Reading James Joyce's ULYSSES for the first time

The Scotum Tightener pays me a visit

2009-08-19T16:08:00.001+08:00

Late afternoon yesterday, after toiling upon my word processor like a peasant gold miner in the granite, I scootered off to my watering hole for a beer and to catch up on world news as reported in THE JAKARTA POST. I didn't notice the blue sky closing up with clouds, a storm roiling in from unknown horizons. A crack of thunder was immediately followed by a waterfall of rain pounding on the thatch, encircling me and trapping me.

Ah well, I thought, I'd wait it out, and picked a book at random from the bar's exchange shelf. I forget which title, but the words soon became much of a sameness, a weary drip drip drip within as the storm without continued unabated. Soon the lights of the bar struggled against the night gloom.

An explosion of lightning sliced the night, accompanied by a crack of thunder that left behind a stink of ozone. When my heart settled back into place and the waitress brought me a fresh beer, I noticed a gentleman in the corner shadows, staying out of the cone of light falling upon his table. Had he been there all this time? He wore elegant old-fashioned clothes and round rimmed glasses that glinted in stray light.

"Hello," I ventured.

"It's a dark and stormy night," he said softly.

I hoisted my glass. "Sounds like the start of a story."

He leaned forward into the cone of light. Under his right lens was a black eye-patch. With his hooked nose, the man looked rather luciferous. "Indeed," he murmured. "How shall I tell it, my dear Richard?"

"Excuse me?"

"You vowed to read ULYSSES within a year, and now the years have passed. Tell me, my dear man, how far did you read of it?"

"Well," I said uneasily. "I did get to the end, that whole yes yes yes bit."

"But did you read every single word as you vowed?"

"Has anybody done that?"

"A vow is a vow."

"It's the spirit of the law sort of thing," I protested. "Not the fundamentalist letter."

Another angry crack of lightning, another hard volley of rain.

"You vowed," the man said. "I have stayed my judgment to give you one more chance."

"And who are you?"

Those thin lips smiled grimly. "I used to cower at thunderstorms," he said. "Now I am the Word Thunderer," he said. "In short, I am hewhowherewhatwhylogospericleanmusemanartistportraituresummumbonumscrotumtightenerdoom!"

My blood thinned. I felt faint. "You!" I whispered.

"Me," His good eye glittered. His eye patch sucked the light, swirls of light falling inward into blackness. "One more chance to fulfill your vow, Richard. Or else…"

I could scarcely find my voice. "Or else what?"

"You'll have all of eternity…to read…FINNEGAN'S WAKE."

Another sear of lightning blinded me, and when my vision slowly returned, the storm was easing and the seat in the corner was empty.

What I experienced might have been a quirk of my brain, such as a minor stroke, or formaldehyde in the beer, but I dare not take any chances. I mean, FINNEGAN'S WAKE for eternity!

Hence, my good people, this much belated blog post.

I'm reading, I'm reading, I'm reading, and in case the scrotum tightener dude is listening in, I'm reading all over again from the very first words, "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan…"

So, where did I last leave off reading?

2007-11-06T15:53:00.000+08:00

Okay, so in Singapore I bought another masterpiece I haven't read, a great thick slab of a book called MOBY DICK.

So, before I start in on that one, I thought that I had better make one more serious, genuine, contrite, purposeful effort to finish ULYSSES.

However, I am not sure where I last left off reading.

Could it be this page?

Or this one?

Or maybe this was the page I last read?

I mean, there are pages and pages and pages of this dense text and, sigh, to be true to my vow (which is already broken, but that's no excuse not to read ULYSSES cover to cover), I suppose I have to start all over again at the beginning of this section, which is like starting Mount Everest again from, say, the Katmandu airport.

My copy of ULYSSES has moved to a different address.

2007-05-13T16:10:00.000+08:00

It used to be by the toilet.

Now it's actually upon (and not beside) a stool in my writing office.

When I get tired of writing, I lay down on the sofa with ULYSSES and...snooze.

Why I couldn't read ULYSSES today

2007-04-21T15:10:00.000+08:00

I honestly had every intention.

As you know, though, from a previous post, I reserve my ULYSSES reading for a certain time and sitting postion.

But look who was there today. There is no way I can read ULYSSES with a cat looking on over my shoulder and reading as well (I am sure that ULYSSES is the one book thats cats are capable of reading--dogs read THE DA VINCI CODE). Yes, I know, I could have removed the cat, but I believe that waking a sleeping cat brings bad luck.

ULYSSES and hepatitis

2007-03-12T17:27:00.000+08:00

I'm slowly recovering from acute hepatitis. I'd rather have malaria, where you get sicker, but better much quicker.

So, with hep, one is often prone in bed, lots of time on one's jaundiced hands to read.

Well,I can tell you, ULYSSES is not a novel for the sickbed. The effort of reading that deathless prose seemed to bring one closer yet to death's door.

(You know, if Dante had written his INFERNO *after* the publication of ULYSSES, he might have included a particularly fiendish torment...)

The Wifeian thought on the Bloomian thought

2007-02-13T20:06:00.000+08:00

This morning, waking up in bed, I quoted to my wife the Bloomian thought, "Always see a man's weakness in his wife." I kissed her and told her, "You have no weakness, so that makes me invincible."

She frowned. "You dolt, that's not what that means. What he is saying is that a man's weakness is evident in how he treats his wife."

I thought about that, hands clasped behind head. "Well, even so, I'm still invincible."

She sat up. "Is that so? Then what day is tomorrow?"

Oh-oh. I thought quickly, flipping through important dates I'd forgotten in the past. Not her birthday, that is September 17, or is it 19? Sort of dyslexic there. and not our anniversary, although which anniversary could be problematic, the one sometime in July when we had the home religious service or the one in September, at the civilian affairs office (actually, I think that one is in August.) But February? Apart from my birthday on the 24th? However, being the invincible husband type, I chuckled and said, "Do you think I'd really forget? You'll just have to wait and see."

So, I'd better go through our files and records of births, deaths, weddings, and maybe even Google.

A Bloomian thought

2007-02-12T18:31:00.000+08:00

This is just after the scene when our Bloom is jollified by young Miss Gerty displaying her knickers, knowing she's being watched by the aforementioned gent. Totally un-PC in this day and age, but that so far has been one of the novel's wonderfully readable scenes.

Afterwards, Bloom gets to his Bloomian musings and tosses out this thought: "Always see a fellow's weak point in his wife."

If that is so, then I'm invincible.

I'm back to reading ULYSSES again!

2007-02-10T15:23:00.000+08:00

Thanks to much encouragement, pats on the back, and weird dreams, I'm back to reading ULYSSES. But only at certain times.

Broken vow pay back

2007-01-29T18:39:00.000+08:00

He With the Glasses and Eyepatch is starting to pay me back for not fulfulling my vow to read ULYSSES in a year.

Publisher's Weekly just gave THE KILLING SEA an enema of a review.

I had a midnight visitor...

2007-01-24T18:19:00.000+08:00

Late last night, something woke me up. Not a sound, for three temples were in full pre-dawn wail, (when I was a child, sometimes at night I would hear a soft and distant gamelan, mysterious and alluring--these days it's all loudspeakers). I lay awake in the warm darkness. And then I smelled it. Something cooking in the kitchen.

I padded down the stairs. There before the stove stood a spry old gentleman, peering through round glasses at a pan on the flame. "I do love a good kidney," he said. He had an accent soft as imported soap. "The faint tang of urine makes me particularly peckish. Have you any bread?"

