on June 9th and running through the 15th, we'll be tweeting these tidbits for a few hours a day. Two or three chapters a day is a lot of Joyce of course, but hopefully this will help new readers get a little deeper into the novel before its celebration on the 16th. Reading ULYSSES for the first time is not an easy task, as anyone can tell you, but we hope this opens up some of the mysteries and cuts through to some of the reasons why this novel is so beautiful, funny, sad and really an experience you'll want to have again and again.

Then on Bloomsday itself, June 16th, an abbreviated and rather comical update of the day's events will come your way through twitter. Twenty hours of "what's Mr Bloom is doing now" in all its dirty detail. Pretty funny stuff when you break it all down.

So time to empty the cache on your browser, open yourself to the craziness of twitter and get ready for our new user interface tomorrow. Brand new ways to look at and enjoy a timeless and beautiful novel and some help getting through the harder bits of its earthiness to the gems of language and liveliness that form its center.

-Rob  

Yes, well, things do change you know...

Soon, very, very soon in fact, we are moving. Things are happening. The world is shifting and, somehow, when you least reason why, you are a part of that foot-stirring jag to the left.

But you can join us over there. It's an easy hop beneath the doorjam on a rickety California morning.

Got your Twitter going? If so, go to UlyssesSeen on Twitter and, definitely definitely same some storage space for Bloomsday.

No Twitter? Then find us on facebook for your latest updates and images.

Or stand by your subscription here for up-coming information (tease, tease....).

Something is coming for Bloomsday, Joyce fans, something that we've been planning for a long time. I really hope that those of you who've put their time in following this project are ready to take it to the next level. Otherwise Josh and I have been losing a lot of sleep over nothing...

-Rob

James Joyce's Ulysses, "Telemachus" episode, No. 29

[Cf. 1922 6:7-28; Gabler 1:112-134]

One thing that strikes me on reading this passage is Mulligan's none-too-subtle playing of "the class card" with Stephen. "Dogsbody" has all kinds of associations, and will gather even more in the "Proteus" episode, but at the very least it refers to an underling or a "gofer." Mulligan also teases Stephen for his "second leg" trousers, his improper etiquette, and even offers his own old clothes to him. We'll soon learn he's wearing Mulligan's boots already. ["Poxy Bowsy" is glossed in Gifford, but basically means vd-ridden lout.]

Stephen's insistence that he can't wear grey is pretty extreme. Gifford's gloss is very useful--like many other entries, it "reminds" us of things we don't yet know, that Stephen's mother died on June 23, 1903, and so it's been almost a full year... though we actually won't find out it's June 16, 2004 for a few hundred pages yet. Gifford observes that under the strictest standards of Victorian mourning, a son would wear only black for a full year after his mother's death, so Stephen's within that period. Mulligan catches the irony of Stephen's assiduous sartorial etiquette and his cruel treatment of his mother, but we don't necessarily feel better about Mulligan for this.

Point of trivia: if you're following along in your Gabler edition, you'll see that several of Mulligan's lines here end with exclamation points [Dogsbody! Insane! Bard!]. He's quite an exclaimer. The exclamation points appear in the Rosenbach manuscript, but not in the 1922. Because we're following the '22 here, they're not used. Write them in if you like.

Point of admiration: I love how Rob has Mulligan using the mirror here.

so, riddle me this:

1. We've been wondering what the mirror should look like. Anyone have a good sense of what the cracked lookingglass of a servant should look like? Please post a picture.

2. About that dogsbody. What difference does it make, given the trends and themes of this chapter, that Mulligan is talking about Stephen's body and his appearance?

3. Why is it important that Stephen is so hyper-observant of the etiquette of mourning? Can you answer this question by going through Hamlet or the Odyssey?

James Joyce's Ulysses, "Telemachus" Episode, No. 28

(cf. 1922, 5.31 - 6.6; Gabler, 1.100-11)

Stephen has just been accused by Mulligan of performing more than feeling his grief, of being the "loveliest mummer of them all" who prominently wears his mourning for his mother, but who refused to honor her final wish before she died.  Stephen doesn't rise to the bait, but continues acting the part.

This is one of the first pages where we see Stephen's internal monologue placed in the context of external events.  He remembers a dream he had shortly after his mother's death, in which she appears as a ghost (remember Hamlet? we finally have our ghost!). We will see this dream in different variations throughout the novel. For now, a few things jumped out at me... first, note the emphasis placed on smells. Joyce is one of the great smell writers... "wetted ashes" has always struck me as an amazingly precise and familiar smell.  Also the green of the bile and the green of the bay... just moments ago, Mulligan suggested that 'snotgreen' be a new color for Irish art.  We get a sense of what Stephen thinks of that idea here.

