book overview

General comments and a very brief synopsis of the ‘plot’

The link to Homer’s The Odyssey

Structure, style and content

A look at two of the running themes; and

Introducing Stephen, Bloom and Molly.

Looking at the book’s opening scenes. Its 8 o’ clock in the morning. We meet Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan and an Englishman, Haines. The Martello tower may not be much but its home and Stephen feels usurped from it. Buck has a shave, the boys have breakfast with lovely fresh milk and then walk to a swimming area on Dublin Bay.

In which at around nine o’ clock, Stephen shall head to a school in Dalkey where he’ll teach history to disinterested schoolboys and receive his monthly wage from the headmaster Mr. Deasy who will expect a favour in return.

We accompany our young hero on his walk along the beach at Sandymount Strand. In a very tricky episode we shall look out for slippery sea gods who wish to obscure our understanding. Fear not, we shall defeat them!

We time travel backwards to 8 o’ clock and domestic bliss as we meet Mr. and Mrs. L. Bloom over a cooked breakfast as they read the morning post. We also meet a cat, a butcher and a girl who tantalises Bloom with her swinging hips, while he should be thinking of his Promised Land. Naughty Mr. Bloom. All this with the aid of the Coen Bros film The Big Lebowski and not a bowling ball in sight!

In which we learn that drugs are bad or at least disappointing. Bloom reads another letter and discovers that pretty flowers sometimes disguise nasty thorns. In an episode of minor euphoric highs and much lethargy, Bloom becomes an accidental racing tipster which, as will transpire that afternoon, is something of a dangerous vocation.

In which at eleven o’clock poor Paddy Dignam is buried. Bloom, graveside and more comfortable in his own thoughts than in company, posits on the heart, that rusty old pump that keeps us going. He also recalls that he predicted rain and out of common courtesy, comes to the aid of a nasty lawyer.

In which we are blown about by the hustle and bustle of sister newspaper offices as Stephen, with the assistance of the biblical Moses, considers the merits or otherwise, of journalism. Bloom meanwhile tries to earn some money by placing an advertisement.

We find that we are what we eat as Bloom is peckish around lunchtime. With food on his brain there’s scant room for anything else but he squeezes in the science behind the rate of falling bodies, subsequent resurrection, the power of adverts, twin headed octopi and the ablutions of the Gods. And Molly. Always Molly.

In which Russell (author, not George – he of the two headed octopus) wishes he’d paid closer attention to Shakespeare lessons at school, as the Bard helps Stephen to contemplate some life choices, while trying to impress the impressive writers down at the National Library. Bloom still trying to earn some money, inadvertently helps Stephen practice augury.

In which at three o’clock, Stephen and Bloom have walk-on parts only. Dublin teems with life as its burghers go about their business. We are flies on various walls to observe a host of minor characters. We watch, we learn, we place the odd piece in the jigsaw puzzle and we take care not to strike those nasty rocks.

We enjoy this musical episode with a song in our hearts as the regulars are around the pub piano for a tea-time sentimental sing-song. Not so for poor Bloom as the clock strikes four to mark the dreaded hour of Molly’s adultery. Bloom’s problem is all too real, the danger for those singers is not so obvious but Sirens lurk nonetheless.

In which twin narrators battle for ascendancy as we and more particularly Bloom, come face to face with bullies and nationalists. If he doesn’t exactly remain calm at least he is vaguely sober as they succumb to inebriation down at Barney Keirnan’s pub.

Its sunset and after a traumatic day, Bloom relaxes at the beach in the look but don’t touch company of young beautiful Gerty MacDowell. Honestly! What a cad! And what’s more, all under the demure gaze of the Blessed Mother Mary at her church, the Star of the Sea. Russell will try to hide his blushes as he guides as best he can.

In which Bloom and Stephen finally meet and at all places, in a maternity hospital. It’s 10.30pm and the episode is so linguistically obscure we struggle to make head or tail of it, beyond knowing there was one hell of a thunderstorm and that doctors enjoy a drink. Worry not; Russell will guide you down the metaphorical birth canal of comprehension and you will feel born again as the veils lift and all becomes clear. Well, sort of.

We take it slow as Russell deals with this huge episode over two lectures. This first part is a midnight hallucinogenic trip spanning Bloom’s many guilty secrets as he searches for Stephen in Nighttown, Dublin’s red light district.

In which Russell taps into Mel Brooks ‘ Blazing Saddles for insight as we re-join Stephen and Bloom, now in Bella Cohen’s brothel and we ponder, just whose are these visions? Epiphanies abound as we work our way through to some sort of enlightenment and where even drunk and myopic Stephen begins to see the light. Before that is, he gets his lights punched out.

In which Stephen, bloodied but unbowed is guided by Bloom to the Coffee Palace, a teetotal all-night cabman’s shelter to recover. Our boys get to know each other a little as they drink terrible coffee and hear some tall tales from a sea-faring patron and notice that he secretes a bottle of liquor in each trouser pocket.

Ithaca is too important to rush as Russell covers this revealing episode in two lectures.

In this first one, the boys have made it to Bloom’s house in Eccles street. We wonder where are Penelope’s suitors whom Odysseus and Telemachus kill? Bloom has forgotten his key and they must break in so as not to disturb Molly. They shoot the breeze of subjects various over cups of cocoa amid the drying laundry followed by a quick wee in the garden under the stars. Stephen bids farewell to Bloom and to our story.

After collecting his thoughts in the parlour, Bloom retires to bed where Molly interrogates him as to where he’s been until this hour. Bloom is economical with the truth. Neither mention what Molly has been up to but Suitors and Usurpers are disposed of nonetheless. A magnificent episode to which Russell hopes to do some justice.

In which while Bloom sleeps, Molly contemplates her lot in life. Basking in the afterglow of her adultery, she places it existentially and contextually as wife, mother, woman and possibly Mother Earth. Some 50 pages comprising eight unpunctuated sentences, each a literary marvel, enabling us to better understand several events of the day and even glimpse into the future of Mr. and Mrs. Bloom.

In which Russell wraps up and tries to make some sense of our vaguely academic year in the company of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Many more start the book than finish, so it’s something of an achievement. Whether we love it, hate it or somewhere in between, Russell hopes we have at least gained an understanding.