I wordlessly brought out the loaf and butter. He lavishly spread a slice and then pointed the knife at me. "You vowed to read ULYSSES in a year, did you not?"

I nodded. He cackled. "The more fool you. Nonetheless, vows broken are the devil's delight. I've managed to secure an extension for you."

At last I found my voice. "For how long?"

A cut of kidney on the bread, a relish of bite. He chewed with reverence and then spoke. "As long as you wish. However, all your novels will be remaindered unless you fulfill your vow."

And then I woke up. It had all been a dream.

Except when I went down at dawn for my coffee, a pan was upon the stove, rimmed with oil, and emitting a faint stench of kidney and urine...

I'll save it for my New Year's Resolution

2006-11-18T09:30:00.000+08:00

I'm off to Germany in a few hours to attend an academic conference.

This will be the closest I've ever gotten to James Joyce territory.

I trust this will inspire me to continue reading. I honestly have every intention to do so.

But maybe I'll save that for my New Year's Resolution.

In the meantime, THE KILLING SEA: A Novel of the Tsunami that Stunned the World" got a favorable review from Kirkus, which you can read about here.

Egads! I have to START ALL OVER AGAIN

2006-10-19T14:59:00.000+08:00

I broke my vow to read ULYSSES in a year.

I have to start all over again, else cannibals will hunt me down and eat with Bloomian relish my grilled testicles.

Haven't read a word of ULYSSES in months

2006-09-16T09:43:00.000+08:00

Life, you know.

It's short.

Plus lately it's been filled up with things like Las Vegas. (My wife attended a trade show and I tagged along).

Too bad Joyce didn't live long enough to send Leopold Bloom on a trip to Vegas. It's the most stream-of-conciousness place I've ever been too.

The ULYSSES Code

2006-07-23T14:35:00.000+08:00

I'm starting to get this sense, as I plow on through the pages of ULYSSES, that thre's something else to this novel, that there's another, hidden message.

I'm even starting to have my doubts that James Joyce, or any mortal man, could have written this tome.

Consider the clues to be found in "ULYSSES James Joyce":

MESCAL JESUS YES JOY

JESUS SLY SAME JOYCE

Very suggestive, these clues.

Synopsis of ULYSSES

2006-07-13T15:24:00.000+08:00

Leopold Bloom: Blazes Boylan. He. My wife he. This very afternoon, he. My house, he. She. As I cruise around town. Must remember that soap. Kidneys taste of urine. Not a damn thing can I do about it. Yet her, my love still. You know.

Stephen Dedalus: My father is the meanest old man who ever lived, the meanest old man and oh my beloved mother died so tragic and oh curse the Church. Oh, hello, Leopold, how's it going and aren't I the most precious young man you ever did meet while strolling the streets of Dublin.

Molly Bloom: Yes, yes, oh yes.

(Note, I'm only on page 387 out of 783, so the above is adapted from a discussion in Jane Smiley's 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A NOVEL and wearing your eyeballs out if said novel happens to be ULYSSES)

The best time to read ULYSSES

2006-07-13T11:53:00.000+08:00

Apart from when athwart the feckle throne and voiding alimentary products, that is.

When waiting for loooong Internet downloads to finish. Such as graphic novels. You know, easy to read stuff.

A momentous moment

2006-06-18T15:01:00.000+08:00

Folks, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for…after weeks of anticipation…the morning's agonizing wait...I've just received word Richard Lewis will any moment now enter...yes, the door opens and it's Richard, it's definitely Richard this time. He idles towards the desk...wait, is he going to the bathroom? Don't tell me he's going to...no, no he's definitely approaching the desk, he stops and looks down at the book, and he’s…and he’s, he’s picking it up, he’s definitely picking it up. Not only that he’s actually flipping the pages! He’s flipping the pages, folks! Oh the tension is nearly unbearable and yes yes! he’s doing it, folks, he’s actually doing it, HE’S READING ULYSSES!!! HE’S READING ULYSSES!!!!!

2006-06-18T10:56:00.000+08:00

My new novel. I promise you there isn't a single word in the text to confuse anybody, unless inadvertently. After all, I'm no genius like JJ.

Long time no post

2006-06-08T14:59:00.000+08:00

Long time no read, either.

Me forgot how.

What, word?

Nay.

urk

(ping)!

((gone))

†

This morning's meditational

2006-05-30T15:03:00.000+08:00

In addition to ULYSSES, am also reading the Bible through in a year. I usually read my Bible quota first thing in the morning as I sip my first cup of wake-up coffee.

Yesterday I had searched for my copy for ULYSSES, which I found and bookmarked to my last read page and put by my reading chair.

This morning, after a bad night's sleep, I open my Bible and start reading through my yawns and steaming coffee. It took me a page to realize I was actually reading ULYSSES.

In another universe...

2006-05-29T19:12:00.000+08:00

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says there's an infinity of alternate universes.

Which means there are an infinite number of Richard Lewis's who have actually finished ULYSSES by this time.

Infinity is both a simple and subtle concept--out of those infinite number of Richard Lewis's who finished the novel, there's also a subset of infinite Richard Lewis's who actually *understood* ULYSSES from the get-go.

Which disproves the many worlds interpretation.

What others say about ULYSSES

2006-04-15T15:28:00.000+08:00

Snippets taken mostly from

reason.com:

"The paradox is that the book is a giant fart joke," says Diana Wynne.

"Ulysses could have done with a good editor," the acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle recently told an audience of crestfallen Joyce fans. "You know, people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written, but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it."

Writer Stefan Sullivan in a recent Washington Times appreciation: "Ulysses is a pretty awful novel."

In the customer comments at Amazon.com: "This is one of those classic novels that gives classic novels a bad name," writes Eric L. Sparling.

"Joyce is blind in one eye because he read Ulysses and then the eye hung itself," writes nebber1214. "For Ulysses to be any worse of a book, it would have to break into your house and defecate on your bed."

Writer, surfer and adventurer extraordinaire Richard Lewis says, "In ULYSSES, James Joyce has a way with words in the same manner that e. coli has a way with bowels."

(Actually, I'm sort of enjoying the verbal diarrhea of the bar section that follows the Siren singing. And I didn't know, as Joyce makes clear, that men executed by hangings often get an posthumous erection)

Im a baaad boy

2006-04-10T10:28:00.000+08:00

I haven't read a word of ULYSSES in weeks.

I'm in good company, though.

I mean, have *you* read a word of ULYSSES in the past few weeks?

ULYSSES on tape

2006-03-22T18:58:00.000+08:00

I think I'm going to switch to an audio tape of ULYSSES. I'll start from scratch if I do.

The audio version I'm thinking of getting has Michael Jackson reading most of Stephen Dedalus's sections, Bill Murray for Leopold Bloom, Steve Woodmore for big boring chunks (he's the world's fastest talker, clocked at 637 words a minute), and Paris Hilton for Molly Bloom.

ULYSSES has inspired me!

2006-03-21T15:50:00.000+08:00

To write a thriller, that is. One that uses ULYSSES as its template. My hero and villains will dash around Dublin with the same itinerary of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom et al. The fate of the world is at stake.

Here’s the opening:

Plump, panting Tuck Corrigan trotted up the tower stairs, bearing a Glock 9 mm in his sweaty palms. If he had spare breath, he would have cursed the Father. Why the hell did the jejune Jesuit insist on saying his morning office up here in the heavens?

Tuck found Father Stephen Father leaning against the parapet, his moody gaze on the distant sullen sea.

