Leopold Bloom
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Ground Control to Major Tweedy
“Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I’m proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was farseeing.” – Leopold Bloom, p. 56 To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out…
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Plumtree’s Potted M’Coy
“This is the age of patent medicine.” – Stephen Dedalus To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episodes here and here. “Lotus Eaters” is, by its nature, a sleepy section of Ulysses, full of seemingly inconsequential incidents, but there are secrets hidden around every corner. Early in the episode, Bloom…
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Is Leopold Bloom Phoenician?
“[The Irish language] is oriental in origin, and has been identified by many philologists with the ancient language of the Phoenicians, the originators of trade and navigation, according to historians. This adventurous people, who had a monopoly of the sea, established in Ireland a civilization that had decayed and almost disappeared before the first Greek…
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Leopold Bloom’s Journey Through the Orient
“In short, Orientalism [is defined] as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient…. Moreover, so authoritative a position did Orientalism have [during the post-Enlightenment period] that I believe no one writing, thinking, or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations on thought and action…
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Ep. 48 – Haroun al-Raschid’s Melons
Kelly and Dermot take a look at Stephen Dedalus’ prophetic dream in “Proteus.” Topics discussed include James Joyce’s fascination with dream analysis, Stephen’s connection to the mysterious Akasic record, Dermot’s own experience with slippery time, the location of the “street of harlots” in Dublin, how Leopold Bloom and Haroun al-Raschid are connected, Orientalism, almosting, and prolonged…
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Ulysses & The Odyssey: The Lotus Eaters
“[Focusing in the Homeric parallels] is decorous when the Homeric theme is narcosis, but is apt to occur whatever the Homeric theme, and years of concentration on the large-scale patterns … have fostered an expositor’s Ulysses in which characters sleepwalk through a grand design… and very little happens save the display of eighteen successive tableaux…
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Ep. 45 – Bloomsday 2020
Happy Bloomsday, one and all! Blooms & Barnacles presents our Bloomsday 2020 episode, a little Bloomsday party you can take anywhere you go. Many friends and listeners came together to record their favorite passages from Ulysses, and we’ve compiled them into one, gargantuan Blooms & Barnacles episode. Sweny’s Patreon helps keep this marvelous Dublin landmark alive.…
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Is Leopold Bloom Jewish?
“It is odd that the creator of the most outstanding Jew in modern literature did not at that time know any of the Jewish community in Dublin.” – Padraic Colum, p. 56, Our Friend James Joyce “Yes. Only a foreigner would do. The Jews were foreigners in Dublin at that time. There was no hostility…
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Bloom’s Potato
To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here. “On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use disturbing her.” Ulysses, p. 57 The episodes “Calypso” and “Telemachus” correspond…