dissertation excerpt
Bloom, Stephen, and the Styles of Ulysses
The Ithaca Chapter: a Scene of Recognition?
The moment of recognition is not narrated; rather, it occurs in the reader who cuts through the scientific style to see Bloom and Stephen as they really are. The central question asked at this point is: "Is the encounter of Stephen and Bloom significant?" The answer is yes, but in a Buddhist sense. Bloom and Stephen's midnight chat over cocoa is significant if we can see that it is profoundly ordinary. It is remarkable only if we resist the temptation to make it into something other than it is. Any moment is equally significant if we are able to see it as it is.
The styles of Ulysses, like the commentaries on koans, encourage us to ponder the action. The styles of Ulysses suggest that, as in Buddhism, there is no such thing as objectivity and that reality changes when approached in different ways. Bloom, for example is profoundly ordinary; what makes him special is the way Joyce describes him. This also explains why Joyce was so indiscriminate about what he included in Ulysses: "there is a significance in everything if you know how to discover and reveal it" (French 268). One could go further and suggest that Joyce considered style just another "thing" and that he did not so much find the style most fitting to each chapter but rather found the significance in whatever style he happened to stumble upon.
Wansong's commentary on the Book of Serenity encourages the reader to explore multiple perspectives, in much the same way as Joyce encourages the reader to do so in Ulysses. This is because in Zen, "no expression or view can ever be complete" (Serenity xl). The comments in koan collections "are designed to shift the reader into a different viewpoint or shed light on the same point from a different angle" and sometimes koan commentary corrects common errors (Serenity xl). Much commentary "is devoted to prevention of fixation and stereotyping" on the part of the reader rather than "presenting the personal opinion of the speaker" (Serenity xl). Like certain Zen meditation techniques, the styles of Ulysses block what is called in Buddhism "the sixth consciousness":
Practitioners of the Zen school employed many techniques specifically designed to work on the sixth consciousness, to interrupt its obsessive categorizing activity, and to loosen its stranglehold on perception. Ordinarily the sixth consciousness maintains an internal dialogue that in effect censors experience and forces everything into preconceived, familiar categories. By suspending the operation of the sixth consciousness, and moving outside the confines of its routine judgments, the person's mind is opened up to the possibility of other forms of more direct, more comprehensive awareness. (Tune 31)
Molly's monologue is systematically contradictory; it frustrates all attempts at making it coherent:
Joyce's method of heaping up disconnected features and remarks remains faithful to his notion of contradiction: even in the little scenarios he prepares he is careful to add up contradictory elements almost in succession. Thus Molly's "genitophilia" is balanced by the disgust she first felt in front of a male organ, and her "stupidity" by her having "found everything out." (Rabaté 54)
A seemingly endless number of other examples can be found; Molly contradicts just about everything she says. Rabaté gives the example of Molly complaining about a servant who flirted with her husband and stole from them only to complain later that Bloom is too cheap or poor to hire a servant. He also gives examples of Molly's blatantly contradictory views on women's lowcut dresses.
God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing suits and lownecks (608) . . . no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your blouse is open too low she says to me (631) . . . and her old green dress with the lowneck as she can't attract them any other way like dabbling on a rainy day (636)
These contradictions were inserted systematically by Joyce (Rabaté 55-56). Molly's chapter could thus be described as consistently contradictory. "Penelope" can also be opposed to "Ithaca":
the maximum of pseudo-scientific determinism is counterbalanced by the indeterminacy of a female writing, in which every word, sentence, motif is eventually contradicted at a later stage; every sentence generates echoes which proliferate, distorting any original meaning; any piece of information is no sooner provided than it is cancelled. (Rabaté 66)
Matei Calinescu writes: "Ulysses, irrespective of whether its form is spatial or not, is one of those books that . . . effectively cannot be read, but only reread" (23). This is because "[r]eading Joyce requires a completely different quality of attention, which is impossible to sustain continuously on a first reading or even on rereading" (171). What is this "quality of attention"? Ulysses requires patience and the ability to notice details and make connections. The "quality of attention" required is similar to that required in Zen Buddhist practice.
There arises the question then of whether there ever is a moment of insight for Joyce's reader. Calinescu wonders: does the kind of attention required by Ulysses
mean that one can never be transported to the Joycean fictional universe? Or that, however rare and difficult to achieve, there may be no such thing as a Joycean trance, that sudden flash of insight which Joyce himself called epiphany? (171)
I would argue, as Dogen might have, that the "sudden flash of insight" is no different from the special "quality of attention" prompted by reading. The process is the payoff; practice is itself enlightenment.
Though many basic questions are unanswerable, reading Ulysses remains a moving experience. How is it that we get so close to Bloom? Other works making use of interior monologue do not have the same kind of power as Ulysses. The secret of the power of Ulysses lies in the styles; Joyce uses the styles of Ulysses to create a barrier to rational understanding. By abandoning rational approaches, we make a leap to another kind of understanding that makes possible our closeness to Bloom. Like a koan, Ulysses can be pondered for years, constantly yielding new insights into the nature of knowing and the nature of reality. But its final lesson is not one of skepticism, but one of compassion. While teaching us that the world is an illusion and that attachment leads to suffering, Ulysses also teaches compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings, from Bloom to seagulls. Though Bloom never squared the circle, the mandala that is Ulysses does, and Bloom is at its center.