Father Stephen's cassock rustled as he straightened and turned. “Do you remember the day, Tuck, when I pulled you out of the gutter?”

Tuck took several deep breaths and shoved the Glock into the Father’s hand. “Listen, you frightful Jesuit, stop counting your spiritual notches. There are milkmen downstairs, and they aren’t delivering cream. Go and shoot them, would you?”

By the way, I've copyrighted this idea. Anybody steals it, I'll Holy Blood & Grail you in court.

What my mind looks like now

2006-03-18T16:00:00.000+08:00

I've reread the Sirens section, and this depicts my understanding:

Actually, I can see more of the hints that Seguro kindly pointed out to me in his comments, but I have to wonder about the first casual reader to read ULYSSES. How was he (or she) able to figure out what the heck was going on without having any guide books or helping experts?

Still alive, still reading

2006-03-08T17:54:00.000+08:00

I had this dream last night.

God refused to let me die until I had finished UYLSSES.

Soooooo, me being a superstitious sort, I might start reading one word a day from now on.

A pictorial representation of my mind and ULYSSES

2006-02-20T15:43:00.000+08:00

I am coming to the conclusion...

2006-02-14T17:53:00.000+08:00

...that ULYSSES is either the impregnable object or the irrefragable force. Or both.

ULYSSES recommended reading for children.

2006-02-09T19:26:00.000+08:00

The Royal Society of Literature Magazine has asked prominent children's authors which ten books children should read before they leave school. UK's poet laureate, Andrew Motion, believes that ULYSSES should be one of them.

In which case I suspect they'd never be leaving school

Helpful hints from Segur

2006-02-03T11:05:00.000+08:00

Segaro 95.20, in his comments to my second to last post below (well, third to last now) has these helpful hints--I'm off to re-read this section with this new information in hand to see how things fall into place and what I missed the first time around. Thanks, s.

******
Hint 1: the singer is Simon Dedalus, Stephen's father.

Hint 2: Blazes Boylan is having an affair with Molly, Bloom's wife - in fact, he is on his way to see her now at their house on Eccles Street. All the 'Jingle jaunty' references are about Boylan on his journey across town to see Molly.

Hint 3: if you can get a map of the city and try to follow the routes of the respective characters, that might help a little.

Hint 4: Remember that Simon's wife - Stephen's mother - has recently died. Which gives poignancy to his rendition of the song Martha My Dear. At the climax of the song: 'Come...to me' there is an extraordinary moment of sadness and loss: Bloom has been thinking about his wife with Boylan, while Simon is thinging about his dead wife. (Simon sees Bloom earlier in the scene and asks his companion about Bloom's wife - he has forgotten her name and asks "Is she still alive?" Simon and companion speak admiringly about Molly and the inference is that that Mrs Bloom (Nee Marion Tweedy) is free with her affections.

And just after the climax of the song "...to me!" we get:

Siopold!
Consumed.

Leopold and Simon brought together by the song in mourning for their lost loves.

Music is a major theme of this chapter - known as 'The Sirens'.

Happy Birthday, James Joyce

2006-02-03T10:46:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm a day late.

Portrait of the Artist as a Baby. "Stately, plump James Joyce came buck naked from his mother's womb, bearing a pen and crying for paper upon which to write a story."

Recovered

2006-02-02T10:10:00.000+08:00

I am over the flu. I feel so good that I wonder if I died overnight and was resurrected into incorruptible flesh. Apart from my brain tissue. For ULYSSES is back to being pretty much incomprehensible, at least in the section I'm in. I'd quote a short passage from Bloom's restaurant scene, where he is being serenaded by a pianist and singer and being tortured by a dyslexic muse as he gives us his inner thoughts, but why should I?

Actually, I can pretty much follow each individual sentence. It's the stringing together of them that causes me problems. A form of dyslexia--can I call it ulysslexia?

Best time to read ULYSSES

2006-02-01T13:15:00.000+08:00

When one is dizzy with the flu.

It makes more sense.

If I had the bird flu, I daresay I'd be completely enlightened, and would die with some contentment, for I had conquered ULYSSES.

BTW, I know I don't have bird flu, because I don't have its primary symptom, an urge to poop on car windshields.

Back from Cambodia

2006-01-28T13:17:00.000+08:00

And into ULYSSES.

Tomorrow.

I swear.

Now, some shameless pimping: Amazon has put up one of my short stories, SHALLOW WATER BLACKOUT , a tale about the testosteronic world of bluewater hunting with spearguns.

I found my copy

2006-01-17T15:24:00.000+08:00

I found my copy of ULYSSES. It was, of course, right under my nose by the computer.

Drats. Now I have so much catching up to do.

A bad boy

2006-01-11T19:36:00.001+08:00

I haven't read my daily three pages in weeks. I'm not even sure where my copy of ULYSSES is. So I offer this instead.

2006-01-11T19:36:00.000+08:00

Reading ULYSSES at the police station

2006-01-04T16:29:00.000+08:00

Recently I had to renew my driver's license at the Department of Motor Vehicle police station.

Below is the theory of renewal. Like many bureacratic procudures, it looks complicated, but is orderly in its flow of things.

Below is the practice. This is a typical orderly queue in Bali. I stood calmly in the back, reading ULYSSES, knowing that my bribe was working wonders, that I would be soon called to the front to sign the papers and get my photo taken.

New Year's

2006-01-02T13:39:00.000+08:00

New Year's Eve party:

Me: Right now I'm reading James Joyce's ULYSSES.

Wine drinker: Never heard of it.

Me: ULYSSES is the DA VINCI CODE of literature.

Wine drinker: I see. (Snatches another glass of red from passing tray)

ULYSSES as remedial reading for dyslexics

2005-12-23T18:10:00.000+08:00

I'm reading a wonderful memoir, publised in 19779, by Eileen Simpson, REVERSALS: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF VICTORY OVER DYSLEXIA. In it she relates how in her struggle to read she came across ULYSSES, With its weird spellings and words and just plain humorous weirdness (along with whole sections that brilliant readers didn't get as well), the novel was perfect for her.

2005-12-21T11:03:00.000+08:00

This is where I was surfing instead of reading ULYSSES. Didn't write a word either. Good for me!

The 100 Most Influential Books of All Time

2005-12-13T18:18:00.000+08:00

Is ULYSSES on the list of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written ?

Reading under the weather

2005-12-11T13:04:00.000+08:00

The monsoon is here.

I wish I had something witty to say.

Will somebody please put Stephen Dedalus out of his misery

2005-12-02T19:04:00.000+08:00

The edition I'm reading doesn't have chapter titles, just big section roman numerals.

I'm now in the part where various citizens of Dublin are doing walking about and doing their thing.

A brief Stephen Dedalus point of view as well.

Can't stand that guy. Because I don't understand him, I suppose. But also because he's just so damn...so damn...something

What did the wise man say to the wiser man?

2005-11-22T06:55:00.000+08:00

There once was a wise man and a wiser man. The wise man thought to himself, "The wiser man has not read ULYSSES. Therefore, I will read ULYSSES and become wiser than the wiser man."

A month later he he comes to the wiser man and holds his head to groan, "Oh wiser man, now I know why you are wiser."

But good news for me: I'm out of the Dedalus Shakespeare theory chapter (wherein I believe Dedalus argues that Shakespeare's major plays are really about himself and his family, but I'm not sure of that), and into the Chapter of The Very Reverend John Conmee saluting others and being saluted.

