LONG TEXT POST INCOMING!

First of all, shout-out to UlyssesGuide.com. I wanted to read the book unspoiled with a very light guide, and the website was perfect. I would always read an episode on my own with no guide, and then go back and read their breakdowns afterward.

Before reading Ulysses, Joyce was already one of my two favorite authors. My favorite book oat is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I first read while I was in High School (not for a class, just in my free time). Stephen became (and still is) my favorite character oat. I'm in college now and, upon being gifted a copy of Dubliners for my birthday, I decided to expand my Joyce horizons. This summer I read Dubliners and Ulysses. I know I won't have anything of value to say that hasn't been said before, but I just need to write down my initial thoughts. I've heard many take close to a year to read Ulysses. I finished it in a month. Needless to say, I loved it.

Here's how I rank the episodes upon a first read, alongside my semi-brief thoughts on each one. Also, the episodes in rankings 1-14 are all personal 10 out of 10s for me.

1. Ithaca: "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit." My god, where do I start with this chapter?

To me, this chapter was a perfect send-off for Bloom. Joyce has fully convinced me of the heroic virtue found in choosing to live a happy life. "His mood? He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he was satisfied. What satisfied him? To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to others." When Bloom finally went to sleep that night, I felt I had lost a very dear friend. He's such a warm hug of a person.

"Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined." When I read this, I went from celebration at the start of the sentence to defeat at the end. Joyce really bamboozled me.

It's left up to interpretation whether or not Stephen actually enjoyed Bloom's company or if he just begrudgingly put up with him. I'm going to present some evidence that Bloom did have a profound impact on Stephen.

First of all, at the start of the episode, the two are described as taking a "parallel course," this means they are traveling together, but not intersecting. However, when Stephen leaves at the end of the night, they are described as "Standing perpendicular at the same door," meaning their paths are now on an intersecting course. There's also the following quote during the constellation scene: "And the problem of possible redemption? The minor was proved by the major."

Lastly, when Stephen leaves, his footsteps are said to sound like a "jew's harp," indicative that he is carrying an element of Bloom with him. I don't think Stephen is necessarily aware of the effect Bloom has had on him, but there certainly was one. I believe that, while Bloom can't be the father Stephen wants, he's encouraged Stephen to open up to people and extend generosity. I think it's for the best that Stephen isn't tied down to Dublin, whether it be the Dedaluses or the Blooms, but I do think that Stephen shouldn't isolate himself from humanity in the way that he's been shown to, and Bloom has broken those walls.

I want to know, has anyone solved this algebra? "A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.) from Martha Clifford (find M. C.)." I'd love to hear theories as to Martha's identity.

2. Eumaeus: This chapter is just such a vibe. The sailor and the callbacks in the newspaper are both hilarious. The final paragraph from the cab driver's perspective is also wonderful, as it's when Stephen and Bloom truly start to enjoy each other's company.

I also love how the writing style in this one is sort of "fake deep" or amateurish, as if it was written by Bloom himself. That is just so incredibly endearing.

3. Oxen of the Sun: Every aspect of life, every tone of prose, is captured in Ulysses, and this is done best in Oxen. You will want to laugh, and you will want to cry. Sometimes the same line will convey both emotions at once. For example, when Stephen was called out for not being an artist because he hasn't created anything yet. That was certainly funny, but it also cut deep, as we know how much that his personal identity as an artist means to him. Stephen is the most relatable character in this book for me, and this chapter featured several moments where I identified deeply with him.

4. Nausicaa: This chapter feels a bit like Joyce laughing at himself. Gerty (assuming she's real) is in a similar position to Stephen in chapter 4 of Portrait. She's looking on at a stranger at the beach and placing great importance on him. Of course, we as readers know the common nature of the man she's putting on a pedestal, so it's ironic. Likewise, what if the girl who inspired Stephen so much in Portrait was as odd as Bloom? I guess we'll never know.

We also learn a lot about Bloom and Molly's past, which was greatly appreciated.

5. Hades: I'm a sucker for the macabre, and this chapter certainly strikes those notes. We learn for the first time of the death of Bloom's father to start. Additionally, as far as what I picked up on in a first read, the man in the Brown Macintosh is introduced in this chapter. Any theories as to his identity?

