Ulysses Update – Wandering Rocks

October 16, 2008

[photo by Jamelah]

This relatively straightforwardly written section of Ulysses was quite a changeup from the complex “Scylla and Charybdis” book just before. In The Odyssey Ulysses chooses to sacrifice 6 of his men rather than risk the Wandering Rocks, which only Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) was ever able to navigate, thanks to some helpful enchantment. Joyce, though, steams right through with 19 atemporal sections that tie together in various ways that are probably much more complex than I picked up on. There are enough links that I could probably sit down and recreate the true chronology of the events, but I’m not that ambitious.

What the section does do, in fits and starts, is elaborate on some important characters and motifs at the center of the novel.

Molly makes an appearance, first hanging a sign looking for a tenant, then tossing a coin to a beggar, a war hero, who is singing a song glorifying the British! Blazes Boylan is portrayed as a dedicated womanizer, flirting with the bookstore clerk. Poor Leopold Bloom buys a book for Molly (while hiding from Boylan) with a rather ironic title: The Sweets of Sin.

Simon Dedalus’ daughters appear, destitute, unsuccessfully trying to pawn some of Stephen’s books so they can buy something to eat. Simon appears with a strange cheerfulness that is obviously borne of drunkenness and gives them a couple of small coins. One of the sisters– Dilly– has spent some of the money that should go toward food to buy a French language primer, hoping to escape Ireland (as Stephen did). Not only is Stephen heartbroken and his family destitute, but Mulligan is concluding that Stephen will never amount to much of a poet.

Priests get a bit of a rough time. Father Cowley has been stripped of his collar for some kind of bad behavior and who appears none too smart. Father Conmee, meanwhile, dreams of going to Africa and converting heathens en masse.

I’m sure there’s much more to the issues of politics and religion than the few tidbits found in these rather obvious notes, but they are mostly beyond my ken!

Tags: james joyce, reading, ulysses, wandering rocks