But

Where I do a fair bit of my ULYSSES reading

2005-11-16T16:27:00.000+08:00

I'm not joking (this being the toilet adjacent to my den), so while this post is a little potty, it's not really potty humor.

A lesson in craft from ULYSSES

2005-11-14T19:35:00.000+08:00

It is sacriligeous to refer to ULYSSES in terms of the craft (as opposed to art) of writing?

I still haven't been able to read a new page yet due to my tsunami novel revision. But I got to thinking today about character voice. In my novel there are two protagonists, a Western teenaged girl and Acehnese teenaged boy. Chapters alternative in their points of view. Obviously there is a cultural difference between them, but I will also have to have a difference in their introspective voices.*

As in ULYSSES. Here's the internal voice of Leopold Bloom, pulled pretty much at random (he is thinking of his pregnant wife): Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her. I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn German.

And here's that precious Stephen Dedalus: Wombed in sin darkness I was too,made not begotten. By them the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath...warring his life long on the contransmagnificand jewbantangiality.

So, an inspiration from the master how to differentiate a voice.

*But just touch of introspection. My editor is expecting a riveting page turner, which is sort of unlike ULYSSES.

What good are Joycean Scholars?

2005-11-12T16:09:00.000+08:00

Careful, now. It's a loaded question.

I don't believe that the cure for cancer or the definitive map to world peace is to be found in ULYSSES.

So what good does studying the works of a dead man do for humankind?

Well, for starters, that's what we humans do. Scholarship is a glorious human activity. We wouldn't be homo sapiens without the sapiens part. And of course, to understand ULYSSES requires a heck of lot of that sapien stuff, more than some people have.

Viva la ~~les~~ them Joycean Scholars!

SLY USES

2005-11-10T15:45:00.000+08:00

That's the only anagram I could make out of ULYSSES.

Sly uses.

Not that I spent a lot of time working on this. I've got mucho troubles .

There I was, face to face with the largest wave ever seen by man...

2005-11-06T16:16:00.000+08:00

Well, actually, it was only a four-footer. But my leash got wrapped around a coral head, and for a moment I thought I was going to drown. Did I think of my wife and kids? No, I thought of ULYSSES. I would never get a chance to finish it. The thought of that galvanized me, and with strength I never thought I had I yanked on my polyurathane leash and snapped it.

Off to Bella's Reef

2005-10-27T14:56:00.000+08:00

Off to surf this wave tomorrow for ten days. ULYSSES stays home this time.

I believe I was the first one to surf this reef, certainly the first one to surf it this good (it’s pretty fickle). Following surfer custom, I have the right to name it. To do so, I have to pretty much say where it is, so I will say it’s on the northwest coast of Rote Island. And actually, the two friends who happened to be on my boat with me named the spot for my young daughter. Bella’s Reef, the beautiful wave.

For you non-surfers, this is what’s called a left-hander, as it breaks to the left as one faces the shore. On this wave the swell comes out of fairly deep water and throws its lip out far, creating the tube for the so-called tube ride. If you get inside a tube and ride it, it’s a pretty bitchin’ view.

The world's best beer snack

2005-10-26T16:21:00.000+08:00

Little dried sardines fried with peanuts, with a dash of salt and hot little red peppers.

(These sardines don't taste like anchovies, which are yuck).

With a plate of these and a cold beer, reading ULYSSES becomes an outright pleasure.

ULYSSES and THE DA VINCI CODE

2005-10-25T10:40:00.000+08:00

At public places I'm often asked what I do in Bali.

This last time, I told a lifestyle surfer here on holiday, "I read ULYSSES."

He: "Pardon?"

Me: "That's I do in Bali, I read ULYSSES." I pull out the book from my bag and show him.

He (uncertain how to take me): "I've read THE DA VINCI CODE. Have you?"

Me: "Yeah."

He: "Which one do you like better?"

Me: I don't respond, for suddenly I find myself caught in one of the worst dilemmas of my lifetime.

Another ULYSSES reader

2005-10-22T18:17:00.000+08:00

A Zoetrope colleague, Deb Turner, a South African living in upstate New York, has started reading ULYSSES and sends me this note:

I'm on page 11 (after four days of serious reading!) but actually I'm really enjoying it. I like hearing Stephen's voice.

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown grave-clothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

Now, so this is the dream and the reality of his conversation with his friend. I love how he leans against his frayed cuff and tells us first that he is being haunted by the dream of his mother. Then through the frayed cuff again he brings us back to his present conversation with his friend regarding the sea looking like a great sweet mother - and then he connects it to his consciousness with the sea looking like his mother's bile. To me this is perfection in writing. I simply and absolutely love it.

To me he connects with that deeper energy like poetry. It is hard and difficult writing but incredibly rewarding in my opinion.

2005-10-19T15:35:00.000+08:00

I'm real short-sighted.

Here I'm trying to get to the bottom of Dedalus's theory on Shakespeare.

Time Magazine's TOP 100 Novels

2005-10-18T07:04:00.000+08:00

Notice who isn't on the list *

Here it is:
The Complete List
In Alphabetical Order
PRINT

A - B
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow

All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral
Philip Roth

An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm
George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume

The Assistant
Bernard Malamud

At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien

Atonement
Ian McEwan

Beloved
Toni Morrison

The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder

C - D
Call It Sleep
Henry Roth

Catch-22
Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess

The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon

A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell

The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West

Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather

A Death in the Family
James Agee

The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

Deliverance
James Dickey

Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone

F - G
Falconer
John Cheever

The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles

The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessig

Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin

Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell

The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck

Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene

Herzog
Saul Bellow

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul

I, Claudius
Robert Graves

Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

L - N
Light in August
William Faulkner

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis

Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

Lord of the Flies
William Golding

The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkein

Loving
Henry Green

Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis

The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead

Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie

Money
Martin Amis

The Moviegoer
Walker Percy

Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch
William Burroughs

Native Son
Richard Wright

Neuromancer
William Gibson

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

1984
George Orwell

O - R
On the Road
Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey

The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov

A Passage to India
E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion

Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth

Posession
A.S. Byatt

The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Rabbit, Run
John Updike

Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow

The Recognitions
William Gaddis

Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

S - T
The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles

Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth

The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner

The Sportswriter
Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John LeCarre

The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller

U - W
Ubik
Philip K. Dick

Under the Net
Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowrey

Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

White Noise
Don DeLillo

White Teeth
Zadie Smith

Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys

* of course, TIME chose their list from 1923 on just so they wouldn't have to consider ULYSSES, which was published in 1922

Goshdarn it to heck!

2005-10-17T10:40:00.000+08:00

In college I once spent Thanksgiving vacation with my friend on his grandpa's farm in Iowa. Me and my friend had both grown up as sons of missionaries in Indonesia, and the grandfather was a stalwart in the church.

Pops, my friend, and I were in the barn when Pops mishammered a nail, hitting his thumb. "Goddam it to hell," he shouted. Then he looked at us and revised himself. "Goshdarn it to heck!" he yelled.

Well, after finishing the section on Dedalus expounding on Shakespeare, that too is my sentiment. Both of them. Because I realize, that in fairness to Joyce and ULYSSES, I am going to have to re-read the whole thing --- ARGGGH GOSHDARN IT TO HECK -- just to make sure that I honestly, truly didn't get it, that I wasn't just lazing along on the surface words without trying to really understand what the heck's going on.

If your last name was Joyce, would you name your kid "James"?