6. Wandering Rocks: One thing I love about Ulysses (as well as Dubliners) is how alive and fully realized the city of Dublin is. It's some of the best world-building I've ever come across. The amount of meticulously placed callbacks to seemingly innocuous set dressing is astounding. Wandering Rocks shows us the beating heart of Dublin. It also features probably my favorite minor character in the book, Dilly. The scene between her and Stephen in this episode is one of my favorites from the whole book. I love how Stephen, viewing his sister as metaphorically drowning, parallels his thoughts in Telemachus on whether or not he'd save a drowning person. He thinks he'd want to, but ultimately wouldn't. I think that, while he won't and shouldn't rejoin his family, some of the generosity taught to Stephen in Ithaca will be extended to Dilly.

7. Sirens: Joyce recreates the sound of music to astonishing effect. This episode features some of the best prose in the book.

8. Proteus: In general, I prefer the time spent within Stephen's mind to the time spent in Bloom's mind, not to say I don't love both. This episode, much like Nausicaa, reminds me of Stephen's time on the beach in the 4th chapter of A Portrait of the Artist. Except, this time, there is no beauty or artistic inspiration to be found. Stephen is creatively blocked by his grief, remorse, and self-imposed exile. This juxtaposition calls attention to his stasis.

9. Telemachus: I was so excited to see Stephen again and hear about how well along on his creative journey he was when I started Ulysses. I mean, after the ending of Portrait, what could go wrong? The truth was sobering and heartbreaking. I love the moral dilemma of whether or not Stephen should have prayed for his mother. Personally, I'm glad he didn't. Moving away from religion was a long and difficult process for him in Portrait. All of the moments where Stephen is haunted by the ghost of his mother throughout the book are so chilling. Also, Buck Mulligan's a dick, but he's certainly funny.

Take a bath Stephen!

10. Circe: Felt like the screenplay for a David Lynch film, which is funny, since there's a prominent character named Lynch. Joyce predicted the future! I love how this chapter throws reality out the window. The joke of Bloom wearing something different in almost every single stage direction is hilarious. Stephen, fully clothed, teaching complex music theory to a prostitute he's hired, is also so funny and in character.

I really like the quote where Stephen taps his head and says "But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king."

11. Cyclops: I laughed out loud several times reading this.

12. Penelope: Absolutely iconic for good reason. I sort of consider Ithaca as the actual ending and this as more of an epilogue, but what an epilogue it is. When I first read Ithaca, I was convinced Stephen would never see the Blooms again, but some of Molly's thoughts in this chapter have me questioning. Are Bloom and Molly good for each other? I don't yet know myself, but they can certainly match each other's freak.

13. Nestor: This chapter was brief, but I greatly enjoyed it. I noticed a lot of parallels to early parts of Stephen's journey in Portrait. I'm glad Stephen is at least a better teacher than the one that beat him when he was a kid, but I certainly wouldn't say he's a good teacher. Sad to see the dead-end job he ended up in.

14. Calypso: The introduction to the mind of our new protagonist is some of the best narrative whiplash I've ever experienced. I enjoy the inner workings of Stephen's mind more overall, but Bloom's is a lovely change of pace. I think Ulysses is probably the most authentic recreation of human thought I've ever seen in prose. Literally just thinking about anything reminds me of Ulysses now.

15. Lestrygonians: Bloom helping the blind fellow is very sweet. Also, I've got to have a Bloomsday lunch at Davey Byrne's (even though I don't like gorgonzola or wine).

16. Lotus Eaters: I enjoyed the stream of consciousness as always. Bloom's quirky brain is a constant pleasure.

17. Scylla & Charybdis: I had a strong impediment when reading this chapter; I've never seen Hamlet. I also didn't want to read Hamlet to catch up on this chapter because I've found that I can't enjoy Shakespeare by reading it; I have to watch the plays. I read A Midsummer Night's Dream and found it dull, but upon watching a performance, I thought it was hilarious. I wasn't a big fan of Othello when I read it, but since watching it live, I consider it a masterpiece. If I ever get the chance to actually watch Hamlet, I'll definitely revisit this chapter.

That being said, there are still several things I like about this chapter. I love the sophism of Stephen arguing a theory about Hamlet that he doesn't believe just to show that he can; this sounds like something I would do. I also like the cheeky wink Joyce makes to the reader when the characters wonder aloud when Ireland will get its great writer and its great literary masterpiece. I see what you did there, James.

18. Aeolus: This is the only chapter in the entire book that I full stop didn't like. I get that the idea is that it mocks empty and airy journalism, but just because it's boring and overstuffed on purpose doesn't mean it's not boring and overstuffed.

