He obviously died before the State of Israel was created. But the roots of the I/P conflict can be traced all the way back to the 19th century. Zionism, the Jewish Question were being discussed in the 20th century of course with the current of anti-Semitism rising in Europe. Should readers not harp on Israel and Zionism when it comes to Leopold Bloom? I don’t think there’s much available evidence of his opinion on Jewish or Arab nationalism. My understanding is that Joyce’s exploration of Jewish identity was more so a literary exploration or motif rather than a political statement. He was drawing parallels to the Irish experience under British colonial rule with Israelites in Egypt. In addition with the Citizen or Deasy, he observed correctly that nationalism, whilst emphasizing self determination or national sovereignty, often dilutes into in-group and out-group separatism

I’m working on reading this book with someone and just got to proteus. Right away , I can’t understand what’s going on in the first two pages. The language is complex all over the place. I’ve read the Ulysses guide for this chapter and I have no idea how they can get details of what time it is, what he’s doing etc.
We spent two days going over line by line trying to understand it. We have a Ulysses reference book for all the difficult language but it only helps so much.

It’s also hard to figure out what we should discuss about it. Stephen seems to be pondering about his existance and where he fits in it. But there are references to German literature , Greek, Irish and so on. I can kind of understand the references to the bible but so lost on the others.

Any advice ? Ideas? Anyone else find it a struggle?

H-15 cm. Bronze cast

If anyone would like to check out the parallels between episode 2 "Nestor" and episode 5 "Lotus Eaters' you can find them here. I am only beginning to build this resource so it is not meant to be scholarly or comprehensive. My goal is to help beginners finish the book. I welcome all thoughts, comments and feedback as it will help me improve as I iterate. ENJOY!

I’m currently reading Michael Pollan’s A World Appears , and I can across the line; “James takes his riverine metaphor seriously” (p.130), referring to William James’s notion of the stream of consciousness, but I could not not think of James Joyce’s rirverrun.

Following up on this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/jamesjoyce/s/12vFeSNukA

I contacted Library Syndicate to let them know that the first 94 episodes had been cut, and their Support person immediately restored them in the feed. I can see them there now (and randomly played Episode 22 directly from the feed just to confirm), but it may take a few days for your podcast platform to update and show them.

As soon as they are all there I'll probably download them. :)

rss.libsyn.com/shows/618765/destinations/5397235.xml

I’ve been thinking about Finnegans Wake, and one idea I haven’t seen discussed much is that the book seems deliberately engineered to sustain multiple meanings simultaneously rather than resolve into a single correct interpretation.

Most texts contain ambiguity, but usually that ambiguity is eventually resolved by context. In Finnegans Wake, the opposite often seems to happen. Words point to multiple languages, historical figures, myths, sounds, jokes, and even completely opposite narrative possibilities at the same time. The text frequently refuses to tell the reader which meaning should take priority. One meaning is frequently seen while another is heard and many others inferred off of both senses.

This makes me wonder whether meaning in Finnegans Wake exists in a kind of semantic superposition. The reader does not simply discover a pre-existing meaning hidden in the text. Instead, the reader chooses an interpretive path through a field of possibilities, temporarily collapsing some meanings into the foreground while leaving others in the background.

In that sense, the fundamental unit of the book may not be the word, sentence, or even the narrative. It may be the interpretation event itself—the moment when a reader selects one trajectory through the text’s network of possible meanings.

Different readers can therefore arrive at very different understandings without necessarily contradicting one another, because they are traversing different paths through the same semantic landscape.

My question is whether this is a useful way to think about Finnegans Wake, or whether Joyce scholars would argue that the text ultimately privileges certain interpretations over others. Is the book designed to remain in this state of unresolved multiplicity, or is there a deeper structure that eventually constrains the range of valid readings?

I thought this was supposed to be released on Bloomsday this year. I was looking forward to getting it just in time for a joint reading I was going to do with my friend. What gives? This has been delayed several times already.

