Leopold Bloom

  • Met Him Pike Hoses

    To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. “– O rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.”  While Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan were sniping at each other over breakfast on June 16, Leopold and Molly Bloom were discussing the idea of metempsychosis (better known as reincarnation) over…

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  • In the Jakes with Mr. Bloom

    “The life of [Ulysses] comes first and the philosophy afterwards. Obscenity is a question of manners and conventions for ever changing. Virtuosity, if it stood alone, would soon become demoded, and philosophy too, but living character stays through whatever material is presented.” – Frank Budgen “Professor Bloom is a finished example of the new womanly…

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  • Who Was the Real Leopold Bloom?

    Yes. Only a foreigner would do. The Jews were foreigners in Dublin at that time. There was no hostility towards them. But contempt, the contempt that people always show towards the unknown. –James Joyce This post is a part of an occasional series on the real people behind the characters in Ulysses. To listen to…

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  • Ulysses & The Odyssey: Calypso

    “… I found that for [Joyce] human character was best displayed – I had almost said entirely displayed – in the commonest acts of life. How a man eats his egg will give a better clue to his differentiation than how he goes forth to war… Cutting bread displays character better than cutting throats.”  –…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: God Becomes Featherbed Mountain

    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 line below comes from “Proteus,” the third episode of Ulysses. It appears on page p. 50 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). We’ll be looking at the line that begins “God…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: Pale Vampire

    Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? – 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 pages 47-48 in my…

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