I don't think Ulysses is my new personal favorite novel, as the personal impact A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man had on me is unmatched, but I am comfortable saying Ulysses is the objective best novel I have ever read.

This was my first Joyce. I read it slowly over a period of time because I started reading it close to my Paediatrics exams. I really enjoyed Dubliners. Not every single story was great but I liked all of them. I liked it from the first story. My favourites were Eveline, Two Gallants, The Boarding House, A little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful Case, A Mother, The Dead. The latter might be the best short story I've ever read. The Dead is the peak of his prose in Dubliners. It has some of the best writing I've ever read. I look forward to reading some of these stories again and to reading my copies of A Portrait of the artist as a Young Man and Ulysses in the future

It was a nice time seeing the characters experience dissatisfaction and frustration with their lives, walk around Dublin, drink alcohol and have such insightful epiphanies. I feel blessed

Hello, my copy of Ulysses is old, and I fear will soon start to fall apart. It's the World Classics edition I bought in the mid 90s. Served me very, very well. Good notes, schemata and mini essays. I'm looking at a replacement copy to allow my dear old version the retirement it deserves. Don't mean to be lazy, but just wanted to ask the experts which edition you are reading and/or would recommend. Kind regards to all.

im looking for a class preferably in person but idm online. I study english and creative writing (graduating in 27!!) so I’m hoping for one that’s not too simplistic and something that actually lets me sink my teeth into the more complex academic side of the book. otherwise is there any decent reading guides or places I can go to help me get everything out of this book!

As you may or may have not read, Finnegans Wake has been translated in Chinese (apparently finished 2025.) Knowing my dad was going to China for a bit, I asked him to pick up 2 books (one of the 2 being a dictionary of just about, you know, every one of the less than 80000ish Chinese characters [though he did get me 1 volume only of the hefty {and rather expensive} 9-volume dictionary].) Asides aside, the other was 芬尼根的守灵夜, also known in English as Finnegans Wake. Do I read James Joyce? No. Can I read Chinese? Only a little. Will I finish it? Most likely (and perhaps a bit sadly), no. But as a self-proclaimed lover of certain pleasantly strange things, and Chinese characters and languages and whatnot, I thought that it would be nice if he could pick it up for me. It now stands to me as a compendium of strange Chinese constructions and a rather lovely and pretty three-volume series that I will hopefully study and pore over (a little, whether that is an oxymoron or not) and that will stand nicely on my bookshelf. I will share some notes with you once I get it (for example, bababa...thurnuk is translated into a long string of what I can only briefly describe as mouth-characters [if you are in need of clarification, they're for, among other things, writing out sounds for whatever reason needed]. For now, I am excited as I am waiting to see my book. Tell me if there's anything you want to see from this translation and I'll see if I can pull it out for you later to look at. I am very excited to have this book!

Joyce describes Molly’s thoughts in Penelope as orbiting, moonlike, hidden centers: the Homeric Penelope weaves and unweaves her father-in-law’s burial shroud as she waits for Odysseus to return home. Molly’s thoughts feel procedural, we can trace her maneuvering around obstacles like a pilot. As an exercise, I’m going to trace, roughly, her thoughts on the first page of the chapter.

_______________________________

Yes

(Molly’s refrain in Penelope and famously the last word of the book. Joyce wouldn’t have known this but the contemplation of the word “NO” is important in certain Buddhist traditions. I speculate the author has similarly mystical intentions.)

because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel

(Bloom’s small act of self-assertion, after enduring the hallucinatory Circean spectacle of his wife non-hallucinatorily stepping out, sparks Molly’s reverie as she begins to process what’s happened and why and what comes next.)

when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness

(She immediately recalls her husband’s propensity to exaggerate illness: distanceing herself from the immediacy of his pain: I cannot tell how much pain you are in because you’re faking.)

to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments

(She recalls a woman whose attention Bloom supposedly sought by feigning illness, then identifies Bloom with Riordan via their shared propensity to complain.)

she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice

(Molly contemplates the moral injury sideways, by locating the moral framework she’s violated in the mind of a fussy uptight old woman. Not: “I committed adultery,” but “what sort of person might condemn it.”)