Finally, note how Rob has drawn Stephen's pose here.  Joyce writes that Stephen has his palm on his brow,  but Rob has focused on how Stephen is looking at the bay "beyond the threadbare cuffedge," a marvelous bit of framing.

hopes for further discussion from you, gentle reader:

--the color green

--parallax and visual framing

--ghosts

--motherhood

James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus Episode, No. 27

[cf. 1922, 5:26-30; Gabler 1:94-99]

Art?  Art Brockway?  Are you out there Art?  I will always think of you with this passage.  When Art and I were grad students at the University of Miami, he wrote what I'm sure is the definitive article on Joyce and mummery.  There is little else to say, or rather, there would be little else to say were your correspondent not writing from Philadelphia, mummery capital of the world.

(image from gophila.com, taken by R. Kennedy)

Again, I'm hoping Art will chip in at some point, but on the most basic level, when Mulligan calls Stephen a "mummer," he's saying that he's disguised, he's pretending to be something he's not.

The tradition of mumming came to Philadelphia from many places, but the strongest thread runs from Ireland & the other Celtic countries. By tradition, around the holidays, a gang of costumed men would go from house to house and basically trick or treat for booze.  There might be a play or a performance involved, but there's a costume and some kind of entertainment and probably "something sinister" in having them come into your home... as Mulligan suggests.

And as for sinister... here's another question for the masses.  Was Joyce left-handed?  Stephen, based on a number of references in this book, seems to be a leftie.  And Joyce's corresponding figure in Finnegans Wake, Shem the Penman, is left-handed.  Of course, even if Joyce were left-inclined, no school in Ireland would have let him actually write that way...

James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus No. 26

[Cf. 1922 5:20-27, Gabler 1:86-94]

We get an important glimpse of Stephen here, as we learn that he refused to pray for his mother at her deathbed. What kind of a**hole doesn't obey his dying mother's wish to pray with her? Discuss.

I mean, yes, Stephen is an Artist of Profound Integrity, who cannot compromise his belief in his unbelief. And yes, we are meant to think of him as kin with Hamlet, with Telemachus, with those who fight to leave behind their lives as boys to become men. And I even think that we are meant to pity Stephen more than a little, who has become so alienated through his extremism.

Mulligan refers to himself and Stephen as "hyperborean." What does this mean? Gifford gives us the basics--it's a classical allusion, to a kind of perfectly youthful master race who lived at the far ends of the earth. More specifically, Gifford pegs the reference to Nietzsche & a passage in The Will to Power, wherein the Ubermensch were described as hyperborean, as beyond the constraints of conventional morality, especially Christian morality.

Anyone out there have more to say about hyperborean? About Stephen's refusal to submit and what we're supposed to think about it?

I love the bottom panel here... Mulligan looking stately and plump indeed, beautifully framed and posed like he's about to start shooting lasers out of his hands. Which would make things interesting. His pose, his position, his framing, all speak together with the authority of Mulligan's perfectly reasonable criticism of Stephen. And Stephen knows it, but he doesn't care.

James Joyce's Ulysses, "Telemachus" No. 25

[cf. 1922 5.18, Gabler 1.85]

First of all, have you found us on Facebook yet?   Yet another in our growing arsenal of tools to bring this strange project to the world.

As I write it's the old man's birthday in Ireland. An auspicious day for a man who tended to be superstitious about the calendar. And as our subject we have a rather glorious image, and we're talking about mothers.  What's could be more appropriate?

A moment ago, Mulligan was quoting Swinburne when he referred to the sea as our "great sweet mother."  He's modulated into George William Russell a/k/a AE, who often referred to nature as the Mighty Mother.  Russell was a preeminent literary figure in turn of the century Dublin, and in 1904 he became the first person to publish a short story by Joyce--in a newspaper he edited called The Irish Homestead.  Russell has a prominent part in Episode 9--"Scylla and Charybdis"--and we'll certainly talk more about him then.

Back here in "Telemachus, Mulligan's comment will lead, a moment from now, into a discussion of Stephen's mother's death.  There's a lot to be said about the different roles of mothers and fathers in Joyce's world--especially in Episode 9.  Very briefly--mothers are associated with ultimate, undeniable truth--truth beyond language.  They may be the one true thing in life (a paraphrase). Paternity, however--especially in the days before genetic testing--was uncertain.  This uncertainty creates an intolerable vacuum, that has to be cemented over with legal, verbal certainties. In "Scylla," Stephen talks about paternity as a "legal fiction," (and you should put as much emphasis on the fiction as on the legal here).  You should also be thinking about Hamlet again, and always!

James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus No. 24

[Cf. 1922: 5:2-15; Gabler 1:67-80]

Much to look at here. Stephen has just been complaining about Haines and his nightmare. Mulligan is changing the topic, staying on his tear about "Hellenization."

