TWENTY-TWO:
12. CYCLOPS (BACK IN ORDER)
OCTOBER 5
Okay. I have A LOT of thoughts on the Cyclops episode. JJ might have won me over with this one.
The way this episode alternates between the drunken mooch narrator and the highfaluting flowery stylistic passages was—for me—obvious enough to be enjoyable. It’s so obviously weird that you just know Joyce is up to something. In previous episodes, the experimental stuff was just noticeable enough to break up the flow of the narrative, or was just so vague as to be incomprehensible. There wasn’t enough there to latch onto. This time, however, it was a bit more like a dancing. This episode has left me feeling like I’ve been swung around in a whirl.
Like, 12.1438-64 is just a description of a dirty handkerchief. Almost 30 lines to let us know that this handkerchief is so unwashed, so thoroughly used, so totally snot-encrusted that it looks embroidered with numerous Irish landmarks. What’s not to love?
Of course having access to all the annotations also meant having access to the jokes and the meanings of all the slang; episode 12 in my big book is simply peppered with sticky note tape. And honestly Slote, Mamigonian and Turner are funny in their own right.
The name of the dog, for instance. A whole half page wildride for Garryowen:
12.120: Garryowen
Garryowen: a famous, prize-winning Irish red setter, born in 1876, and owned by James J. Giltrap, a founder member of the Irish Red Setter Club and father to Joyce's aunt Josephine (Igoe, pp. 117-18). Such was Garryowen's fame that Spillane's, a Limerick-based tobacco manufacturer, named its plug tobacco after him. 'The logo for the brand shows him resplendent in the collar decorated with some of his prize medals' (Judith Miller, Miller's Collectibles, p. 12). The name Garryowen comes from the Irish Garrai Eoin, the Garden of Eoin, which also lends its name to a suburb of Limerick (P. W. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1, p. 230). This suburb is immortalised in a fighting song. The chorus: 'Instead of Spa we'll drink brown ale, / And pay the reckoning on the mail, / No man for debt shall go to gaol / From Garryowen in glory' (H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy, p. 478). Of possible relevance, Garryowen was also the pseudonym adopted b a writer for D. P. Moran's nationalist journal The Leader (see note at 12.221-22), who concluded a note on the Irish bricklaying industry with a variation on Randolph Churchill's cry against Home Rule (see note at 2.397-98): 'Let Ireland build up her industries, which she can only do by the strong will, stout hearts, and willing hands of her people, and as sure as the sun rises in the heavens, when there is a country worth fighting for, Ireland will fight and Ireland will be right' (The Leader, 16 Mar. 1901, p. 39; with thanks to Josh Newman).
And how about some of those names?!?
12.556: Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone
Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (Italian): Commander Kissykissy Quitewellverywell. Baci: kiss. Benino: quite well. Benone: very well.
12.558: Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant
Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant (French): 'Mister Peterpaul Littledandy: Petit: little. Épatant: dandy.
12.559: Grandjoker Vladimire Pokethankertscheff
Grandjoker Vladimire Pokethankertscheff (Pseudo-Russian): 'Grand Duke Vladimir Pocket-handkerchief'.
12.560: von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler
Von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler (German): literally, from the Dickbath-Testicularvalley'; this follows the generic name-form of an ancient noble German family. Schwanz: tail, penis (obscene). Bad: bath or spa. Hoden: testicle. Tal: valley.
12.565-66: Goosepond Pühklstr Kratchinabritchisitch
Combines various Slavic languages. 'Goosepond' suggests the Russian Gospodin, Mister. With its lack of vowels, 'Pihklsti suggests a (non-existent) Czech word. 'Kratch-inabritchisitch': suggests a Russian word and phonetically suggests the English words Crack in his britches itch. On a page proof, Joyce requested the addition of carons (an inverted circumflex accent used in various Slavic languages) to the word 'Prhkistr’ (JJA, vol. 25, p. 102), but these were not added until Gabler's edition.
And this gem:
12.1515-16: Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs
The office of the Captain and Gold Stick of His Majesty's Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms was held by the Right Honourable Baron Belper in 1904 (Thom's, p. 106). Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs is, apparently, fictitious.
I actually think all the names—some real, some “apparently” not—are an important part of the theming around nationalism. Names are lineage and belonging, and central to identity—same as one’s nation, especially for the Irish nationalists out at the pub tonight. The citizen-cyclops’ naked antisemitism is only part of the story: this episode continues to explore the English colonization of Ireland, with references to atrocities in the Belgian Congo, and lynchings in the USA. Plus the immigrant experience: the Canada swindler case that gets mentioned is one in which a man was selling tickets for a nonexistent sailing to Canada; there’s also a reference to coffin ships: miserable, unhealthy, and unsafe ships to Canada during the Great Famine (Irish Potato Famine). Many people died on the voyage and shortly after arriving in Canada.
Nation and nationality are a matter of life and death, and yet, just as made-up as the name Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs. That’s the problem with Bloom’s definition of a nation (“the same people living in the same place”):
12.1424-25: I'm a nation for I'm living in the same place for the past five years
During the time Joyce was writing 'Cyclops' whilst living in Zürich, he often discussed political theory with his friend Ottocaro Weiss. 'One day, talking about the nature of the state, Weiss quoted some eminent authority to the effect that three elements are necessary to constitute a state: a people, a territory, and sovereignty. Joyce kept bringing up examples of smaller and smaller states, until he got Weiss to agree that a state could be only one person. He stepped on a chair, which he said was his territory, and declared, "Then I'm a state" (Ellmann, p. 463).
If everyone is a state, then no one is a state (“Nobody” is a state?). A name has to be made up in order for it to be real. Same with religion. People suffer and are killed for/ because of these things, and it’s all as mythological as a man-eating cyclops.
And Joyce delivers that via biscuit tin hurled with the force of a bomb. That last section of the episode got me thinking about WWI… JJ started writing Uly in 1914.
You ask “where is this going?” in your email on this episode, and to be honest, I think it’s going nowhere. There isn’t going to be—there can’t be—a narrative resolution to centuries of violent prejudice by the end of the day. Bloom is going to wake up on June 17th just as kind and pervy and alienated and sweet and so goddamn pervy as he was on the 16th. The Odyssey is about a journey home; perhaps Ulysses is about the impossibility of home.
K.
OCTOBER 6
Wow! You are really 'reading' Ulysses!
Your posts make me want to go back to each episode to see if I can take in what I missed... almost!
I'm working on 14... another JJ challenge.
Am so inspired by the way you have taken this on!
OCTOBER 9
We are really approaching this in different ways! I think you’re going to keep getting emails about Ulysses from me long after you have reached the end; perhaps you will be inspired to keep reading.
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what makes a book “good,” as Ulysses rarely seems like a good book to me. I think a good book—the best books—are ones that leave me feeling like I’ve been spoken to. It’s not just plot or characters, but a a communion between the author and the reader and the world.
There’s a difference, however, between a book being good and a book being significant or important. It’s easy to see that Ulysses is significant, and I’m glad that the Cyclops episode has given me the “good book” experience that I like.
In light of my recent sojourn in Alabama, I really want to discuss the reference to lynching in Cyclops. But I want to do some research and give the topic the care it demands, so that will happen in a little while.
In the meantime—onwards (sort of!).
K.
OCTOBER 9
I am in awe of your approach and "thirst for knowledge"! Just look at your stack of references!
Like your insight into what makes a book ģood or significant.
I said to [your father] the other day that when I finish 15 I am going to take a break and read a book!