Molly Bloom

  • 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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  • 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. 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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  • 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: 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. 16 – Dick Feeney

    A super-sized Blooms and Barnacles! Dick is a friend of Kelly’s and Dermot’s who is a lover of Ulysses and the music found throughout the novel. Dick talks about some of his favorite songs that play a role in Ulysses and the history behind them. We also chat about the use of music in “The…

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