2005-10-15T06:44:00.000+08:00

A writing colleague at Zoetrope , James Patrick Joyce, has these anecotes to share:

-----------------------------------------------------------
James: I’m reserve some computer time
Librarian: Your name?
James: James Joyce.
(Librarian pauses, looks askance, waits)
Librarian: Your library card?
-----------------------------------------------------------

James: I’d like to order The Seville Communion
Bookstore Clerk: Your name?
James: James Joyce
Clerk: (pauses) Okay. (little smile)
James: No, really.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Teacher: (doing roll-call for first class of the year) Michael Fursby, Bob Jaillard, James...
(Teacher looks up) James Joyce?
James: Here.
Teacher: James, did you know that there was a famous writer....
-----------------------------------------------------------

University Lit Student: (after mentioning her father did his thesis on James Joyce) Stephanie Wilson.
James: James Joyce.
Student: Sure. Got any I.D.?
-----------------------------------------------------------

Stranger at party: Someone told me your name is James Joyce.
James: Umm... yeah.
Stranger: (pulls tattered copy of Ullyses out of pocket) ‘Cause I’m a big fan of his.
James: Yeah, he’s popular.
Stranger: (pauses) Got any I.D.?
-----------------------------------------------------------

University Engineering Student: Dave.
James: James
Student: I’m horrible with names, so don’t take it personally if I forget.
James: Well, my full name is James Joyce, if that helps.
Student: (blank look)
James: You know, the famous writer?
Student: (blank look)
James: Portrait of the Artist? Dubliners? Ulysses-- topped many Best of the Century book lists?
Student: (blank look... shrugs)
-----------------------------------------------------------

(names have been changed to protect the irrelevant)

RIP, Wayan Suwenda

2005-10-11T07:28:00.000+08:00

An old surfer friend of mine who died too young. Nothing to do with ULYSSES. Some sadnesses are much bigger than that book.

Michael Ondaatje and ULYSSES

2005-10-09T16:36:00.000+08:00

That's Michael Ondaatje, the Booker Prize winning white-haired eminence in the front row of the opening of the lit festival. I didn't get a chance to ask him if he's read ULYSSES.

Ubud Writers and Readers Festival Bali 2005

2005-10-08T08:52:00.000+08:00

I'm going to be busy with this festival, my first ever writers conference. I'll be posting accounts of it at my other blog, Novelist in Paradise.

I won't be reading ULYSSES for five or so days. Which means double my quota when I do, groan. I'm in the chapter where Stephen Dedalus waxes philosophical, theological, phenomenological, ontological and metaphysical about Shakespeare.

A ULYSSES reading club

2005-10-06T07:39:00.000+08:00

Bali Bombing Deja Vu

2005-10-02T11:37:00.000+08:00

I and my family live five miles from Kuta. On October 12, 2002, I was wakened from my sleep by the Kuta nightclub bomb that killed over 200 people. The enormous explosoin rattled my bedroom windows.

Last night, at 8:30, my nighttime reading was interrupted by a phone call. Three bombs had gone off in the Kuta area, two of them at a strip of beach lined with cafés, popular with families who take the kids to play in the sand and watch the sunset. We often go there for the delicious, fresh barbecued fish—even the chefs of five star hotels dine there.

The current toll this morning is 26 dead.

This time, I am not in shock. I am furious at those bastards who deliberately picked families to murder.

What can we do to stop terrorism, apart from not giving to the jerks?

America is never going to win the war on terrorism by combating it by force in Muslim lands, which only spreads the flames, a fact that doesn’t seem to be understood by the general American public. I wish this could penetrate certain dense skulls.

Westerners in general can’t do a whole lot. This particular brand of terrorism, fueled by a virulent misinterpretation of Islam, can really only be successfully combated by Muslims themselves.

THE GOOD SOLDIER

2005-10-01T16:17:00.000+08:00

This was the bookstore in Singapore where I found a dollar copy of Ford Madox Ford's THE GOOD SOLDIER, which was written about the same time that Joyce wrote ULYSSES.

THE GOOD SOLDIER is number 30 on the Modern Library's 100 best novels of the century.

It took me a few days to read.

I can't say I'm really reading ULYSESS. I don't think one can. Read it, that is. One can study it line by line.

...and sunset

2005-09-28T12:10:00.000+08:00

That's not the real sun, by the way, which was way over to the left. That's a flash of illumination as I ponder Joyce's words.

Reading ULYSSES by sunrise...

2005-09-28T11:53:00.000+08:00

I just got back from a 12-day surfing trip to an outer island. ULYSSES went along.

Check out my new writing website, I'm away for two weeks

2005-09-14T16:22:00.000+08:00

Going surfing for a couple. I'm sure you readers are going to miss me by your thousands and tens of thousands. And yes, I'm bringing ULYSSES with me.

You can check out my new writing website, wherein I talk about my novels and other tremendously exciting stuff: Novelist in Paradise

"See the animals feed."

2005-09-14T16:18:00.000+08:00

Bloom walks into a restaurant, and (apart from the cigarette smoke and the beers) he could have walked into my old boarding school dining hall. "Swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging..a man spitting back on his plate, halfmasticated gristle, bolting to get it over with, every fellow for his own, tooth and nail."

Just like us at the boarding school dining hall.

Great scene. Except, of course, Joyce takes a couple pages when a couple paragraphs would do.

Reading ULYSSES and the scent of pig poo

2005-09-13T11:59:00.000+08:00

Yup, that's pig shit you see. This is the (presently dry) irrigation ditch right by our bedroom and my writing den. There's nothing like reading ULYSSES with the scent of pig poo wafting in the air.

Our Balinese neighbors have taken to raising pigs. The porklings' alimentary product is hosed into the ditch. This is illegal, of course, but legality is a nebulous concept in Indonesia. The way one handles such a situation here is to pay a polite visit and say things like, "I love Balinese roast pig, so delicious. I honor the people who raise pigs. Of course, raising pigs has its drawbacks, such as the smell, but there are ways to solve a good deal of that problem, such as using a good septic system."

I've paid that visit and our neighbors assure us this is pig-raising effort is only temporary, to provide roast pig for the upcoming Balinese holidays.

Reading ULYSSES to the Generals

2005-09-10T15:48:00.000+08:00

Occasionally I mingle with Very Important People. Here I read a passage of ULYSSES to the Generals. They listened attentively and applauded politely and then got down to business to which I wasn't privy.

His tongue clacked in compassion. Dth! Dth!

2005-09-09T12:47:00.000+08:00

160 pages in. I’m getting a good walkabout of Dublin, but damned if I can find a story. Bloom’s got a mistress, but that’s about it.

Bloom thinks of Shakespeare: “The flow of the language itself. The thoughts.” That seems to describe Joyce’s intent for the novel as well, to play richly with the language, and to present the characters’ internal monologues. You’d expect the best novel of the century to be examining the Big Questions of Life, but I have to admit I’m not seeing this. I’m too swamped with virtuoso technique, too busy trying to make sense of the just the surface level of what I’m reading. Maybe by the end it’ll all become clear.

Oh, the post’s title. Refers to Bloom hearing sad news. His tongue clacked in compassion. Dth! Dth!.

Is Dth! Dth! a clacking sound? For the life of me I can’t get those letters to clack. But my keyboard’s damp with spittle.

Reading ULYSSES by the Mekong

2005-09-07T15:51:00.000+08:00

That's the Mekong River in the overly bright background. This is in Cambodia.

