READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 8 included contributions by Michael Cooney, Frances Devlin Glass, Heather McKean, Margaret Newman, Claire Pedersen, and Beverley Price, whose initials appear where their words are represented in these analecta. Best catechism ever! (MC) Which raises the whole question of can there ever be such a thing as a ‘best catechism’. It’s unlikely that Joyce wrote the penultimate episode of Ulysses with the intention of winning First Prize in the Catechism of the Year Awards. Pravda offices throughout the world, in every organisation and every government, do not publish their Q&A manuals for their originality, their groundbreaking outlook, their provocative thesis. Their aim is to provide everyone with...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 8 included contributions by Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Sue Collins, Frances Devlin Glass, Margaret Newman, and Elle Rasink, whose initials appear where their words are represented in these analecta. Here is an invitation to chew over this menu of statements and extras. Bloom’s sensuality and his responsiveness to tastes. (FDG) Sounds and words through the ears; colours and images through the eyes; aromas and scents through the nostrils; sensations of the skin; taste and texture in the mouth – all those are prompts to his thoughts and memories, so that read and heard aright, everything Bloom experiences happens in relationship and every one of his words is connected to some clue elsewhere i...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 6 included contributions by Lyall Burton, Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Frances Devlin Glass, Tony Guyot, Susan Lever, and Helene McNamara, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. Given other thoughts on his mind, his grief for his father and lost son, the imminent loss of his wife, are his habits of thought escapist, or realistic, or something else? (FDG) Maybe it’s a bit of both, escapism and realism; Bloom being philosophical about life and mortality and how infused they are. (Sian) Joyce demonstrates a truth we never stop to think about, which is that our minds never stop. We live with our minds and all the neural activities our minds are heir to. How we re...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 5 included contributions by Anna Banfai, Gloria Bella, Sean Callaghan, Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Michael Cooney, Frances Devlin Glass, Ben Frayle, Sabia Mac Aodha, Claire Pedersen, and Maireid Sullivan whose forenames appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. Gossiping about the Blooms. Frances: How does Bloom’s ‘stream of life’ metaphor play into his Hamlet-like decision not to take action to prevent Molly’s adultery? Philip: To me, something not remarked on nearly enough is how Bloom actively engages in more secrets, e.g. his Henry Flower letters, than Molly. Whether to please others or himself, much of his behaviour is best known to himself. Sian: Yes, it’s Molly who i...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 13 included contributions by Anna Banfai, Sian Cartwright, Frances Devlin Glass, Ben Frayle, Margaret Newman, Claire Pedersen, and Janet Strachan whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. How do we understand Gerty MacDowell as a character? (FDG) I think Gerty is a model of Edwardian consumerism and an avid reader of the then popular style of romance ‘chicklit’. Joyce is satirising that style of writing. She’d had her hair cut that very day on account of the position of the moon cycle, so blames the moon and her menstrual cycle for her more outgoing fantasising of Bloom. (Sian) The episode is seriously anti-romantic, though others would call it realistic. It is...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 1 included contributions by Frances Devlin Glass, Paul Grabowsky, Trevor McClaughlin, Margaret Newman, Elle Rasink, Ted Reilly, and Christopher Reynolds, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. I am caught from the first word. Intrigued as to which path we are being taken. Lead on! (ER)I am enjoying this! Ulysses is meant to be read aloud and gleefully. (TR) Welcome to the world of Ulysses, in which people who read books talk a lot, everything from ‘getting back to the point’ to ‘now we’re off the planet’. The opening warns in advance that this story could go anywhere, that behind all the high and gleeful talk there may be meanings here that are worth revisit...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 10 included contributions by Sian Cartwright, Sue Collins, Michael Cooney, Frances Devlin Glass, Ben Frayle, Claire Pedersen, and Janet Strahan, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. I relearn from Joyce each year, as I re-read Ulysses, his perceptions of how Bloom manages the bellicose Irish male ego. When we read of Bloom’s calming presence in such places of tension as the Freeman’s Office and Davy Byrne’s pub, Joyce seems to be siding with those who listen, rather than those who just want to be heard. You could make a film of Ulysses focused entirely on this one theme, which runs through the whole book. Novelists generally relate to people who will liste...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 15 included contributions by Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Frances Devlin Glass, Marie-Chantal Douine, Ben Frayle, Rebecca Morton, Emma O’Brien, and Maireid Sullivan, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. Wow. That was amazing. Very trippy. Big fan. (EO) Joyce notes the Technique for Circe is Hallucination. This big set-piece episode is at many levels experimental by nature, declaring itself from the page to this day. It is a phantasmagorical melding into and out of the real. It really does seem that’s what Joyce wanted to be the effect, both for character and reader. What’s critical here is that he goes about creating Hallucination in a systematic creati...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 9 included contributions by Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Sue Collins, Frances Devlin Glass, Ben Frayle, Sabia Mac Aodha, and Margaret Newman, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. We have plenty of Homer all day, but here is where Shakespeare gets the treatment. The contrast is apt, between an artist who was a community engaged in inventive transmission over generations (Homer) and an artist who emblematises the great solitary genius, reliant on his singular talents (Shakespeare). Our society upholds both these ideals as models of the storyteller-poet, yet they are not mutually exclusive. For example, Joyce is the first progenitor (Shakespeare) of Ulysse...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 18 included contributions by Bruce Beswick, Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Marie-Chantal Douine, Frances Devlin Glass, Elle Rasink, and Janet Strachan, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. Molly Bloom speaks to us, but past us with her desires, dreams, and memories. Every episode of Ulysses has background noise, foreground noise, other voices. Only the end episode of the opening, i.e. Stephen’s walk on Sandymount Strand, and the end of the whole story, i.e. Molly’s hyper-languid thought patterns, are personal testimonies, made in glorious isolation, about the world they know so well. They own their own noise and voices, but their lively existence is i...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 4 included contributions by Steve Carey, Michael Cooney, Frances Devlin Glass, Tony Guyot, Susan Lever, and Andy Whyte, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta.     Metempsychosis, a running gag through the whole novel, makes its grand entrance here from the mouth of Molly Bloom. Yes, the exchange with Bloom reveals why Molly might be wanting to seek extra-curricula extension (FDG), his earnest explanation of metempsychosis having all the hallmarks of mansplaining, and yet it is she who asks and he who is there to try and give an answer. Tell us in plain words. (MC) Metempsychosis marks the start of our understanding that there is a block betwee...

This year’s online Bloomsday seminar via Facebook was a global conversation in the privacy of our own screens. Each of the eighteen short films, released online by Bloomsday in Melbourne at the hour set for each episode, were treated as the ‘papers’ to prompt online discussion. Episode 10 included contributions by Steve Carey, Sian Cartwright, Frances Devlin Glass, Ben Frayle, Rebecca Morton, and Claire Pedersen, whose initials appear where their thoughts are represented in these analecta. During the pandemic the streets are noticeably different, alive with the unprecedented, the noticeable, the different. Speechless behind masks, pedestrians negotiate the quotidian, when not going about their daily lives. Just imagine if we saw the life of the city like that every day, the extraordinary in the ordinary, a small matter of survival, or just getting through the day, people going about their quote unquote quotidian. Quiet as. There is such economy of language and variety of ...