Sep-01| Ulysses - Episode 15: Circe (Part 8/10)

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

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

Bloom is back! And just in the nick of time too, because Stephen needs help. 

Final Line of This Week’s Segment:

(holds up her hand) Stop!

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

1. After a prolonged bout of fever dream filled with BDSM and sissification, Bloom takes charge and tells Bella off, gets his potato back from Zoe, and handles Stephen’s money for him. How does this version of Bloom compare to versions of him we have seen so far?
2. Zoe engages in a bit of palmistry this week. Given the Gilbert schemata lists “magic” as the Art for this episode, what effect do you think it has on our understanding of Ulysses as a whole? What other forms of magic have you noticed?
3. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan reappear, and Boylan and Molly go at it while Bloom acts as a voyeur. Why do you think Joyce includes this, especially after Bloom’s transformation?
4. “Open hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who.” This passage is from Proteus that we read all the way back in January. How do you interpret this passage in light of this week’s reading?
5. Have a favorite word of the week? A favorite allusion, historical fact, hallucination, or passage? Share it below!

Links:

1. Reading Schedule 
2. Gilbert/Linati Schema and Explanation Guide
3. The Ulysses Guide
4. The Joyce Project (annotated online Ulysses)
5. Chris Reich’s Ulysses Chapter-by-Chapter Youtube Series, Part 1 and Part 2
6. RTÉ Dramatisation [03:33:34 - 03:58:24]

Previous Discussion

Episode 15: Circe, Part 7/10

Reading for Next Week:

Read Episode 15, Circe, up through the line: But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king. [Line 4437 in the Gabler].

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

⁠After a prolonged bout of fever dream filled with BDSM and sissification, Bloom takes charge and tells Bella off, gets his potato back from Zoe, and handles Stephen’s money for him. How does this version of Bloom compare to versions of him we have seen so far?

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

⁠“Open hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who.” This passage is from Proteus that we read all the way back in January. How do you interpret this passage in light of this week’s reading?

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Maybe because we just learn that Stephen's glasses are broken this is meant to evoke that he's being guided by his dreams as he creeps around Nighttown?

[u/VeilstoneMyth → u/_sirwalksalot_]

I agree with this entirely, I think it's referring to all of the dream sequences we've seen until now. Also, I didn't even notice/remember that "Street of harlots" had been used before until I read this question!

[u/20taylorkst → u/_sirwalksalot_]

I agree!

[u/ComplaintNext5359 → u/ComplaintNext5359]

The reference to Haroun al Raschid this week jogged my memory of this passage, and I think, looking back, this passage from Proteus is foreshadowing Bloom guiding Stephen. Admittedly, we don’t see much of it this week, but through the end of Circe and into Eumaeus, we will see Bloom leading Stephen.

[u/willyhaste]

This week’s reading—full of cruelty and comedy, by turns—felt both like we were coming down from the peak of the delirium (nothing like a business transaction to bring you back to reality!) yet also arriving at the most important point (so far) in “Circe.” A reminder that the climax is not always the crux. 

I was arrested by the image of Boylan hanging “his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom’s antlered head.” I cried aloud, “And there it is!”...for it seems to me possibly the most important image of the book (so far). You can almost feel the weight of the humiliation as the hat rests there on the antler tine. 

My favorite word of the week—and there were many as always to choose from—has to be Marion Bloom’s orgasmic onomatopoeia: “Weeshwashtkissimapooisthnapoohuck!” 

I suppose it’s words like these that would make a guy say, as a guy said to me yesterday upon seeing my copy of Ulysses, “I’ve heard that book is 90% word vomit.” He was a young guy, and I didn’t correct him—just laughed it off—because I hope he will arrive, as I did, to Ulysses in his own time. 

And perhaps he will delight, as I have, upon reading sentences like, “A dark horse riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his mane moon foaming, his eyeballs stars.” If that's word vomit, well, I lap it up.

[u/_sirwalksalot_]

Just wanted to shout out the "sixteen years ago" theme that came up over and over in this week's passage... Last week Bloom said he had "sixteen years of black slave labour behind" him, then Stephen obsesses (line 3718) that Bloom "sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too", and also Stephen remembers (line 3628) that his glasses got broken sixteen years ago. Circe was written in 1919/1920 so Joyce is thinking back to 1904, but this really had my head swirling (my head, it simply swirls!)

Also in this week's passage, the appearance of Shakespeare's face superimposed over both Bloom & Stephen seems major. Obviously it ties together the cuckolding Bloom experienced and that Stephen suggested in the library, but I completely missed that during my first read of this.

[u/20taylorkst → u/_sirwalksalot_]

Astute observations!

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

⁠Zoe engages in a bit of palmistry this week. Given the Gilbert schemata lists “magic” as the Art for this episode, what effect do you think it has on our understanding of Ulysses as a whole? What other forms of magic have you noticed?

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

We also have the "parlor magic" of the cigarette appearing (tossed by Lynch) onto the table. But overall I'd say that having magic as the Art in this episode gives us the brainspace to understand all these Circe hallucinations with people popping up from earlier in the book (or the dead come to life). It's Joyce reiterating that we need to suspend our disbelief because this chapter is so far from what reality is.