I bet I'm the first person in decades, perhaps in history, to be reading ULYSSES in Cambodia. Although Cambodia was a French colony once, and it's best not to underestimate French intellectuals. Perhaps they had a Phnom Penh ULYSSES book club in the early days, reading and discussing it by light of their opium lamps. Heck, with Joyce providing the opiate, they wouldn't even need the opium.

ULYSSES and New Orleans

2005-09-05T11:02:00.000+08:00

I haven't been reading my daily quota for a few days. Been watching the news about Hurricane Katrina.

I was one of the early volunteer relief workers on the ground in Aceh after the tsunami, and the destruction that I see on TV rivals what I saw first hand there in Aceh.

The Spanish Red Cross got a water-making station up and running in Meulaboh, Aceh, within 36 hours of the completely *unexpected* tsunami. Hurricane Katrina provided days of advance warning.

It's the nature of bureaucracy to be bipartisanly incompetent, I know, but good Lord, the present US bureaucracy seems to have been non compos mentis.

ULYSSES and the electric chair

2005-08-29T09:38:00.000+08:00

You sit in the chair. The gizmo on the left provides the chair seat with a 20 minute rhythmic electric shock to massage your prostate.

The electricity also sharpens the mind. I actually understood most of the two pages I read of ULYSSES when I was on that chair.

Reading ULYSSES in Singapore

2005-08-29T09:10:00.000+08:00

I'm coming to an age where I'd better start worrying about my prostate before my prostate starts to worry me.

So I'm in Singapore for the proctologist's finger. Traveling with ULYSSES to give me comfort. I even read a paragraph while on the bed for the doctor -- nothing like a dash of ULYSSES to keep one's mind off the probing digit -- but I really don't feel like sharing that photo with you.

Instead, here's one taken by a beer garden. I'm letting the Indian gods on the temple wall read over my shoulder.

Taphephobia, Exploding Coffins, and ULYSSES

2005-08-23T16:04:00.000+08:00

Still at Dignam's funeral with Bloom and friends. Reading this scene is as long as actually attending a funeral. Bloom has morbid thoughts. Among them, the horror of one being buried alive.

The fear of being buried alive is taphephobia. That's a word to remember. "Oh, you taphephobe, you!"

I, too, fear being buried alive. That's why in my will I've added an item to have a copy of ULYSSES put in my coffin, along with long-lasting flashlight. Should I wake up in my grave, then I will have something to read until I do die.

Most corpses in the morgue here in Bali are pumped full of formaldehyde prior to burial. Since formaldehyde boils at 115 degrees F, things can get interesting if the deceased is buried in a sealed casket in this hot climate. There's been at least one instance where such a casket exploded prior to burial in the cemetery. Body parts everywhere. The atmosphere among the assembled mourners changed rather abruptly.

Marion, Milly, Martha, Molly and Meaning

2005-08-21T08:48:00.000+08:00

As of 11 am on this fine Dublin day, these are the women in Leopold Bloom’s life: Marion his wife. Milly his daughter. Martha his lover and perhaps a prostitute. And Molly, whose first mention puzzled me. Yet another M? Took me a while to figure out this is another name for Marion. I think.

Which brings me to meaning. Joyce pretty much lets you sink or swim. Bloom’s thoughts ramble along in random association. To understand requires much mental effort. I am pleased when I do. What isn’t understandable I put aside hoping some clarification will come later. The trouble is, I never know whether I don’t understand because I’m not trying hard enough (or have forgotten something, which leads to much re-reading) or because, in fact, it is not understandable (either yet or forever). This vexes.

Clearly Joyce isn’t writing for the reader. He’s more interested in residing within a character’s head and presenting that character’s thoughts. There’s a paradox here, though. Because Joyce, in gazing at Bloom’s passing stream of thought, must also create that stream in order to gaze upon it, and he can only create it by gazing at *his* own stream of consciousness, which he must in turn create for the character Bloom.

It’s nothing I don’t do myself when I create a character, I guess; still, I get dizzy thinking about it.

The weather in Dublin today...

2005-08-19T15:15:00.000+08:00

...isn't real good.

The report from Weather Underground: Scattered clouds. 17 C/ 64F. Wind 13 mph. Humidity 100 percent.

I guess that means it's raining?

In ULYSSES, the weather starts out fair, but it's raining by ten.

One of my correspondents assures me that Dublin does have fine weather, but I guess if I were to go to Dublin, I wouldn't count on getting a tan.

pictures of Franzen the Author and Franzen after reading ULYSSES

2005-08-16T19:46:00.000+08:00

That's his author photo on the right.

That's him after reading ULYSSES.

See what reading ULYSSES can do to you?

Bowel movements in early 20th century literature

2005-08-16T18:46:00.000+08:00

I don’t know if bowel movements are a significant theme in early 20th century literature, but certainly Joyce’s description of Leopold Bloom pinching off one (hope it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right…it was something quick and neat) marks a scatological high moment in heavy-duty literary lit.

Bloom wipes himself with a prize short story he is reading in the paper.

I wonder when toilet paper was invented.

Best, though, is plain old water, as is common here in Indonesia. Paper leaves a residual smear.* My knees can’t take the necessary squatting position, though. So a bidet comes in handy.

*Studies show that each swimmer in a public pool deposits something like .1 grams of fecal matter in the water (this doesn’t include contribution made by infants). True! You can look it up.

Holy cow and gizzards! (Or, I'd like a splash of urine on my grilled kidneys, please)

2005-08-10T17:59:00.000+08:00

I'm into part II, with Leopold Bloom. This is strong stuff: "Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

Do grilled mutton kidneys really taste like that?

I'm noticing how Bloom's interior monolog is different than Dedalus's. Different characterization altogether. I'm starting to have a grudging admiration for Joyce in this regard. I mean, after all, no author can accurately portray with words a person's inner thoughts.

I might have to eat my words of the previous post. Lightly sauteed in urine.

"He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a page of ULYSSES, carefully."

2005-08-09T16:23:00.000+08:00

I’m not the most widely read person, although wider than some, but no matter how widely I read, I doubt I’d come across anything written in a semblance of English that is as obscure as the closing section of Part I, which is mostly Stephen Dedalus’s interior monologue.

I was forewarned of course.

What effort is required to understand this?

I suppose first all I’d have to read Joyce’s other novels in which Dedalus is a character. Some of the opaque references might become clear.

Next, I’d have to study culture and customs, European and Irish, of the early 20th century to understand those sorts of references.

Third, I’d have to study whatever it was Joyce studied for his education – classical literature and philosophy no doubt among his ace topics – and also learn various foreign languages.

Fourth, I’d have to immerse myself in a long program of reading and studying poetry, which I admit one of my weak points when it comes to things literary.

And oh, I’d have to be a Catholic for a good while, preferably back in my formative youth (or so I gather from Dedalus’s struggle with it).

Where would this take me in understanding this section? I suspect not far. At any rate, it’s far more effort than I have years left to my life.

And the truth of it, as I see it, Joyce is a cheat here. This isn’t Dedalus, or Joyce as Dedalus. This is 100 percent Joyce, playing with language (and it’s brilliant, okay), pretending to give us Dedalus’s thoughts, but what sane person, even the most poetic or literary, ever thinks like this? Talk about authorial intrusion!

Of course, if Joyce was the first author to give such a riotous interpretation of a character’s thought processes, then Joyce was a genius. But if *I* try to do it, my editor gives it the red pencil.

Best sentence of the section is also the most understandable: “He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock, carefully.” Oh, juvenile me! (Or, channeling Joyce, Oh, jejune twitsoulled tweetsome Dickie Bird moi.

