Jousting with Joyce: Telemachus, Nestor, and Proteus

Since I fully intend on understanding the novel (i.e. thrusting my sword must forcefully into Joyce's torso region), I'm breaking things down to their itty bitty bits and discussing said bits one at a time (at least to start).

Chapter 1: Episode 1: Telemachus
And now I feel like I am talking about Star Wars or something. To explain: Common assessment states that Ulysses is divided into three chapters (what I think of as parts or sections) and that each chapter is composed of various episodes (what I think of as chapters). With  me so far? Good because I'm not sure it will get easier from here.

Anyway, in our first episode we meet Stephen Dedalus and his roomies Buck Mulligan and Haines. There's lots of banter, religious mockery, a few ironically fun ditties, some breakfast, and a bath. Okay, so I'm really, really simplifying here. The point is: it wasn't this horribly complicated, incomprehensible, overly intellectual collection of words like I was expecting it to be. Granted it wasn't the easiest to follow - a lack of quotation marks to indicate dialogue, a bit of perspective shifting, obscure vocabulary, and allusions and references I didn't understand - but overall, I'm feeling pretty confident. No, seriously, I am.

Chapter 1: Episode 2: Nestor
The second episode was fun for me because we get to see Dedalus teaching. While my students' brains would explode if I talked like Dedalus, it was still fun to see the back and forth between teacher and student. The lesson touches on Pyrrhus's victory and Milton's Lycidas, but the real focus of the chapter is on getting the reader inside Dedalus's internal thoughts regarding the subjects, and some tangential thoughts as well. One of the most confusing and most fun things about this book is the internal monologue of its two main characters (I've read ahead a bit). Readers are privy to the stream-of-consciousness thinking of some rather intelligent people. Dedalus's thoughts are alternately philosophical, intellectual, naughty, and pitiful. The chapter also introduces readers to Mr. Deasy whose name absolutely must be related to the word sleazy. He is a bold anti-Semite and rather arrogant. Honestly, I am hoping he doesn't have much of a role.

Chapter 1: Episode 3: Proteus
This chapter is fucked up. Sorry about the cussing but the WTFery (a word I learned from Jill) in this chapter was exactly what I expected from the novel as a whole. From what I could gather, Dedalus is walking on the beach thinking. As I said in my quick discussion of the last episode, hearing the thoughts of Dedalus is much more complicated than hearing about what he is doing. His rambling thoughts are hard to follow, full of allusions I don't fully understand, and including many, many words I would have to look up if I had the time. Seriously, if I looked up every word I didn't understand, I would never get through this book. I actually enjoyed it though. Understanding that you are inside someone's mind, that you are in essence reading their thoughts in a stream of consciousness style, makes this chapter perfectly palatable in my opinion. I didn't feel a need to fully grasp everything because who could? We can't possibly understand another person's random thoughts, not completely. Once I accepted that, I had no problem enjoying the rhythm of the thoughts (and feeling really cool when I understood some of the obscure references.

For a much  more articulate look at chapter 3, you should head to Moored at Sea.

Frank Delaney is Awesome
Ulysses is, surprise surprise, not easy to read, and the difficulty can certainly diminish a desire to read; however, I found something which is making it fun. Frank Delaney posts a podcast on Ulysses every Wednesday called re: Joyce. Each podcast discusses a tiny portion of the novel (like a paragraph). Delaney's voice suggests such a passion for the book - and his explanations are so clear and interesting - that I actually listened to ten podcasts in a row. And I should mention that ten podcasts in and we are still in Telemachus. Detailed. Wonderfully detailed. Obviously the only problem is that I will never catch up with the podcasts; I am still in the first episode with the podcasts and in the fifth episode in the book.

In the very first episode, Delaney says, "If you want to understand multitasking in prose, James Joyce is your man. Every sentence in Ulysses has more than one meaning and sometimes many meanings." While reading the book, I'm not even catching one full meaning, but Delaney's podcasts are really helping me understand the depth and intricacy of this story.

What's Coming Up
I have read the fourth episode already, so for those wondering what's coming next, we are finally going to meet Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of the story. Just like in Homer's The Odyssey, the main character isn't introduced until we are well into the story.