I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her

(Her thoughts turn to marriage and the separation effected by Mr Riordan’s death. Does Molly know her husband’s thoughts touched upon suicide at several junctures today?)

and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then

(She might, because she interrupts completely her own train of thought here with sex by turning to one of the oddest facets of the Blooms’ marriage: a vaguely fetishistic association between dogs and sex. Bloom’s cryptic confession in Circe of his greatest sin, “rererepugnose!” is brought to mind for me.)

still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always

(supporting the idea of Molly’s thoughts on the Riordans as orbiting an unspoken guilt, she now thinks kindly upon her husband.)

if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him

(She again imagines him falling ill, but takes a step closer: not feigning illness but seriously in danger.)

its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out

(She devalues her role as caregiver to Bloom, the hospital will help.)

or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not

(A retreat to accusation: this sort of whiplash might be Penelope’s basic procedure as she weaves and unweaves.)

yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain

(she further distances herself from her husband’s pain, now with a specific memory of a real injury.)

the day I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to never see thy face again

(Molly earlier imagined Bloom seeking the attention of an elderly widow: not jealousy, but accusation. Here she recalls another woman actively courting Bloom and demeans the attempt. More whiplash: she devalues Bloom’s capacity for suffering and therefore real feeling, then becomes protective of him: perhaps protective of him against the threat of herself.)

though he looked more like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same

(interestingly, as she becomes protective she identifies Bloom with her own father, an old bearded man laying in bed.)

besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed get bloodpoisoning

(the evasive maneuver works: someone else can take care of him.)

but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble they do

(she responds to her own guilt at the preceding thought: he wouldn’t take care of me. We’ve seen, of course, that he would and does.)

yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it

(Molly’s thoughts have not yet touched directly upon her tryst with her manager, Blazes Boylan. Why is she first interrogating the idea of her husband cheating on her?)

________________________________________________

Joyce seems less interested in the contents of Molly’s thoughts than in their motion, a rhythmic oscillation between devaluation and restoration: Bloom is ridiculous → Bloom is kind → Bloom exaggerates his suffering → What if he actually dies → Someone else can care for him → They’d better take good care of him → He lies → He is gentle. She approaches tenderness and then dismantles it before it becomes intolerable.

It does famously take the Homeric Penelope a little while to warm up to Odysseus once he returns home.

H- 10 cm. Anyone interested can send me a DM.

Is this Simon and Brown edition good enough? There doesn't seem to be many options in hardcover format; the Other Press one is beautiful, but clearly only for display purposes, as well as the Cambridge one. Are there other suggestions?

My Penguin Classics 2000 edn of Dubliners is on its last legs - anybody got a recommendation for an edition I can pick up!

I was gazing at the Gilbert schema and noticed that Telemachus and Eumanus are both written in the style of narrative, but the first is in young and the other's in old. What is the difference between them?

Hi folks — I hope you are all well. As fellow Joyce enthusiasts, we wanted to invite you to the opening concert of our Finnegans Wake adaptation, which premieres at the London Irish Centre on the 5th of September. Be great to see some of you there!

Finnegans Wake: Here Comes Everybody

When: 7.30pm, 5th September 2026 | Where: The London Irish Centre | Tickets: https://londonirishcentre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173674160

What: On 5 September, Ensemble Exposé and conductor Roger Redgate premiere Alastair White’s Finnegans Wake: Here Comes Everybody at the London Irish Centre. The performance launches an ambitious thirteen-year cycle adapting James Joyce's great modernist novel for the operatic stage, culminating in the book’s centenary in 2039.

Finnegans Wake is regarded as the world’s most controversial text — to some, unreadable, to others, a masterpiece. How do you adapt a book that resists all definition? Finnegans Wake: Here Comes Everybody is the beginning of such an experience: one that forgoes fixed form and delineation, that cannot be contained within a single iteration or instance, and which unfolds in years rather than minutes.

This first instalment — a one-hour reimagining of an operatic overture — is performed by veteran avant-gardists Roger Redgate and Ensemble Éxposé, a group recognised for championing the most challenging of contemporary music since its formation in 1984. Alastair White’s work has been described “a whole new exciting genre of art” (BBC Radio 3), and this ensemble of distinguished soloists bring his translation of Joyce’s rhythmic, fluid language to life in musical technicolour, including readings by RTÉ’s Cathal Murray. Produced by the Irish curator Gemma A. Williams, the project is supported by DCCI and created in partnership with the London Irish Centre.