ULYSSES and PARADISE LOST and squeezing a gallstone

2005-08-06T11:45:00.000+08:00

In high school I was called on to read aloud from HAMLET to the class. After I finished, the teacher asked me what I thought of what I’d just read. “I’m sorry,” I said earnestly, “I wasn’t listening.”

So it is with Stephen Dedalus’s interior monologue that closes section 1. This is where my daily quota becomes a necessary grind to get through the novel. I have vowed to read every word of this novel in sequence, and to do so in this section I’ve been forced to reading the text out loud, but I really wasn’t listening most of the time. Matter of fact, I have read this section at least twice, trying to milk as much understanding out of it as possible. (I believe a squeezed gallstone would have produced more insight.)

I will have more to say later, but for now, let me turn to Milton’s PARADISE LOST, which I am currently reading for research. This was required reading in college, but being a science major I scoffed at things literary, especially old literary things, so I resorted to Cliff Notes.

But man, it’s damn good! And I got to thinking, why am I enjoying this so much and not ULYSSES? The answer in part is that Joyce seems ultimately to be writing for himself and Milton is writing for his readers. Not to mention that Satan makes a hell of a more interesting character than wimpy Dedalus.

Some interesting facts about ULYSSES

2005-08-02T13:15:00.000+08:00

1. ULYSSES has been translated into several languages, including English.

2. During President Reagan’s first inauguration, the Bible he swore upon was actually a copy of ULYSSES cleverly disguised and put in place by Russian spies. This insidious plot to ruin American not only failed but backfired. Many scholars say the decline of the Soviet Union began at this moment.

3. In Venice, California, there is a cult of witches and sorcerers who use ULYSSES exclusively to fashion their spells, curses, and blessings.

4. If you stacked all the copies of ULYSSES ever printed, it was probably more trouble than it was worth.

5. A copy of ULYSSES once took the lives of several American soldiers in WW II. A German corporal, reading ULYSSES in the latrine, got so impatient with it he tossed it over the side. The book collided with a grenade that the American ambushers had just thrown. The live grenade fell back among the sneaking Yanks and killed three of the five.

6. The National Security Administration uses the original text of ULYSSES as the standard for encryption/decryption protocols.

7. NASA recorded ULYSSES on tape for their Space Shuttle astronauts to listen to as a sleeping aid.

8. If James Joyce were alive today, he’d be the world’s oldest man.

9. The General Theory of Relativity, which relates mass to the curving of spacetime, states that if a person is near a copy of ULYSSES, he or she will not age as fast. That is why you will see copies of ULYSSES in the offices of many plastic surgeons.

10. I only know of 9 interesting facts. Perhaps you know others.

Anti-Semitism in ULYSSES?

2005-07-30T18:46:00.000+08:00

I once wrote a story where a character makes a racist joke about a customer she is serving in her Iowa coffee shop. My intent was to characterize this woman as a person flawed by prejudice, but my workshop colleagues tore into me, accusing me of being racist. This exercise in political correctness was quite an eye opener. (And I shouldn’t have been surprised by Kirkus’s negative review of my novel THE FLAME TREE, which sternly took me to task for the audacity of portraying a few Muslims as bigoted and violent).

So I’m not going to jump all over Joyce when one of his characters (the Britisher Haines) says, “Of course I’m a Britisher…and I feel as one. I don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of the German jews either. That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.”

This is probably just Haines. One musn’t try to reverse engineer the author from his characters. In fact, maybe Joyce, being Irish, was taking the mickey out of the British by making a Britisher brutish.

On the other hand, this was written at the opening of this century, when racism wasn’t even a concept yet, although its practice was much more casually out in the open and culturally acceptable. So I do wonder whether Joyce was exposing something of himself here. I repeat, I don’t know. The rest (the great unread rest) of the novel might tell.

A note for ULYSSES fans

2005-07-28T11:23:00.000+08:00

I’m not reading ULYSSES to mock it. I’m serious about this, but on other hand, I have to be in some sense light-hearted about it as well, otherwise the temptation to toss aside the novel might be too much. If I sound snide or cynical, it's not intended.

I’m up to page 21, and I reckon reading this is like dining at an Indonesian rijstaffel. That’s a banquet of rice with dozens of accompanying dishes. You might not like all the dishes, in fact you might not understand some of the dishes, but there are many delicious dishes to enjoy.

As for expert commentary, there seems to be something on each page or two I don’t quite get, or don’t get at all. I really doubt any of you would have the time or patience to answer all my questions, some of them no doubt outright dumb or ignorant.

But I will have questions to ask later, when I’ve read much or most of the novel. For example, I am keeping in mind Segur’s comment to one of my posts that Buck Mulligan wants to Hellenize Ireland – I don’t know why this should be so, but I reckon maybe the answer will come as I read on. If it doesn’t, I’ll get back this point.

Why this blog?

2005-07-28T11:04:00.000+08:00

I’m not fooling myself into thinking that this blog is burning a comet’s trail aross the blogosphere. But here is why I am blogging my reading of ULYSSES instead of reading it the old-fashioned way, in private and in quiet:

1. Because for while I’ve wanted to write a blog just for the hell of it, to give me a break from my fiction writing. I was going to blog about fiction writing, but decided to warm up first on another.

2. Because I didn’t want to write the deadly boring “I did this and then I did that” sort of blog.

3. Because I did decide to bite the bullet and read ULYSSES.

4. Because, to be completely honest, I’d like whoever reads this blog to be tempted to click on the little icon over there and check out my novel. That's why this isn't anonymous. Of course, maybe you’ll shake your head and ask, What’s the industry coming to these days if an idiot like this guy can get published?

Would Joyce like this cigarette?

2005-07-27T18:28:00.000+08:00

Did JJ smoke? He might have appreciated Indonesia's newest cigarette.

Can't a fellow read ULYSSES just for the enjoyment, I plaintively ask?

2005-07-27T13:00:00.000+08:00

Segur, a most learned person about things Joycean, gently points out in his comments the errors of my ways and assumptions in my previous posts.

Still, I’d like to plaintively ask, is it possible to read ULYSSES these days just for the enjoyment of it, without needing a commentary to understand it?

I guess that depends on what I mean by “enjoy.” Me, that means being able to follow the text and the story without any undue labor. The parts of the writing that aren't accessible to me are piling up. I admit I’m biased both by reading habit and I guess some genetics – growing up in Bali most of my reading were whatever novels tourists and travelers left behind. Vacation stuff. Don’t get me wrong, by reading great literature I am growing into an appreciation of great literature, but so far, upon page 18, ULYSSES isn’t growing on me.

Consider this passage: Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.

Reading that snippet aloud, I enjoy the rhythm and cadence, but damned if I can understand it. If that makes me a literary philistine, then philistine I am.

But still, I do like Buck Mulligan, fluttering his hands at his side like a cherub and reciting The Ballad of Joking Jesus. If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine/He’ll get no free drinks when I’m making the wine

On, on! I shall not fail!

Picking noses, plus more on reading plan

2005-07-25T12:17:00.000+08:00

My nine-year-old daughter made this in Sunday School (the writing says God's Team). My seven-year-old son said it would be great for picking noses. (He also says, you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you should never ever pick your friend’s nose)

I’m faithfully keeping up my ULYSSES reading. Mario in his comment suggests that at 3 pages a day I will lose track of characters, but on the other hand, having a daily quota is the only way I can be sure I actually finish the novel.

It’s sort of like reading the Bible through in a year.

