Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Ulysses Wednesday - It Begins!


  Happy Bloomsday everyone!  This day in 1904 is the day described in detail in James Joyce's epic novel, Ulysses, and on this Bloomsday I have chosen to begin my quest to read it; ideally before next Bloomsday (hey, I just thought of something -- maybe I could spend next Bloomsday in Dublin! But I digress ....).  I plan to read a little bit every day and each Wednesday write about my progress here:  a) To prove to you that I am actually reading it; and b) to encourage others to read along with me.
  So the edition I am reading says that its the complete and unabridged text "as corrected and reset in 1961".  One problem though:  it is not annotated, so I am going to be using the web (and other readers) to help me along.

  Ready?  Let's go!

      Today I did dip my feet into the novel and made it to page 23.  It is morning, at a tower on the sea-side of Dublin; and Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus are preparing breakfast.  It sounds to me like it's some kind of monastery - they describe a tower - but I can't be sure.  They are joined by an Englishman, known only as Haines, and after breakfast the men all go down to the sea to bathe.  Not much, really, but I am already enjoying the way Joyce uses witty dialogue (though sometimes it is difficult to tell who is speaking) and his descriptions of the sea-coast are quite lovely:
Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet.  White breast of the dim sea.  The twining stresses, two by two.  A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords.  Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.
  We'll see how the day progresses .......

 

2 comments:

  1. I dipped into an extext version of it yesterday and made it about one page or so before I had to do something else. It wasn't TOO bad. Not truly clear, but not awful. Yet...! But you're inspiring me. Maybe, just maybe I'll jump on your bandwagon (and probably fall off, run over by the wagon wheels).

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  2. great start! I hope it goes well.

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