In the second panel, Rob has drawn Mulligan and Stephen in an odd pose. Stephen seems to be surprised in mid-phrase, and Mulligan is reaching into his pocket. Specifically he "thrust his hand into Stephen's upper pocket." It's an interesting moment, one that the comic allows us to show the body language for. Mulligan is intruding, being forward, in Stephen's space. "Thalatta thalatta" means, unsurprisingly, "The sea, the sea!" It's from Xenophon. You can look it up...

A small textual point--there's an omission in this early draft--Mulligan says "Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor" --we left out the "your." Also, in the Rosenbach manuscript, Mulligan's first mention of the sea in this moment is "she is our "great" sweet mother." That's in Joyce's handwriting, and it's quite clear. It's repeated a few lines later. But in his errata for the first edition, Joyce specified that he wanted this to be "grey" sweet mother. A nice allusion to grey-eyed Athena, Odysseus' protector, but otherwise obscure.

And as for the Greek-- "Epi Oinopa Ponton" means (according to Gifford) "upon the winedark sea," a common epithet in Homer's Odyssey. This is another moment when I wonder if Joyce was raising another flag to his readers... "Hey! The Odyssey! It's important!" We know the Odyssey is important now, eighty years after it was published... but this might have been a more useful to early readers.

James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus, No. 23

[cf. 1922; 4: 23-35; Gabler 1:50-66]

Stephen and Mulligan are discussing their visitor, Haines, who woke in the middle of the night, apparently screaming about a black panther. Presumably not this kind of black panther.

Many years ago at a Joyce conference in Rome I heard a scholar give a paper that argued that Haines is, at least in part, based upon William Bulfin, an Englishman who wrote a book about his bicycle tours in Ireland at the turn of the century. The book, Rambles in Eirinn, was very popular & reprinted many times. In a passage about Dalkey & Sandycove, Bulfin describes a visit to an old military tower where some young men were staying. I'll steal the excerpted passage from a great RTE website about Ulysses:

On a lovely Sunday morning in the early autumn two of us pulled out along the road to Bray for a day's cycling in Dublin and Wicklow. We intended riding to Glendalough and back, but we were obliged to modify this programme before we reached Dalkey, owing to a certain pleasant circumstance which may be termed a morning call. As we were leaving the suburbs behind us my comrade, who knows many different types of Irish people, said casually that there were two men living in a tower down somewhere to the left who were creating a sensation in the neighbourhood. They had, he said, assumed a hostile attitude towards the conventions of denationalisation, and were, thereby, outraging the feeling of the seoinini.One of them had lately returned from a canoeing tour of hundreds of miles through the lakes, rivers, and canals of Ireland, another was reading for a Trinity degree, and assiduously wooing the muses, and another was a singer of songs which spring from the deepest currents of life. The returned marine of the canoe was an Oxford student, whose button-hole was adorned with the badge of the Gaelic League-a most strenuous Nationalist he was, with a patriotism, stronger than circumstances, which moved him to pour forth fluent Irish upon every Gael he encountered, in accents blent from the characteristic speech of his alma mater and the rolling blas of Connacht. The poet was a wayward kind of genius, who talked with a captivating manner, with a keen, grim humour, which cut and pierced through a topic in bright, strong flashes worthy of the rapier of Swift. The other poet listened in silence, and when we went on the roof he disposed himself restlessly to drink in the glory of the morning. It was very pleasant up there in the glad sunshine and the sweet breath of the sea. We looked out across to Ben Edair of the heroic legends, now called Howth, and wondered how many of the dwellers in the "Sunnyville Lodges" and "Elmgrove Villas" and other respectable homes along the hillside knew aught of Finn and Oisín and Oscar. We looked northwards to where the lazy smoke lay on the Liffey's bank, and southwards, over the roofs and gardens and parks to the grey peak of Killiney, and then westwards and inland to the blue mountains

That was longer than it needed to be, but you get the point. Throughout the book, Bulfin approaches Irish people with the same mystification about how he knows more about the history and the language than they, the natives, do. Ironically, back at the Rome Joyce conference, the scholar who was giving the paper was not aware (nor was I) that Bulfin's book, and the coincidence of his visiting during Joyce's very brief stay at the tower in September of 1904, was well known among the senior Joyceans. I didn't know about it and was glad to learn, but the moral was to be careful you're not teaching your audience something they already know.

The black panther is still a mystery to me. I don't know if there is a particular symbolic referent here, or if it's one of the red herrings Joyce throws into this book. It's certainly odd that Stephen says "black panther" two times in close proximity. Even without a clear allusion, (and I'm looking to you all, helpful readers, to tell me what you know about black panthers), the panther dream suggests that there is something a little unhinged about Haines. Maybe he, with Bulfin as his prototype, is to be seen as approaching his travels in Ireland as a kind of exotic safari (I picture him with his guncase and a pith helmet), and the black panther is the symbol of the exotic otherness of the Irish. You tell me.