However, I think it’d be boring to comment on each day’s read. So I won’t be posting every day.

By the way, I am going to start another blog on my novel-in-progress, the one under deadline to Simon and Schuster YA (about the tsunami). Along with other related writing stuff. Will let you all know.

The first 3 pages

2005-07-23T12:55:00.000+08:00

Read first 3 pages (and for convenience say, let’s say my daily quota is 3 ages –whoops, I mean pages). Yes, I read every word, too, a lot of them more than once, trying to get the sense of things.

I’m on a parapet overlooking Dublin bay with Stephen Dedalus and stately, plump Buck Mulligan. Mulligan seems to have a version of Tourette’s syndrome. I don’t fully understand him (what is an oun?), but I like him.

Let me briefly “workshop” this beginning ala “how to write fiction”: No real opening hook. Use of foreign languages a no-no. Pesky adverbs should be deleted. Too many adjectives. General setting clear, but confusion as to the nature of Dedalus’s and Buck’s accommodations. Nice foreshadowing of conflict with the unseen Haines, a fellow resident of the tower who’s raving about shooting a black panther (note: I expect something to come of this setup). When Dedalus says to Buck “You saved men from drowning”, this is authorial intrusion, telling the reader something that should be shown. Dedadlus says he is no hero, which of course leads me to expect that he will prove to be one. Excellent powers of description (“gurgling face..equine in its length..light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.”) Flashback of Dedalus’s refusal to pray for his dying mother despite her request (a telling characterization of Dedalus) is well handled, although it is perhaps best shown in immediate scene.

Okay, okay, that was just a frivolous exercise. But truthfully, if I had opened this novel in a bookstore without any idea of what it was I would have immediately put it down. Why? Because I have this quirk about not wanting to read novels that don’t use standard quotation marks for dialogue (ULYSSES uses dashes to set off dialogue—was this one of Joyce’s literary inventions?). This reflects poorly on me, I know.

Still, I’ve plunged in and found the writing more accessible than I thought I would. A mild spark of interest in the story, as well, but not enough to read beyond my daily quota.

My Reading Plan

2005-07-21T20:12:00.000+08:00

My copy of ULYSSES has 780 pages. I’ve flipped through them – while there several sections, there don’t seem to be any chapters. To finish the novel in a year, I would have to read about 2.1 pages a day (or 2.136986… to be precise -- an irrational number, by the way). That seems eminently doable. Perhaps there will be days when the story tugs me along beyond this quota. Perhaps there will be many more days when I will read exactly 2.136986… pages, or down to the closest word (splitting this hair down to the closest letter of the closest word would be overdoing it, I believe).

But I noticed Joyce’s signoff at the end: Trieste-Zurich-Paris, 1914-1921. And here I thought Joyce was holed up in dreary Dublin to write this. One small stereotype shattered. Maybe larger stereotypes will also crumble.

It's arrived!

2005-07-07T15:47:00.000+08:00

My copy of ULYSSES has arrived. After quickly flipping through the pages, 783 of them, I am deeply moved by a profound sense of inertia.

Do I have to read the introductory front pages?

One interesting thing right of the bat, from my cursory examination of the front matter: I didn't know the book had been banned in the US. Books that are banned tend to get fame and notoriety. Is this one reason why ULYSSES is so famous and so unread?

Tomorrow I am off to an Internetless island with my kids to go surfing. I will not bring my laptop nor ULYSSES. I have packed other books to read, such as Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

Just kidding (although I did read Brown's ANGELS AND DEMONS a few weeks ago on a similar trip -- my eyes haven't quite recovered from all their rolling). One of the books I do have is Robinson's GILEAD, which I am quite looking forward to read, as my father was a minister and missionary.

I'll plan out my year of reading ULYSSES when I return on July 20th.

Well, I'll be quarked

2005-07-04T15:37:00.000+08:00

I am in grievous error. I said in an earlier post that the physicist Gell-Mann got the name "quark" from ULYSSES. Wroing wroing wrong. The term comes from Joyce's FINNEGAN'S AWAKE and boy is he hungover.

Okay, okay. That's FINNEGAN'S WAKE, which probably refers to poor Finnegan's postmortem rites. Several friends and kind colleagues have commented that I have chosen the wrong non-understandable novel to read, that FW better fits that criterion.

I hang my head in abashment.

Still waiting on Amazon.

Obviously.

Who was the real Ulysses?

2005-07-03T16:17:00.000+08:00

Ulysses was that ancient Greek warrior dude who, after lots of heroics in the Trojan War (he was the devious bastard who came up with the wooden horse idea to get inside the gates of Troy), went on that famous Odyssey as told by Homer, trying to get back home to his wife Penelope, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

It was Homer, in writing the Odyssey, who's responsible for the cliché “steering a course between Scylla and Charybdis”, which for some odd reason I've heard at least five times this past week. The monster Scylla snacked on sailors and the whirlpool Charybdis drowned them, and Ulysses had to safely make his way between them. The phrase means having to navigate threatening waters, even if landlocked and stationary, such as when you are seated at a party between your mother-in-law and your boss.

The 19th century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, taking pity on Ulysses having to hang with his aged wife, sent the old man on further adventures, "to strive, to find, to seek, and not to yield." Excellent words, btw, for a middle-aged fart who is going to read ULYSSES for the first time.

As for James Joyce, I understand (and I could be wrong) that all the characters in his novel have their counterpart in the ancient Homerian epic. So I’m real interested to see what form Joyce’s Trojan Horse takes, not mention how Joyce steered the course between his mother-in-law and his boss.*

*(Was Joyce ever married? Gainfully employed? I guess I should find out, but I am curiously incurious.)

Okay, just kidding on the math of previous post

2005-07-02T19:28:00.000+08:00

Checking to see if you were alert, which apparently no one was. (But hey, this is about ULYSSES, not math).

I said the 15 billion AA batteries manufactured each year (an estimation) would stack into a cube several thousand kilometers to a side.

You don't really have to do the math to realize that's ridiculous, otherwise the planet would soon be covered in AA batteries.

An honest hand-wavy calculation gives a cube about 50 meters (yards) to a side.

That's enough room to pack about 50 million copies of ULYSSES, certainly far more than has been printed, much less read.

How AA batteries are manufactured worldwide each year?

2005-06-30T15:48:00.000+08:00

World population is 6.5 billion. I’d assume, averaging things out (some people use a lot of AA batteries, many use none; some appliances use 4 batteries, some only 1), that each person uses one pair of AA batteries per year. That's 13 billion.

Bump that up for overproduction, and thus my rough estimate: 15 billion AA batteries are manufactured each year.*

However, I daresay that not one pair of AA batteries has ever been used to read ULYSSES by flashlight.

* An AA battery is about 1.5 cm in diameter and 5 cm long. If 15 billion batteries were stacked in a cube, the cube would be several thousand kilometers to a side, enough to fit several hundred Dublins.

Why I haven't started reading yet

2005-06-28T10:46:00.000+08:00

I’m waiting on Amazon, who is delivering ULYSSES unto me. I doubt there’s a single copy available anywhere in Bali to buy, borrow, or steal.

Amazon’s cheapest shipping fee was as much as the book. Since I’m still a pre-famous and pre-rich author,* the total is a big chunk of money to me. This is proof of my seriousness. I’m not spending that sort of money on a whim.

* Ancient Balinese curse: May your fame and fortune be postmortem.

2005-06-27T11:26:00.000+08:00

How I got home to Bali from where I had my epiphany