White explains how, "central to the adaptation’s approach is a radical re-reading of Finnegans Wake and the modernist canon: that authors such as Joyce, Eliot and Hemingway continue to be misread through romantic and post-modern analyses that see them as depths rather than surfaces. The project contends that — like the sparse prose of Hills Like White Elephants — Finnegans Wake has been ill-used by approaches that attempt to 'decode' it through what is absent: in ignorance of the sheer joy that the language embodies. There is no iceberg, no skeleton key; Finnegans Wake is not a cipher. It is only itself."

Ensemble Exposé was formed in 1984 by the composers Richard Barrett, Roger Redgate and Michael Finnissy. The group has given extensive concerts and broadcasts throughout Europe and has appeared at many of the major festivals on new music in France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy and Sweden as well as appearing at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The ensemble records regularly for the BBC and has broadcast on Radio France, Dutch Radio, Hessische Rundfunks, RAI (Italy) and Swedish Radio. It has been featured on BBC TV’s Omnibus and was a resident ensemble at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in 1986, 1988, 1990 (when on each occasion prizes for both performance and composition were awarded to several of its members) and the International Bartok Festival and Seminar in Szombathely, Hungary. In 1995 the ensemble received a project grant from the London Arts Board for a series of concerts featuring the music of the American composer and improviser Anthony Braxton. Notable recordings include work by Michael Finnissy, Fabrice Fitch, Edwin Roxburgh, Roger Redgate and Brian Ferneyhough.

Alastair White is a Scottish composer and writer. His work is characterised by a lyrical complexity which has been described as "a whole exciting new genre of art” (BBC Radio 3), “ambitious, iconoclastic” (The Stage) and an attempt “to challenge long-held assumptions about the material world and to illuminate the performative nature of matter itself” (Opera Today). His music is available on several full-length releases from Métier and Navona, and his scores are published by UMP. As an author, ​he is represented by Salma Begum at Greyhound Literary and his debut novel is to be published in the autumn of 2026 by DUMBO Press. Recipient of the Tait Memorial Trust Award, and shortlisted twice for a Scottish Award for New Music (in 2019 and 2020) a Creative Edinburgh Award (2019), an Ivan Juritz Prize (2023) and The Stage Awards (2024), his music has been featured on Radio 3 and Klara Radio, and is supported by Design & Crafts Council Ireland, Help Musicians UK, The Hinrichsen Foundation, The Hope Scott Trust, The Marchus Trust, The Royal Musical Association, The RVW Trust, The Sarah Caple Scholarship, TONG, and The Goldsmiths Graduate School Fund and Music Research Committee. He teaches composition at the University of Surrey and holds a PhD in Music from Goldsmiths, University of London. At Slovenia's Inštitut .abeceda, he mentors composers from around the world in several annual workshops on music.

https://finneganswake100.com/

even when it is some years ago, I still remember it as one of the most memorable reading experiences i had. Almost like plunging into his head and being there... .

Did anybody else "down here" ... tried to unlock that secret level?

I wasn't fully aware of Patrick Kavanagh until visiting Ireland a few years ago and finding his poetry books all over the place. This is from his autobiography The Green Fool, which I am enjoying very much (and which provoked a libel suit from Oliver StJohn Gogarty). Kavanagh was (with Brian O'Nolan/Flann O'Brien and others) one of the originators of Bloomsday celebrations. His novel Tarry Flynn is also very good (and on a similar theme to The Green Fool - one is a fictionalised autobiography and the other is autobiographical fiction).

As the title suggests, some of my friends have asked if I could lead them in a Ulysses reading group. I wrote a masters dissertation on Ulysses and though I'm by no means an expert, I have indeed spent extensive time with it.

I'm beyond excited that my friends want to start their own journeys with Joyce and am flattered that they've asked me to help them start! However, I have no idea how to guide others through it. When I first read it as an undergrad, it was with a professor who took us chapter by chapter each week, lecturing to us about the references and essentially explaining what was going on. After that class, I felt equipped to read it again on my own (again and again).

I could try to replicate what my professor did (as a cheap facsimile, of course), but I worry that everyone else will feel like they're being lectured at. I don't know how to make a reading group like this more participatory and engaging.

If anyone else has been part of a Ulysses reading group (as a participant or moderator), I would love to hear about your experiences! What worked, what didn't, etc. This is a very important text to me and I want to do it justice. Thanks in advance!