The Ithaca Chapter: a Scene of Recognition?
The moment of recognition is not narrated; rather, it occurs in the reader who cuts through the scientific style to see Bloom and Stephen as they really are. The central question asked at this point is: "Is the encounter of Stephen and Bloom significant?" The answer is yes, but in a Buddhist sense. Bloom and Stephen's midnight chat over cocoa is significant if we can see that it is profoundly ordinary. It is remarkable only if we resist the temptation to make it into something other than it is. Any moment is equally significant if we are able to see it as it is.
The styles of Ulysses, like the commentaries on koans, encourage us to ponder the action. The styles of Ulysses suggest that, as in Buddhism, there is no such thing as objectivity and that reality changes when approached in different ways. Bloom, for example is profoundly ordinary; what makes him special is the way Joyce describes him. This also explains why Joyce was so indiscriminate about what he included in Ulysses: "there is a significance in everything if you know how to discover and reveal it" (French 268). One could go further and suggest that Joyce considered style just another "thing" and that he did not so much find the style most fitting to each chapter but rather found the significance in whatever style he happened to stumble upon.
Wansong's commentary on the Book of Serenity encourages the reader to explore multiple perspectives, in much the same way as Joyce encourages the reader to do so in Ulysses. This is because in Zen, "no expression or view can ever be complete" (Serenity xl). The comments in koan collections "are designed to shift the reader into a different viewpoint or shed light on the same point from a different angle" and sometimes koan commentary corrects common errors (Serenity xl). Much commentary "is devoted to prevention of fixation and stereotyping" on the part of the reader rather than "presenting the personal opinion of the speaker" (Serenity xl). Like certain Zen meditation techniques, the styles of Ulysses block what is called in Buddhism "the sixth consciousness":
Practitioners of the Zen school employed many techniques specifically designed to work on the sixth consciousness, to interrupt its obsessive categorizing activity, and to loosen its stranglehold on perception. Ordinarily the sixth consciousness maintains an internal dialogue that in effect censors experience and forces everything into preconceived, familiar categories. By suspending the operation of the sixth consciousness, and moving outside the confines of its routine judgments, the person's mind is opened up to the possibility of other forms of more direct, more comprehensive awareness. (Tune 31)
Molly's monologue is systematically contradictory; it frustrates all attempts at making it coherent:
Joyce's method of heaping up disconnected features and remarks remains faithful to his notion of contradiction: even in the little scenarios he prepares he is careful to add up contradictory elements almost in succession. Thus Molly's "genitophilia" is balanced by the disgust she first felt in front of a male organ, and her "stupidity" by her having "found everything out." (Rabaté 54)
A seemingly endless number of other examples can be found; Molly contradicts just about everything she says. Rabaté gives the example of Molly complaining about a servant who flirted with her husband and stole from them only to complain later that Bloom is too cheap or poor to hire a servant. He also gives examples of Molly's blatantly contradictory views on women's lowcut dresses.
God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing suits and lownecks (608) . . . no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your blouse is open too low she says to me (631) . . . and her old green dress with the lowneck as she can't attract them any other way like dabbling on a rainy day (636)
These contradictions were inserted systematically by Joyce (Rabaté 55-56). Molly's chapter could thus be described as consistently contradictory. "Penelope" can also be opposed to "Ithaca":
the maximum of pseudo-scientific determinism is counterbalanced by the indeterminacy of a female writing, in which every word, sentence, motif is eventually contradicted at a later stage; every sentence generates echoes which proliferate, distorting any original meaning; any piece of information is no sooner provided than it is cancelled. (Rabaté 66)
Matei Calinescu writes: "Ulysses, irrespective of whether its form is spatial or not, is one of those books that . . . effectively cannot be read, but only reread" (23). This is because "[r]eading Joyce requires a completely different quality of attention, which is impossible to sustain continuously on a first reading or even on rereading" (171). What is this "quality of attention"? Ulysses requires patience and the ability to notice details and make connections. The "quality of attention" required is similar to that required in Zen Buddhist practice.
There arises the question then of whether there ever is a moment of insight for Joyce's reader. Calinescu wonders: does the kind of attention required by Ulysses
mean that one can never be transported to the Joycean fictional universe? Or that, however rare and difficult to achieve, there may be no such thing as a Joycean trance, that sudden flash of insight which Joyce himself called epiphany? (171)
I would argue, as Dogen might have, that the "sudden flash of insight" is no different from the special "quality of attention" prompted by reading. The process is the payoff; practice is itself enlightenment.
Though many basic questions are unanswerable, reading Ulysses remains a moving experience. How is it that we get so close to Bloom? Other works making use of interior monologue do not have the same kind of power as Ulysses. The secret of the power of Ulysses lies in the styles; Joyce uses the styles of Ulysses to create a barrier to rational understanding. By abandoning rational approaches, we make a leap to another kind of understanding that makes possible our closeness to Bloom. Like a koan, Ulysses can be pondered for years, constantly yielding new insights into the nature of knowing and the nature of reality. But its final lesson is not one of skepticism, but one of compassion. While teaching us that the world is an illusion and that attachment leads to suffering, Ulysses also teaches compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings, from Bloom to seagulls. Though Bloom never squared the circle, the mandala that is Ulysses does, and Bloom is at its center.
posted by Robert Frumkin at 8:42 AM
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