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 is more commonly regarded as straying from the
relationship, with her affair with Boylan. Do you think Joyce is saying that
men can keep secrets, yet women cannot? Philip: No, I’m saying there’s a double
standard, even in our own reading of Ulysses. Moral criticisms of the book have
often been directed at Molly’s behaviour, rarely at Bloom’s. We think of Molly
as, at the very least, risqué, something we don’t think to say about Bloom,
much. It’s Molly who is the floozy in the jacuzzi. Bloom is just the guy
warming himself in the Turkish bath, not the red-light patron.
Cogitating
on Catholicism. Philip: Bloom’s analysis of church practices is an example of jocoseriousness.
How seriously is anyone supposed to take Bloom’s interpretations of Catholicism?
Ben: I think it fits within the upper layer of the novel, that of lower
socio-economic Dubliners (mostly Romans) who don’t necessarily take their
religion all that seriously but follow it just because everyone else does. Sian:
Maybe the perspective is unfused with Bloom’s own ideas as an ad-man, so there’s
some distance. As he appears to be a bit of a sceptic, Bloom regards Catholicism
as selling a religious belief in the way a canvasser might try to sell a
product. Ben: For Catholics there is always the ‘get out of jail free’ card of
confession. Catholics have a much more lax attitude to sin, as long as they
have that ‘out’ card. Claire: Aren’t they supposed to be sincere about their
repentance? I believe they are sincere enough. You would have to assume that
God would be able to see through their insincerity, regardless of what they
told their priest. Speaking as an ex-Catholic, it is the sacrament itself which
is disingenuous.
Further
rants and raves about sin. Ben: If Christians truly believed in their teaching
then why do they choose to sin constantly? Philip: Why does anyone sin constantly?
Ben: Because they doubt the truth of their religious convictions? If you truly
believe you would spend an eternity in Hell for minor earthly infractions, why
would you commit those infractions? If you believed in an eternal afterlife for
your soul, why would you work to preserve and extend your lifetime in this world?
Philip: My impression with Ulysses is that, when it comes to sin, Joyce has
certain very serious targets in mind. Empire is one of them, whether British,
Roman, or any other empire. Dublin was called the second city of Empire. Which
empire did they mean? Another is violence, not least the nationalistic violence
borne of empire, but also local hubris. It is Joyce’s challenge to violence
that is one of the book’s most enduring values. Joyce knew violence first hand.
I think it's one of the reasons he left Dublin and never went back. Another sin
is Irish puritanism, which he perceives very directly in the kind of repressive
Catholicism practised in his homeland.
Self-instruction
in Judaism. Ben: There are plenty of allusions to the various pagan and non-Christian
sources of Christian belief and practice. Philip: It’s Bloom’s understanding of
Judaism that is quite central to Ulysses. We are given to believe he is a
non-practising Jew but, as is common, has an intense interest in and awareness
of being Jewish. So if it’s a part of his life, but how does it all fit in? To
me, Bloom’s Jewish identity is largely informed by Joyce’s life in Trieste and
his friendship with Italo Svevo.
Changing
the subject with Bloom. Frances: Does Bloom’s passivity disturb? Philip: Not
sure about passivity, but the reader is given the privilege of vicariously
sharing his internal struggles. His words falter, he changes the topic of his
own thoughts consciously. Frances: Self-soothing? How valiantly he keeps
thoughts of Molly as far as possible from consciousness. Gloria: He changes his
thinking habitually? Habitual introspection is a great way of not being in a
relationship, even if you have one. Philip: This is an astute observation, not
just about Bloom but about Joyce. It is telling, is it not, that after the
Martello Tower and the Library, we find Stephen increasingly without friends.
It is in some ways a portrait of the artist in exile, far from his family and
friends in Dublin. Introspection creates poetry, and indeed much writing, and this
will happen when someone lives in isolation. It is why we can be certain so
much of Molly is Nora talking, her wit and shifts of speech, as she was the
main person Joyce talked with all the time. Gloria: But it’s interesting that
despite two severe losses in his life, and another impending one, Bloom remains
buoyant. Philip: Yes, Bloom’s embrace of life, buoyancy as you say, is an
abiding force through the whole novel and the whole day. We are acclimatised to
his interior monologue and can mistake that sometimes for continuous introspection,
whereas it is Bloom’s genialty and genuine interest in the world generally that
keeps our attention. Frances: That’s what is most magical about his year’s
Bloom performance by Alexander Pankhurst. In his realisation, Bloom’s face lights
up from within when he’s amused. He’s a comic, a stand-up comic. Philip: The area
where we are laughing at Bloom or laughing with him may always be certain. I
believe there’s much more laughing with than at Bloom, and it’s Joyce who
conjures that ambiguity. Frances: It amazing what we see in performance that’s
on the page but only embryonic, or a better metaphor might be latent. It’s one
of the reasons it’s so powerful handing Joyce over to actors to explore the
text’s possibilities.
Lots
about lotuses. Frances: There is a persistent subtext in this episode for
oblivion and a seeking for (perhaps) zen consciousness. He is certainly seeking
cape from his present predicament, but it must be questioned if Bloom is on the
path of Enlightenment. That said, many of the phrases that pass through Bloom’s
mind would be called koans. His life in the present is not in doubt. Frances: Bloom
dreams of the East, but how well does he know it? Philip: Joyce is honest about
his characters’ dreamy projections onto the East, the fantasies known today as
Orientalism. Sequestered in Dublin, the citizens express all sorts of mistaken
ideas about the world outside Ireland. Sean: “I wonder is it like that.” Philip:
Yes, just so. Frances: The dream of luxuriating in a Turkish bath. I wonder
what Bloom would have known in 1904 about sperm and its huge numbers? Is that
why he is described as the ‘limp father of thousands’, or is he thinking
genealogically? Sabia: Frances Devling, lass. Steve: Genealogically, I’d always
thought. We are all sons and daughters of Eve, and Genghis Khan has 16 million
descendants. Sian: Hmmm, I’d thought more the former, i.e. scientific sperm
count, rather than the genealogical interpretation of ‘father of thousands’.
Microscopes would have been around then, surely. Michael: I thought of Abraham.
Philip: Sperm was first observed through a microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
in 1677. I choose not to read a lot into ‘limp father of thousands’. It is the
conclusion to Lotus Eaters. Joyce is describing a lotus, albeit a private
member’s private member. Poetically speaking, it is Imagist, literally the
floating world. My overwhelming sense is that Joyce wishes to create
peacefulness and tranquillity. It is Baudelaire’s “luxe, calme, et volupté”.
The whole scene is entirely non-threatening, unlike much else that is happening
to Bloom during the day. It is a profound contrast to the weirdness happening
down in Monto.
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