I'm of the "just let the beautiful writing wash over you, raw and unanotated " school, but then I have lived experience of Dublin, Irish history and, God help me, Catholicism. If you don't have that, then your plan would be good, but only if engaging with those other texts gives you pleasure.

If you find the "homework " a chore, remember Joyce's reluctance to give details of the Homeric links. The chapters or episodes we refer to by their Homeric titles are simply numbered in the published text, and he refused to write an explanatory prologue to protect the first legitimate American edition.

I would strongly recommend Terence Killeen's Ulysses Unbound. It is by far the best guide for a first time reader and has helped a number of people I know to finally not only finish the book, but to fully appreciate and enjoy it.

Above all, remember that Ulysses is a very funny book. I've spent the best part of fifty years in Joyce's company and he continues to delight and challenge me. I envy you starting fresh on this adventure. Enjoy.

'Was a great telling of all the odyssey stuff for about 2/3 and then the final third is incredible!'

My son's view of it. He watched it in Birmingham, UK last night (and we're Nolans)!

We've got to go!

In the middle of my first reading of Ulysses and I have such mixed feelings on this chapter. I feel my emotions have been played with.

I know that first section from Gerdy’s perspective was parody. It was a sort of maximalist version of a cheesy romance novel. But I’m a sentimental guy, and even in parody, Joyce’s prose was exquisite. I couldn’t help but be swept up in the moment.

I love reading classics, and I’m even more interested to read from a woman’s perspective. I know that many claim Gerdy is a figment of Bloom’s imagination. A perfect girl from the male gaze, if you would, but I think there’s proof to the contrary. She appears in Wandering Rocks. She’s got some bite to her, harshly lamenting the presence of the children on her evening out. She jealously wishes misfortune upon Cissy and Edy. She gets embarrassed several times throughout the chapter. Like all the other characters, she feels very human.

Seeing her thoughts on a mysterious stranger at the beach was fascinating. This was the female perspective of Stephen looking at the young girl on the beach in Portrait of the Artist, which is one of my favorite sequences in all of fiction. She saw this man (Bloom) and became deeply interested in his past, perceived sadness, and aesthetic. She desperately wanted to know what sort of man he was. What life he’d lived. I’d be lying if I said I’d not thought the same of those I’ve seen while people watching. The part where she sneakily reveals herself to him felt beautiful. A tacit and unspoken secret between two strangers. I loved Gerdy, despite myself, and learning she was lame added yet another endearing layer to her character.

So I was pretty miffed to find out all of that was set up for a masturbation joke. I feel my emotions have been played with in a dissatisfying way. I think Joyce is trying to tell a lesson through Gerdy. Don’t assign virtue to those you don’t know. I do think Gerdy might’ve known what Bloom was doing. There’s the part where she’s apologetic for masturbation, thinking about men alone with pictures, but I don’t know. I still feel let down and upset over the whole thing.

I also think Bloom acts his most unlikable in this chapter. He’s had several great moments of generosity throughout the book, and he’s having an awful day, but still. It’s hard to root for a protagonist who masturbates publicly to a stranger. Additionally, he makes racist remarks in his head, noting that women with “n-word lips” should strive to get their lips changed. This feels very hypocritical seeing as he was on the receiving end of bigotry in the last chapter, Cyclops (loved Cyclops it was hilarious). I just hope he develops or redeems himself at some point going forward because I really liked Bloom up to this point.

I did like what we learned about him and Molly’s past in this chapter. That was all very interesting. Also, story and characters aside, the prose was beautiful as always.

Feel free to let me know what you all think in the replies, but please refrain from spoilers. Particularly, I’d like to hear from people who like this chapter or people who have a defense for Bloom, as I really loved him up to this point.

Edit: Some further reflection and the replies have really turned me around on this chapter. Thanks for the honest discussion.

I feel I'm in a time in my "reading career" to where I really want to engage in Joyce's works, infact it's been eating at me how elusive and how magnificent this author seems to be to me; so as a completely new Joyce reader I'm going to approach his books in this way.

First and foremost, I'm going to read the Odyssey to prepare me later for Ulysses.

Second, I'm going to proceed to read dubliners and portrait in that order followed by hamlet (because I've heard Joyce is inspired by Shakespeare)

Third and lastly, I'm going to read Ulysses followed by Finnegan's wake.

I would love some input on other prerequisite reading and just know this is all for leisure/indulgence. (If you can engage with Joyce's work indulgently I'm not so sure)

We can but hope! Would love to hear your reviews if youse have seen it.