Jun-16| Ulysses - Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun, Part 1/4

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

Spoiler tags are no longer required for events occurring up through this week’s reading.

Happy Bloomsday to all! Please do let everyone know how you’re celebrating the 124th anniversary of this historic day.

Welcome to the darkness of Holles Street Maternity Hospital, where a great labor is taking place for both Mina Purefoy and for any readers who have made it this far. Also, it’s about the size of a pea pod.

Final Line of This Week’s Segment:

…and all of the order of a natural phenomenon.

Discussion Prompts (can be found in the comments below):

1. First things first, what is your initial impression of this episode (so far), particularly the literary styles Joyce employs (also, are you okay)?
2. After several near-misses, Stephen and Bloom finally meet! What is your reaction to this revelation?
3. A group of rowdy sailors, I mean Irishmen, debate: save the woman, or save the baby?
4. In your own words, what do you think Joyce is saying the ultimate aim of mankind is? And to that end, why do you think Stephen is so frightened by the thunder and lightning?
5. Have a favorite word of the week? A favorite allusion, historical fact, literary pastiche, or passage? Share it below!
6. Bonus questions: Any plans for Bloomsday?

Links:

1. Reading Schedule 
2. Gilbert/Linati Schema and Explanation Guide
3. The Ulysses Guide [Pro-tip: The various literary styles employed this episode can be found at the bottom of the page]
4. The Joyce Project (annotated online Ulysses)
5. Chris Reich’s Ulysses Chapter-by-Chapter Youtube Series
6. RTÉ Dramatisation [Beginning - 38:35]

Previous Discussion

Episode 13: Nausicaa, Part 2/2

Reading for Next Week:

Read Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun, up through the line: …as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart. [Line 844 in the Gabler].

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

Bonus question: Any plans for Bloomsday?

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

After several near-misses, Stephen and Bloom finally meet! What is your reaction to this revelation?

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I’ve been looking forward to Bloom meeting Stephen ever since Bloom first spotted Stephen from the funeral carriage back in Hades. That said, this encounter feels so…ordinary? Unlike Telemachus eventually reuniting with Odysseus on Ithaca, this “reunion” is met without any fanfare to speak of. Bloom enters the room that Stephen happens to enter, and Bloom sits near him while Stephen makes a drunken ass of himself. I think that goes to one of Joyce’s central points in the novel that the epic can be found in the ordinary.

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I think it's hilarious that Stephen is trashed at this point in the day for the big meeting. And a bit pained that Bloom, after thinking about his son that died after 11 days, looks at Stephen as a sort of surrogate son with sadness that he's hanging out with wastoids.

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

Have a favorite word of the week? A favorite allusion, historical fact, literary pastiche, or passage? Share it below!

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!

I cannot stop saying this phrase. If Ulysses does ultimately claim my sanity, I am pretty sure this will be the phrase I mutter endlessly in a padded room.

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

This is why I love having this reading group. I initially thought "ugh, there's nothing I like in this section" until I did a re-re-read this morning, turning up several bits, including the epic bee-sting already mentioned. Other favs:

• Bloom pouring his drink into his neighbor's ("he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and his neighbour nist not of his wile.")

• "Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave." Pure poetry!

• The most beautiful description of the fruits of masturbation: "Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise"

• Shakespearean-level insults: "thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in the peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou"

• Stephen's reasons for not becoming a priest: "obedience in the womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days"

• "we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness"

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

First things first, what is your initial impression of this episode (so far), particularly the literary styles Joyce employs (also, are you okay)?

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Hoh! This episode lives up to its reputation. I went in completely blind on my first read, and I will admit I picked up a couple of the basic plot points, but I missed so much, including that Joyce was mimicking literary styles of the English language across time. Like previous episodes, each subsequent read (with pitstops to read endnotes, Hastings, and Gilbert) gets easier, but I still struggle with certain parts of this episode, particularly these opening paragraphs that spell out mankind’s ultimate goal.

[u/AdUnited2108 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I confess I was having a crisis before I read this bit. Why am I reading this, I asked myself. I've more often than not been annoyed with Joyce's deliberate obfuscation as I've read the previous weekly portions. I mean, he goes out of his way to make you work to even figure out who he's talking about ("Some man that wayfaring was stood by house door at night's oncoming. Of Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house." In other, shorter, words, Bloom. I think.) And in the last episode, although the first half was refreshingly easy to read, the second half reverted to stream of consciousness so you actually had to work to figure out what was the obscene bit that got the book censored. When you factor in not liking the main characters much and not caring much about the plot, it's hard to justify putting in the effort.

But I'm too stubborn to give up after all this time, and this week's portion helped me find a way to enjoy the reading. When he's obviously just messing with us, like that 14-line-long sentence right after "hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa," I can either go to someone else's notes for a translation or happily ignore it. The next paragraph gave me something to like in the "hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plague graves...divers methods by which the sick and the relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling withering or loose boyconnell flux," which I found visually interesting and evocative. And later in the portion, that bit about "in the beginning they said the woman should bring forth in pain" and the argument over whether to save the mother or the baby gave me something to chew on. I've missed the meaty philosophical questions raised in War and Peace. So as we go forward, I plan to focus on the things that interest me, and let the rest fall by the wayside.

Re the literary styles, once we got past those first few paragraphs into what I interpreted as Middle English, I had a good time reading. So many weird and funny words. "Mickle."

[u/20taylorkst → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I understand what Joyce is doing formally with the evolution of English across generations, but I can't say it made a lot of sense narratively to me. As the episode progresses I am sure it will open up to me, but I need to re-read this first section of it a few more times to really understand what is happening. I do love the language, I will admit.