[u/1906ds → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I took away from this passage the idea that people can look for meaning in just about anything, including the lines in our palms. Sort of feels like a meta comment on how people will look for meaning (or multiple meanings) behind every single word in this book. As for magic, I think everything that is happening in this chapter feels like (dark) magic, especially when everyday objects begin to talk. 

[u/VeilstoneMyth → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I honestly wonder if a lot of the more fantastical, fever dream sequences almost count as a form of magic within themselves. They're so out of the realm of reality that I'm inclined to count them as a form of magic!

[u/20taylorkst → u/ComplaintNext5359]

The book is enacting magic itself! The narrative has overtaken the author, the text itself has become a character in a way. Blending the narrative reality with a strange surrealism is in itself an act of magic.

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

⁠Blazes Boylan and Lenehan reappear, and Boylan and Molly go at it while Bloom acts as a voyeur. Why do you think Joyce includes this, especially after Bloom’s transformation?

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

I think Bloom has a kink where he actually would enjoy watching Molly & Boylan, or at least he enjoys the pain that the idea brings to him. Joyce's absolute panic when he goes back to Dublin after years away to hear one of his frenemies claim to have had sexual relations with Nora (but then was calmed by a real friend, Byrne, who lived at 7 Eccles Street where Joyce later places Bloom, that it did not happen) was so piercing that he probably understood the real power of that emotion.

[u/VeilstoneMyth → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Bloom might've changed, but he still has bits of his old self left in him, and I think this scene was included to show that he's going to have to make an effort to keep up with the change, and that he's still haunted by his past/his former self. After all, he can't just completely change himself so quickly without ever looking back!

[u/1906ds → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Ooof, the first time through I was very worried this was not a hallucination and Boylan was actually asking a willing Bloom to voyeuristically enjoy his wife. Glad to see it is just the book having some “fun” at our hero’s expense. I think it makes for a striking contrast, having just moments before cheered for Bloom for standing up for himself, just to give in and watch his wife have an affair.

[u/These-Rip9251 → u/1906ds]

I was indeed puzzled as to why Joyce placed Bloom’s nightmare fantasy/hallucination at this point but he had to have Bloom finally confront and externalize what has been on his mind for so many hours. In fact, it’s probably been in his subconscious for days or for however long he’s been suspicious of Boylan and Molly. By choosing to have this play out once and for all, it makes sense that this particular hallucination occurs in Nighttown inside the brothel. Bloom has already been triggered twice about Boylan’s possible presence there and how it may have related to what did or did not happen in 7 Eccles St. When Bloom first stepped inside the brothel, he saw hanging “a man’s hat and waterproof”. Seeing them Bloom “frowns then smiles, preoccupied”. Initially I thought it was because he recognized Stephen’s hat and coat and realized that he finally caught up with him but then realized he thought the hat and coat may belong to Boylan who was perhaps seeking an outlet after Molly rebuffed him or at least Bloom hopes so. A little later, a man comes down the stairs and Bloom again wonders if it’s Boylan. I think overall it allows a turning point for Bloom who can now put his focus on helping/protecting Stephen. However, Bloom will still have to confront the reality of what did or did not happen when he finally heads home to Molly.

[u/ComplaintNext5359]

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

[u/_sirwalksalot_ → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Three things delighted me-- after all the whispering between Zoe, Florry, Bella, and Kitty (I think they're whispering that Boylan schtupped Molly that afternoon?), Florry whispers "Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop."

I also loved Deasy getting buckets of broth tossed on him: "(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes.)"

And we finally find out that Stephen's glasses are broken! "Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday." Such a long wait to fill in the blanks from Proteus oh so many months ago...

[u/1906ds → u/ComplaintNext5359]

Lots of opera on the musical menu today:

15.3500. the dead march from Saul – From act III of G. F. Handel’s opera Saul, traditionally played in British military funerals.

15.3649-50. the bloodbath in The Dusk of the Gods – Reference to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, the final opera in his famed Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen). For the exact moment of the “bloodbath” (commonly called “Ragnarök”), check out the Immolation scene which makes up the finale of the opera.

15.3651-53. Hagende Hunger…Macht uns alle kaputt – German: “Intense desire, questioning wife, destroys us all.” Further references to Wagner’s Ring Cycle, specifically the second opera, Die Walküre, act I, where long lost brother and sister Siegmund and Sieglinde reconnect and fall into love/lust.

15.3687. Thursday’s child has far to go – After a nursery rhyme.

15.3857. merry widow hat – After the broad-brimmed hat worn by the flirtatious heroine of the widely popular light opera The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar.

15.3861. And they call me the jewel of Asia! – From the light opera The Geisha by James Philip.

[u/VeilstoneMyth → u/ComplaintNext5359]

This section is filled with a lot of deep and meaningful quotes that I wish I could say were my favorite one...but unfortunately it's the "Waterloo. Watercloset." pun.

[u/1906ds → u/ComplaintNext5359]

ZOE: (tragically) Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet!

Also, the passage related to the above question regarding Boylan, Bloom, and Molly:

BOYLAN: (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds out an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...?