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Decoding Dedalus: Haroun al-Raschid
That’s all in the Protean character…. Everything changes: land, water, dog, time of day. Parts of speech change, too. Adverb becomes verb. – James Joyce This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Proteus,” the…
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Ep. 22 – Perviest Breakfast
Per vias rectas! Mr. Deasy’s origins – revealed! Kelly and Dermot dive into Joyce’s real life acquaintances and experiences that inspired the gruff headmaster Mr. Deasy in Ulysses‘ second episode, “Nestor.” Topics covered include why Mr. Deasy is so concerned about foot and mouth disease, the relative rebelliousness of voting in favor of the Union…
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Decoding Dedalus: Pretenders
This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Proteus,” the third episode of Ulysses. It appears on pages 45 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). We’ll be looking at the passage that begins “Pretenders…” and…
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Dogsbody
This certainly wasn’t done by a dog-lover,” said Joyce. “I don’t like them. I am afraid of them. – Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. James Joyce was a cat person. His brother Stanislaus recalled a family trip…
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Ep. 21 – Croppies Lie Down
This week, Kelly and Dermot explain the nightmarish history tucked into Stephen’s terse rebuttal of Mr. Deasy’s weak grasp of Irish history. The passage covered can be found on p. 31 of Kelly’s edition of Ulysses (1990 Vintage International). Topics covered include the history of the Orange Order, the Battle of the Diamond, the Planters’…
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Decoding Dedalus: Galleys of the Lochlanns
We don’t want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. – Stephen Dedalus This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Proteus,” the third episode of Ulysses. It appears on page 45 in my copy (1990…
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Ep. 20 – Big Words Which Make Us So Unhappy
History is the art of Nestor, so let’s immerse ourselves in the nightmare of history, at least the bits covered on p. 31 of Ulysses. Learn about Stephen’s hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Mr. Deasy tries to teach Stephen a bit of history, but (spoiler alert) he doesn’t know much about history. Topics covered include Daniel O’Connell, the Orange lodges,…
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Form of Forms
“It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand is a tool of tools, so the mind is the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things.” – Aristotle, De Anima I am absolutely indebted to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the book Allwisest Stagyrite: Joyce’s Quotations…
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Ep. 19 – Fogey and Tory
A character study of the infamous Mr. Deasy, the headmaster of Stephen’s school in “Nestor,” the second episode of Ulysses. We discuss how Mr. Deasy is a stereotypical Dubliner of his day, as well as his defining characteristics (including his impressive mustache!) Mr. Deasy has a lot to teach us, though he is an old…
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Ep. 18 – Bloomsday in Melbourne (w/ Steve Carey)
A lifelong lover of the works of Joyce, Steve Carey is an organizer of the Bloomsday celebration in Melbourne, Australia. He chats with Kelly about (briefly) meeting Richard Ellmann, the joys and travails of adapting Ulysses for the stage, a heroic battle over trousers in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, and how to get a period hearse…