Hi mom,

Responding to your thoughts bit by bit:

Now that I have episodes rather than chapters, what are the "sections" called? Any relevance to content? Did JJ include them in his writing?

Per Wikipedia:

Ulysses is divided into the three books (marked I, II, and III) and 18 episodes. The episodes do not have chapter headings or titles, and are numbered only in Gabler's edition.
—source

Also:

In his 1930 book about Ulysses, Stuart Gilbert “treated the novel as a sequence of thematic variables that could be put into an equation to help decode “the structure of the book as a whole.” “Ulysses is like that of all epic narratives, episodic,” he explains on the first page. “There are three main divisions, subdivided into chapters or, rather, episodes.” The meaning contained within these subdivided episodes, he continues, is “implicit in the techniques . . . in nuances of language, in the thousand and one correspondences and allusions with which the book is studded.” As much as Gilbert’s numbering here and elsewhere included passing statements about the structure, the network of allusions, and events and timeframes of the plot (“Mr. Bloom’s day begins, like Stephen’s, at 8 a.m., when he is preparing his wife’s morning tea at their house, No. 7, Eccles Street”), all of it was backed up by a schema that Joyce passed on to him, one identifying the Homeric title and character but also the hour, organ of the body, art, color, symbol, and narrative technic.
—source

(This one includes my favourite photo of JJ that I’ve seen so far.)

So—if I’m understanding/ remembering correctly—the first edition:
- did not have page numbers, which is why we get line numbers references;
- does mark the three books (I: Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus. II: Calypso, Lotus Eaters, Hades, Aeolus, Lestrygonians, Scylla & Charybdis, Wandering Rocks, Sirens, Cyclops, Nausicaa, Oxen of the Sun, Circe. III: Eumaeus, Ithaca, Penelope.);
- does not indicate (either by number or name) the separations between the episodes;
- the term episodes seems to come from Stuart Gilbert.

I’m going to take a look at a facsimile of the first edition to double check the above.

Fun fact: the Gilbert analysis is known as “critical propaganda”: written as an effort to “prove that it was a legitimate work of literature” and thus should not be censored (Slote et al. xxxviii).

Is Leopold Bloom the more down to earth Stephen? Much more detail and more of a narrative than the previous episodes.

Oh my gosh, yes. Stephen is basically James Joyce himself; Bloom is a much different character! This is Ulysses doing its thing: JJ uses several narrative perspectives and writing styles throughout the novel. These are the “technics” referred to by Stuart Gilbert.

This is also the episode where lots of people seem to think that Uly gets good—or at least most readable. The Irish Times, for instance, in its ‘Ulysses for cheats’ article says “it helps not to expect much from these” first three episodes if you decide to not skip them.

L228... The older I get, the more sensitive I am about descriptions such as "the grey sunken cunt of the world".

Right? I’m certainly tired of all the “womb of sin” nonsense as well!

Nice to see Leopold so considerate and caring of Marion.

I actually read this as Bloom fussing rather anxiously. He’s clearly worried about the letter addressed to “Mrs. Marion Bloom” (not “Mrs. Leopold Bloom”, although Slote’s annotation says that etiquette books vary in their advice about the formulation), which Molly hides under her pillow. Knowing what I know of what’s to come, I think that’s a bit of foreshadowing.

Affectionate memories of his daughter also give insight of his personality. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

Think reading the original before the commentary is a better way to go.

So pleased you’re enjoying this and curious. It feels to me like you’re racing through the book, although that may just be the difference between your life as a retiree and my current web design/ copywriting/ product launch planning obligations (helping Evan more some things forward for the business) on top of trying to read and research Uly.

I think of this Calypso episode as the kidney one. Indeed that is Joyce’s corresponding organ of the body for this episode. I was completely grossed out by the kidney-cooking when I first tried to read Uly all those years ago! Knowing you are not a fan of organ meat, I expect you feel the same.

I did email dad and tried to convince him to cook a kidney for you as a prank of sorts. There are even two kidneys in the freezer from your friends who raise cattle—two kidneys, just waiting for a skillet on the coals with a bit of butter! He seems keen, however, to make another steak and kidney pie once [aunt's partner] is back from their latest cruise. You’ve been spared! I may have to find a butcher and try a kidney, just for the full multi-sensory Ulysses experience.

K.