So I suppose a book as heavily analyzed as Ulysses is worth a second post. There were some interesting responses in the comment thread on the last post, and I wanted to respond to two of those here. First, from Jay:
Also, there’s a lot more good in Bloom than you give him credit for. He’s a very good father, and a better husband in most respects than the typical Dubliner like Simon Deadalus. He’s a progressive free-thinker (which often makes him seem out of step with the other characters). He’s also financially successful despite having changed jobs so many times. To be sure, he has his strange sexual interests, but these have a bearing on his past and only add to the very interesting Molly/Bloom puzzle. To characterize him as “pathetic, a deviant, simpering ne’er-do-well” is not fair. (You can also let this rant serve as evidence that the book can inspire some intense loyalty among some readers).
This seems to be a common view, that Bloom is a better character than I saw; Blamires called him Joyce’s “Everyman” and other critics just marvel at how well fleshed-out he is. Here’s what I saw, beyond his perverted sexual tastes. He’s not, in my view, a good husband; he’s a provider, yes, and that puts him above the median in Joyce’s Dublin, but he is emotionally tone-deaf and has allowed his marriage to atrophy after the death of their 11-day-old son. At a time when his wife needed him to step up, he appears to have done nothing, and while he’s not happy with his non-conjugal marriage and frequent cuckolding, he’s not doing jack about it, and if anything seems to be ignorant of the fact that things he does and says drive Molly further away from him. Perhaps the marriage is beyond repair, but given what I could glean from Molly’s soliloquy at the end of the book, I don’t think so. I also saw little evidence either way on the quality of his parenting or relationship with his daughter; he cares about her, which, again, may put him above the median for fathers in Joyce’s Dublin, but while that’s a necessary condition for good parenting, it’s not sufficient. And even his efforts to help Stephen Dedalus are rooted in self-interest, mostly the prospect of financial gain, not in genuine interest for the boy. His progressive, free-thinking philosophy has just shifted its locus from God to money.
Another reader pointed to this story on the first Chinese translation of Ulysses, from the Atlantic Monthly. Even if you haven’t read Joyce’s book, it’s a great article, and it gives you some flavor for the wordplay in the book, which leads me to this comment from one of the many of you referring to himself as “brian:”
if you go into ulysses (even moreso finnegan’s wake) expecting plot, narrative, story, then you’re missing a large part of what the novel is trying to do. it brings language….sound, rhythm, cadence to an equal field with what we expect from an a-b-c story. there are sections of the book where it is perfecly advisable (and enjoyable!) to remove your critical mind from understanding the characters and their relationships and the plot from its movement to simply ‘hear’ the words and their sounds in a new way.
I understand, and understood from early on in Ulysses, that the play is not the thing – the language is. That’s great. It’s not what I like to read. I love getting lost in a good story – it doesn’t have to be a happy one, or a funny one, or a fast-paced one, as long as it’s a compelling one that’s well-told, with characters I can understand and with whom I can empathize. It’s analogous to the handful of you who criticized my omission of any Radiohead tracks from my list of my favorite songs from the 2000s, but Radiohead’s electronic, sparse, 2000s sound, while critically acclaimed, is just not what I like. I like guitars. I like plots. Sue me.
Concur. I read book because I enjoy the story. If the book is just there to amuse the author and make the reader puzzle out what is being said, then I’m not interested.
Ulysses you read it so I/We don’t have to…
Sounds more like a prison sentence than a read (decided not to do play on words with sentence on its own).
Wow, you quoted me in a post. Cool!
The absolute best aspect of Ulysses, for me, is that Joyce doesn’t hand the reader easy or even final answers on anything. There can be many readings of Bloom, and in fact the Joyce scholar I got a chance to study with would probably argue that each reader will interpret the facts in a way that is unique. So, again, the best part for me is that it is such a rich text to argue about and interpret.
In that spirit, I’ll argue a little more about Bloom’s character. I think there’s great evidence that he’s at least a well-loved father. In Circe, I think, Bloom gets a heartfelt letter from Milly. It’s addressed just to him, while Molly just gets a terse card. He’s the one she confides in. How rare must that have been in Dublin, 1904? Bloom also takes some crap from the other men in town for doing things like looking after his child, doing shopping, and cooking. The other guys marginalize and feminize him for it, but these are modern qualities that I think put him ahead of his time. What about Bloom’s generosity in donating to the Dingam family in the Hades chapter? When asked, almost everyone else in the funeral party makes excuses or changes the subject, but Bloom gives something uber-generous like 5 pounds. (I don’t understand your point about Bloom trying to profit off of Stephen. I read their strange relationship as Bloom carrying out a father/son fantasy that Rudy’s death prevented him from enjoying. Where did the money come in?) Bloom and Molly? I agree with just about everything you said about their relationship, but I’ll also point out that every other character who mentions Molly in the course of the day demeans and sexualizes her. Bloom alone thinks of her as more. I don’t think the marriage is beyond repair, I think it functions in it’s weird way. Have I unmasked the full extent of my Ulysses nerd-love? I should probably stop.
