Blog
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Ulysses & The Odyssey: Scylla & Charybdis
The Odyssey – Book XII After departing the Underworld, Odysseus and his remaining crew set sail once more, leaving Circe’s isle and passing the land of the Sirens without incident. They must next sail their ship between the twin horrors of Scylla and Charybdis. Circe advised Odysseus to steer close to the Wandering Rocks, home…
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Was Leopold Bloom a Freemason?
After Leopold Bloom finishes his lunch at Davy Byrne’s moral pub in “Lestrygonians,” Ulysses’ eighth episode, he steps away from the bar. The only other two people in the pub, patron Nosey Flynn and proprietor Davy Byrne, strike up a gossipy back-and-forth about ol’ Bloom. True to his name, Nosey is up to date on…
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Is Blazes Boylan really the worst man in Dublin?
Author’s note: If you’re interested in further exploring the psyche of Blazes Boylan, I recommend checking out Margot Norris’ excellent article, Don’t Call Him “Blazes”: Hugh E. Boylan’s Narrative Caricature, linked below under “Further Reading.” This post is a part of an occasional series on the real people behind the characters in Ulysses. Throughout Ulysses,…
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Leopold Bloom’s Gorgonzola
Following a long, restless journey across Dublin’s city centre in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, Leopold Bloom finally sits down to his lunch. After a close encounter in the Burton restaurant in Duke St., Bloom opts instead for the nearby Davy Byrne’s, which he deems a “moral pub” on the grounds that the laconic proprietor occasionally…
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Rawhead and Bloody Bones in the Burton
After passing through Grafton St. on the way to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, Leopold Bloom must pass through one more horrific ordeal before he finds safe harbor in Davy Byrne’s moral pub. Bloom steps momentarily into the neighboring Burton restaurant, where he is repulsed by the deplorable table manners of a roomful of…
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Weggebobbles and Fruit: Vegetarianism in Ulysses
As Leopold Bloom approaches Nassau St. on his journey to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, he is passed from behind by two figures, both of whom we’ve already “met” in the pages of Ulysses. Bloom identifies one as George Æ Russell, mystic and literary tastemaker, and the other, Bloom speculates, could be the poet…
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Decoding Bloom: John Howard Parnell
This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “The Lestrygonians”, the eighth episode of Ulysses. It appears on page 164-165 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). It begins “Provost’s house” and ends “house of…
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Up the Boers!
As Leopold Bloom passes beneath Tommy Moore’s roguish finger on his long walk to lunch in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, a flock of cops catches his attention: Bloom casts a snarky eye on these overfed, spoiled house cats biding their time between meals. Bloom remarks that they are “bound for their troughs,” invoking the porcine…
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The Women of Ulysses: Lizzie Twigg
As Leopold Bloom passes the offices of the Irish Times in “Lestrygonians”, Ulysses’ eighth episode, he can’t help but think about all the letters that might be waiting there for his alter ego, Henry Flower. However, his fantasy is disrupted by the memory of one “smart lady typist” who didn’t meet Henry’s exacting standards: To…
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Decoding Dedalus: Ineluctable Modalities
“The first phase of apprehension is a bounding line drawn about the object to be apprehended. An esthetic image is presented to us either in space or in time. What is audible is presented in time, what is visible is presented in space.” – Stephen Dedalus, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man…