The Milky Way
Its milk Jim Joyce but not as we know it.
Post Twenty One
I refer neither to our planet’s little corner of the universe nor to that petite chocolate bar that I used to scoff as a kid and which I see is still going strong. They used to say and maybe still do, that it was the snack one could eat between meals which technically is undeniable. But I am not interested in confectionery here and in fairness, I doubt the protectors of that brand are especially interested in what I have to say nor the product I wish to explore.
We take a break this week at North London Ulysses but on our return to the Proteus episode, shall meet Patrice Egan in a Parisian bar as he laps his warm milk. We are not sure what Stephen drinks, perhaps he sups from the same churn which would link to the milk delivered to the Martello tower and the Nestor cows that Mr. Deasy is so keen to save. But it’s a bit odd going to a bar and ordering milk. What’s going on? Apologies to the lovely folk at North London Ulysses but spoiler alert: it’s not milk.
What it is, is revealed a little later when we meet Patrice’s father Kevin and the reference to ‘froggreen wormwood’ before conclusively, we get the phrase:
“Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his white.”
You guessed it, we’re talking Absinthe. The green fairy created from the flowers and leaves of the grand wormwood plant, though Joyce being Joyce it’s just as likely that ‘wormwood’ points to its reputation as to what the fang of the green fairy might do to one’s brain. But is it’s bark worse than it’s bite? The reputation for inducing psychedelic episodes may be why it was so popular among the Bohemians of fin de siècle Paris or it may be that it was this very radical popularity that so scared the Parisienne establishment. Thus the hype as well as the bans emerged. Whether the reputation is overblown and whether psychedelic or not, what is undeniable is it’s indecently high alcohol content which even in today’s over-regulated world lurks between 45 and 75% proof, UK. That’s 90-148 proof US; Wiki says. So if you have it with your morning cornflakes you really should seek professional help.
Which brings us back to milk. Absinthe is naturally green and the diehards like Kevin drink it neat but many including his son Patrice, add a little water and that’s when the magic happens. The chemists call it ‘precipitation’ and I failed my chemistry ‘O’ level so I know what I’m talking about. If you add water to whiskey it just looks like whiskey whereas with absinthe it goes milky-cloudy and unlike oil mixed with water and most other substances, it doesn’t separate again. It just stays milky and this apparently is very rare indeed.
It's a weird molecular thing which would appeal to Stephen who will muse in two hours how our molecular structure constantly renews so that over a five month period we are entirely new. Does that make us different people? Stephen will wonder, only half joking, if he still owes AE (George Russell) that guinea on the basis that the debt is down to Old Stephen but reflecting that he probably does, smiles again as he thinks: ae,iou.
Bloom will also contemplate our molecular structure and as the book progresses, we might think that Blephen or indeed Stoom could be the product of two souls Absinthe and water, that when mixed together refuse to obey the normal rules and do not separate again, they stay cloudy. A little swirly, mixed up and quite possibly unstable as together they slide by the Delta of Cassiopeia and into The Milky Way.
Some say alcohol is mother’s milk for the soul. That’s probably a pretty dangerous message but hey, as Patrice Egan says as he laps it up....schluss.
For more idle Ulysses thinking or to buy Russell’s guide to Ulysses: www.russellraphael.com
© RUSSELL RAPHAEL 2021-2023
Coming of Age: Virus and Vico
Its #Ulysses100. If its not one virus its another.
Post Eighteen
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jim and Ulysses, happy birthday to you!
As January peters out, we are merely hours from the 2nd February centenary, sorry I should say #Ulysses100 if I want to get noticed. To say celebrations may be to over-egg a touch but certainly all over the world Joyce fans and scholars are marking the occasion. Even non-Joyceans will do well not to notice the event. Here in our little corner of north London, North London Ulysses will be heading to the Clissold Arms pub in Fortis Green, better known for its Kinks connections than Joycean (but we’re on that case), to chat, to read and to partake of Guinness’s porter and Jameson’s whiskey (other beverages also available).
Turnout may be a little muted for part of our lovely group remains uncomfortable in public gatherings. Vaccined and boosted though the vast majority of us may be in the UK, a jig in a pub remains a little scarry for some and understandably so. This virus is not to be scoffed at. North London Ulysses started reading in mid-January; for some in the pub, for others on zoom and if on the centenary our party allows for the usual reading, we shall finish Nestor. In Ulysses Joyce was prescient in a number of ways; Irish independence, the rise of fascism and even possibly the holocaust, an Irish nod towards Europe but we can’t say that he foresaw Covid. And yet. And yet his reference in Nestor to a virus is indeed noted and not simply because the word appears, that would be silly and trite; bear with while I try to make something of substance.
It is, ironically, the headmaster Mr.Deasy, who draws our attention. Yet not ironic because it is via his ignorance and xenophobic, misogynous myopia that he imparts significant life lessons; for example that Stephen might do better learning than teaching. Deasy is concerned with the foot and mouth disease that is blighting Irish cattle and he has drafted a cliché-ridden letter that he would like Stephen with his newspaper connections, to help get published. Nestor is a chapter in which we wonder what it is to teach, to inspire the next generation and the pressure that imposes upon teachers. The episode opens with Stephen teaching history and so we contemplate how we view history. It’s all too easy and obvious to accept the conventional, ‘this follows that follows this follows that’ as Deasy’s religious orthodoxy would have us believe. It might be something more imaginative as a William Blake or a Kurt Vonnegut may ponder. A history in which an ancient Greek Ulysses might turn up in 1904 as a Leopold Bloom. Mark the phrase ‘Akasic records’ for future reference.
A mind expanding view of history requires glancing at a Neapolitan chap called Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). Contrary to Mr. Deasy’s opinion, history says Vico isn’t a linear path leading inexorably into the manifestation of God’s light but rather a circular repetitive spiral starting with the voice of god (whatever that may be) and finishing in the same place. Meantime we trot through autocracy aristocracy, democracy and a descent into chaos before a huge cataclysm returns us to the wrath of god and the cycle repeats. For James Joyce the first world war must have been that cataclysm. I mean, what else? For us inhabiting this part of the twenty-first century (at least those outside of Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Uyghur) the Covid pandemic carries cataclysmic characteristics. For Deasy the pandemic affected only cattle, which was devastating for farmers but only a matter of time before it percolated through the Irish economy and riddled a meat dependent wider society like marbles of fat on a nice rib-eye.
How is this significant for our book Ulysses? After all this is only episode two and there is maybe one further reference in episode twelve to a meeting to discuss the cattle crisis at the City Arms Hotel. Generally despite Bloom’s empathy, we are not so bothered with the poor cows as we plunder through the book. Until that is episode fourteen Oxen of the Sun, which in some important ways is the key episode. Homeric resonance reminds that Odysseus (Ulysses) is warned not to touch the cattle on the island belonging to Helios, the Sun God. Obviously they do and bad shit happens. In 1904 Ireland the cattle are diseased and the sun is imposing a vengeful drought upon Ireland. In episode fourteen there is a cataclysmic thunderclap bringing torrential fertilizing rain. The cycle resets. It must be significant that this occurs in the episode of the virus-ridden oxen. No spoiler but in significant ways this is a pivotal point in the book.
Joyce is a clever fella but he’s no Cassandra; he did not predict coronavirus. But he did visualise a viral pandemic generating the Vicoan thunderclap, so let’s indulge him credit for that. He is after all, the birthday boy.
For more Ulysses idle thinking: www.russellraphael.com
© RUSSELL RAPHAEL 2021-2023