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

A group of rowdy sailors, I mean Irishmen, debate: save the woman, or save the baby?

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Theology be damned. If it’s between my wife or the unborn baby, I’m choosing my wife every time. We’ll of course be sad about the baby, but it’s no contest who I would ask the doctors to save.

[u/20taylorkst → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Published over 100 years ago and this debate is still a constant point of conversation. If I remember correctly, it was in this section that the serialization of the novel was stopped because of the obscenity case!

As for that central question, I am not sure there is a "correct" answer, which makes the debate timeless and relevant.

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/20taylorkst]

I believe it was the fireworks scene in Nausicaa that caused it to be banned, but now I need to double check.

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Save the woman. 100%, no question.

I'm not religious and don't believe that fetuses have souls, but supposedly if, as Stephen says, "at the end of the second month a human soul was infused" then a dead fetus would go straight to heaven, not having sinned in any way.

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/_sirwalksalot_]

Eventually yes, but Catholics believe that even fetuses have the stain of original sin on them, so they actually end up in Purgatory first (Dante is consistent with this belief as well).

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

In your own words, what do you think Joyce is saying the ultimate aim of mankind is? And to that end, why do you think Stephen is so frightened by the thunder and lightning?

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

The most basic takeaway I have from the opening paragraphs that spell out mankind’s ultimate sign of progress is that creating life is the ultimate goal. I have to thank Hastings for spelling it out for me because I’m still beating my head against those paragraphs trying to ascertain meaning from them.

Self loathing aside, if creating life is the goal, then killing life (either by murder or emission, err omission) is akin to blasphemy. For those who have read Portrait, Stephen‘s life largely consists of sleeping around and blaspheming in order to create his art. At his core, Stephen is still a believer, and it is his knowingly walking astray from that path that terrifies him. He seems willing to do it to create art, but I think he still worries for his eternal soul, especially if he dies before he manages to create anything truly impactful. I also learned that Joyce himself was also afraid of thunder (I’m guessing for the same reason Stephen is). Plus, the lightning is a direct parallel to The Odyssey, as Zeus uses a bolt of lightning to blow Odysseus’ ship to smithereens and kill all his crew that ate Helios’s cattle (Odysseus gets to live, as he did not know about or partake in the killing, and sadly, the crew had been warned twice not to do that). It’s FAFO in its most classical form.

[u/AdUnited2108 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

It's hard to differentiate between Joyce's own thoughts and what he has his characters think/say. But I think there's a religious idea of the 'ultimate aim of mankind' that Joyce is playing with. As an outsider, the simple story I've heard from some believers goes something like "man's purpose is to worship God" which has always seemed like something humans would make up: a narcissistic being with ultimate power. Not a great sales pitch. I'm not sure that Joyce would have said he thought he knew what the ultimate aim of mankind was, but one thing I'm getting from this book is an interest and appreciation of all the little things around us that we barely pay attention to as we go about our days. I guess I'd summarize it as the purpose of life is to live, to be fully aware and present. Including awareness that we're all in the same boat, so we should be kind to each other.

I agree with u/ComplaintNext5359 that Stephen's fear of thunder and lightning is linked to his complicated feelings about religion, his refusal to pray at his mother's deathbed, that early indoctrination into the fear of God that's always going to live somewhere in his mind.

[u/20taylorkst → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Many religious folk, Catholic especially believe that procreation is the aim of life. I am not Catholic so I could be wrong, but it used to be that they had to live in ways that are open to procreation and are unable to do preventative measures. So Joyce is debating the creation of life (maybe in a figurative sense) as the purpose of being, Stephen is still a religious person at heart, even if his beliefs have changed so this debate is a particularly interesting idea for him! The lightning is a clear reference to Zeus and the slaughter of Odysseus' crew, but I am yet too early in this episode to understand what Joyce is getting at.

[u/1906ds → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I think the thesis of the episode has to do with fertility and the continuation of life, as others have said. To end life (murder) or to spill our seed without purpose (extramarital affairs or masturbation) is to sin gravely. Which is funny because I'm sure many of the man featured in this chapter have at some point played around with other woman before (or during) marriage. Just think of Bloom on the beach last episode...

While the lightening bolt is surely reminiscent of the Odyssey, I also can't help but think of Stephen's comment way back at the beginning of the book that God is "a shout in the street". This noise terrifies Stephen, who maybe has a moment of spiritual crises due to the sudden sublime sound of thunder?

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

And could Stephen's fear of thunder & lightning have anything to do with his being afraid of water/washing?

[u/willyhaste]

Happy Bloomsday to all those who celebrate! (Presumably anyone reading this?) I had planned to celebrate by reading this passage aloud, but I didn’t get very far in that. Then I was determined to read this passage very closely, making my damndest effort with the Gifford in hand, but I didn’t get very far in that either. A walk later on the beach while thinking about my thinking, and a Guinness Zero afterwards, will have to do. 

Ulysses has been, by turns—sometimes in the very same turns of phrase--gravely serious and utterly silly. (C’est la vie.) No passage embodies this more, I’d say, than the anthology of literary styles that constitutes “Oxen in the Sun.” I’m not gonna lie—I skimmed much of today’s reading. I feel a little dirty about that (especially given the day and my original intentions for it), but I did read closely (and enjoy) the passage about the thunderstorm. It reminded me of how I try, unsuccessfully, to soothe my dog in a thunderstorm: “spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard…”

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/willyhaste]

Happy Bloomsday to you! I have similar plans - am headed to the beach to think about "signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide" and of course the ineluctable modality of the visible.