I don’t mean to say that Bloom is a great person (though I guess it’s clear I think he’s a great character). It’s just that I think there’s good along with bad, and plenty of murky in-between. This is what makes the book fun for me, and also why I think it is much, much better if read with a group with which to argue.
Perhaps the volume of critical analysis gets in the way. It’s okay to not like it. I liked it. If you were taught by Jesuits in high school and college you would recognize what Dedalus went through. He is the inverted jesuit. If you look at the historical context of marriage before the first war, you will see that Bloom could not walk away. The focus of one day on the way of a life’s journey attempts to make epic something that is trivial. You don’t mention Nora. The significance of the date is lost. There is a story, of a day in the life of a nobody, coping with his life. And if Bloom has perversions, maybe Lawrence should recognize his own. This period is one which is ripe with tension. The modern and the old fashioned. And Molly settles it all.
The whole postmodern approach to writing runs counter to what the vast majority of people enjoy in literature. Humans like stories, always have, always will.
There’s actually been a good discussion in recent months of how the war against plot seems to be over:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377163804387216.html
A different take and some links here: http://elizabethstark.com/2009/09/16/the-plot-against-plot/
I’m not sure I could find it again, but shortly before they part Bloom starts talking to Stephen about turning him into a professional writer and it’s clear that he either wants to get Molly a part in a Stephen-authored play or to even to manage Stephen – it sort of ruins everything that came before, because to me it reeked of ulterior motive.
For the record, Ulysses does have a plot, it’s just not the most exciting of one.
King Harris – did you mean the reader will appreciate the post-modern or the modern? The articles you linked make your statement confusing.
My mistake, Brian. I meant to say that readers love a good story, and always will – meaning that post-modern writing is not particularly reader-friendly. Post-modern writing pushed plot to the side – as one of those articles says, post-modernism makes plot feel cheap and easy, that a fun read is not good literature. The articles I link to happen to reflect what I think, which is that plot as a central feature of literature is making a comeback after a phase of post-modern writing that was centered on other things, like Ulysses and Gravity’s Rainbow. And I, for one, am glad that this is happening.
Okay, so I’ve considered reading Ulysses but haven’t because, you know, no one seems to like it. My question is why isn’t anyone reading the “new” Ulysses rewritten and edited with punctuation, quotes, paragraphs, etc inserted into it? Is that sacrilege? I don’t know, seems like if you’re trying to enjoy the story and willing to go through the process of reading it with a guide that you should just read the rewritten version.
Anyone care to comment on that? I don’t wish to sound like an idiot here, but can you offer me why I should read it in its original format compared to the rewritten? Is that like reading the Cliff Notes for War and Peace and then telling people “I’ve read War and Peace”? Is it pride in the accomplishment? I’m curious like a cat.
Love the blog, Keith.
Keith, I wasn’t criticizing you for not loving/liking Ulysses in my post. You obviously read critically and with an open mind. To that end, you understand what I was getting at. It’s just not as important for you when reading a novel. Totally cool. I just think it’s unfortunate that many people are willing to dismiss the book simply because it’s ‘hard’ or because it isn’t going to meet their ‘expectation’ of what a novel should be. I also think it’s negligent to dismiss a book/writer without even trying to understand or appreciate what the book/writer is trying to do. For the record, again, I don’t think you do that. You read the book.
I personally think Ulysses has a lot to offer aside form Plot that makes it worthwhile reading and I’d encourage anyone to read it with an open-mind. And don’t just read the book….listen to it!
I did find the comments that criticized Keith’s Radiohead omission odd. It’s not like you can use objective proof to convince someone that they like something. I could probably be convinced that some Ornette Coleman free jazz album is brilliant, but you couldn’t convince me to enjoy listening to it.
Anyway, I haven’t read Ulysses, but a friend lent me a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, which I’m going to try to take a shot at. Are these two pieces of literature difficult for similar reasons?
Dismissing a book because it’s hard may be unfair. However, it seems clear that with Joyce’s comments about all the puzzles and his extravagant use of obsolete words, he was trying to get people to call it a great book BECAUSE it’s hard. I think that’s contemptible.
Brian: I’m with you. I didn’t take it as a criticism of me, but it made a great starting point for something I wanted to say in the first piece but forgot.