alex marshall's thoughts
Reading Ulysses I feel less like the Cyclops (a one-eyed blind man trying to hit a shifting target) as you suggest than Theseus in the labyrinth without a clue (e.g. in Zachary Mason’s “The Lost Books of the Odyssey”).
If the Odyssey is "about" the search for identity and a home, “a local habitation and a name”, maybe the snarky throwaway line about the “cracked looking glass” gains power as a metaphor for Joyce’s resentment at his own loss as well as Ireland’s collective deprivation. However complete his identification in English (his own birth language, after all, for many generations back) it would always be the language of the conqueror, the imposed colonial power. This isn’t just a matter of politics, but of the very significance and weight of words, their back-story and place in the history of the land and the people, and therefore the inner identity that language expresses. Joyce and Beckett were exiles long before they left Ireland.
It occurred to me that the metaphor goes not only to Ireland’s long history of repression of Irish life and thought as well as literature under the British, but extends to the Church. The Church was in effect a rival colonial power, struggling to suppress not only the the native Irish church, which was the easy part, but the customs and ways of life and thought that stretched all the way back into the time of myth and legend. (You don't have to be a misty Yeatsy "Celtic twilight" nut to accept this.) As much as the Irish common people embraced the Church (and whatever part the Church played in the Irish liberation struggle) the Church suffocated in return a lot of what it meant to be Irish – Brian Friel’s play “Dancing at Lughnasa” comes to mind.
Then there’s the assimilation of “West Britons” like Deasy (doesn’t “The Dead” also deal with this?) searching for their own identity, another part of the story, and turning into pathetic imitators of the English (language and life) in the process.
It also recalls to me Friel’s “Translations” which deals not just with the blindness and stupidity of the colonial power, hurling rocks in rage and frustration, but the impossibility of comprehension, even with a lover’s eye.
If the Odyssey is "about" the search for identity and a home, “a local habitation and a name”, maybe the snarky throwaway line about the “cracked looking glass” gains power as a metaphor for Joyce’s resentment at his own loss as well as Ireland’s collective deprivation. However complete his identification in English (his own birth language, after all, for many generations back) it would always be the language of the conqueror, the imposed colonial power. This isn’t just a matter of politics, but of the very significance and weight of words, their back-story and place in the history of the land and the people, and therefore the inner identity that language expresses. Joyce and Beckett were exiles long before they left Ireland.
It occurred to me that the metaphor goes not only to Ireland’s long history of repression of Irish life and thought as well as literature under the British, but extends to the Church. The Church was in effect a rival colonial power, struggling to suppress not only the the native Irish church, which was the easy part, but the customs and ways of life and thought that stretched all the way back into the time of myth and legend. (You don't have to be a misty Yeatsy "Celtic twilight" nut to accept this.) As much as the Irish common people embraced the Church (and whatever part the Church played in the Irish liberation struggle) the Church suffocated in return a lot of what it meant to be Irish – Brian Friel’s play “Dancing at Lughnasa” comes to mind.
Then there’s the assimilation of “West Britons” like Deasy (doesn’t “The Dead” also deal with this?) searching for their own identity, another part of the story, and turning into pathetic imitators of the English (language and life) in the process.
It also recalls to me Friel’s “Translations” which deals not just with the blindness and stupidity of the colonial power, hurling rocks in rage and frustration, but the impossibility of comprehension, even with a lover’s eye.
posted by Robert Frumkin at 7:57 AM
1 Comments:
Trying to follow Stephen along Sandymount strand, I'm reminded of Philip Pullman's advice to first-time readers of Paradise Lost, which is basically "Just bomb on through, enjoy the ride and the view, and worry about the meaning later."
PL readers can be pretty sure that Milton had a narrative in mind, and that once they'd decoded all the references they'd be left with a richer, deeper understanding of that narrative.
With Joyce, not so much. What pops into his head seems to be pretty random, triggered by what he was supposed to be doing (going to his aunt's) what he'd decided to do (skip it) what came into his field of view (a dog lolloping along the beach) and so on.
The relevant book of the Odyssey gives some clues-- but then there are for example the blue-footed Egyptians. (Or does he have blue feet?) OK, "Egyptians" means "gypsies", and the various apparently nonsense words that follow are Romany and thieves' slang from the 18-19C. So far so good. The question is -- why? What is Joyce trying to do here and at any one of a dozen other places in this chapter? It's fun, and he plays with language like a juggler producing footballs and fireworks from his back pocket. But is that all? Is it enough? I found myself getting annoyed, like Robert's Cyclops.
More and deeper? Or just bomb on through and let the meaning take care of itself? Wd that be to miss 90 per cent of what's in there, or simply avoid running up a bunch of dead ends and into brick walls? My head hurts.
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