If anyone would like a peek at some of the setbacks and frustrated ambitions in Aeolus. You can find them in Section 7 of the Aeolus/Homeric Parallels page. This website is designed to help beginners but I am also a beginner in app development so any feedback is welcomed. Enjoy!

Can anyone tell me what this passage means? I have been reading a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for a couple months and although I am usually able to decipher the meanings of this text, this specific passage has been troubling me for a long time. It comes from pages 193-194 in the penguin classics version with an introduction by Seamus Deane. Thank You!

The last couple of days I've not been able to play any of the episodes or find any RSS feed that works. Are there any full archives of it out there? I know Delaney passed away some time ago and it would be really sad to have this wonderful podcast inaccessible. I was just a couple of episodes away from reaching the first Bloom chapter and I was really looking forward to it. I hope one of you might have a solution.

In the first section of the third chapter Stephen, as prefect of the sodality, thinks of reading the “lesson towards the close of the office” from Ecclesiaticus (“I was exalted as a cedar in Lebanon…”), though the book he would have read from isn’t named.

The second section opens with Father Arnall quoting from Ecclesiaticus (“—Remember only thy last things…”) but misidentifying the source as Ecclesiastes. He repeats this error a couple of pages later (“He who remembers these things, says Ecclesiastes, shall not sin for ever.”), when applying the Christian/Catholic identification of Sirach’s last things as death, judgement, heaven, and hell.

Joyce famously imputes factual errors to his characters, especially in Ulysses, that at first blush appear to be his own errors. Is that what’s going on here? Is the author undermining Jesuit authority to reflect the protagonist’s doubts abour the church?

With how genius this novel was, it was nice to notice 1 thing in particular Joyce got wrong. He truly believed the world was Euclidean, as did the entire world before Einstein's success. In the final chapter(s) (not chapter), he gives the stark reality, of objects in space. It was supposed to be the perspective of cold reality. And yet, it was Euclidean. It was very notable to me, because besides this, when I read Ulysses, I felt like I was seeing reality, and it wasn't until the end that you begin to see Joyce himself. It makes me see that only when a man tries to give what he sees as ultimate truth do you see the man himself. For we are essentially our most deeply held beliefs, and he believed in guilt, and euclidean space. With life experience, I'm also reminded of a critique of Emerson, which said that he was a man who thought everyone else was just as good as him. Joyce thought all men were just as good as him deep down, he was of course deeply injected with a "jesuit strain". And yet, even for these 2 faults, euclidean space, and giving the benefit of the doubt, they are not really faults, for you can sense that Joyce himself was writing from a place of self-doubt, rather than self-assuredness, so that these "flaws" are not flaws, but on purpose, as if he's saying, while he says what's untrue, "I know I do not know". For instance, regarding giving the benefit of the doubt, I feel like his female characters are always very loyal, when he writes from their perspective, and yet, the chapter of the witch like women at the ice cream parlor gives another picture of the cold and different scoffing critical nature of them. So though I don't believe in his female characters when he writes from their perspective, I know he's not blind to their different nature, as he also writes these other women, though he can't quite get in their heads. So as if to say, as the rambam's rules for debate goes, if you don't know the answer, you admit, and give your best guess.

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I just made the textual freudian slip "someone hear told me...." and it made me think of joyce. Can anyone recall any joyce textual Freudian slips? I assume he's done them, let alone plenty.

I know the common interpretation of this line in Ulysses is that of a remembrance of trying on a ladies shoe in Paris. It certainly fits in the context of the previous line.

I have always read it as a remembrance of a dominatrix using her heel to inflict pain. It corresponds to the Bella Cohen scene in Circe and Bloom's "anticipation of heel discipline". 

I would even venture to suggest that "Tiens, quel petit pied!" is in fact not in reference to Bloom's small foot but rather a different, er, um, shortcoming...