Ulysses Update - Part 12 - Cyclops

November 26, 2008

[photo by Walt Jabsco]

A strange, strange section of Ulysses (I should get my terminology straight– these aren’t properly books, but section doesn’t accurately represent the degree to which each is different from one another. Part? Episode?). There are two Cyclops represented: the unknown first-person narrator (the “I” or the “eye”– get it?) and the real brute, called only Citizen (also the name of one of the prominent Dublin newspapers). 

Citizen is an oafish, somewhat terrifying figure, viciously anti-Semitic and rabidly pro-Home Rule. Bloom– a Jewish non-drinker who refuses to pitch into the one-sided discussion without examining other viewpoints– is the odd-man out in pretty much every way. At the same time, various imagery and vocabulary invokes Bloom as a Christian figure, even Christ himself.

No interior monologue remains in this section. The narrator, obviously unreliable, presents one viewpoint, the Citizen another. Interspersed throughout the section are at least 25 sections parodying various styles from tales of Irish myth to newspaper editorials, from court proceedings to heavy-handed fiction. Joyce doesn’t stop with manipulating the style– the content of the parodies aren’t the material of the direct narrative, but different events altogether– a courtroom trial, a hanging– depicted in a manner ranging from the fanciful to the outright absurd. Most of the parody sections were pretty tough going… overwritten and often including a litany of names and references that came in such a flood I finally gave up on even tracking them superficially in the annotations. The only relief was when humor intervened, as in a section documenting the lead-up to an execution(!):

he delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent -generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland’s patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars, boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending parties. The readywitted ninefooter’s suggestion at once appealed to all and was unanimously accepted.

[...]

Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly seventeen o’clock.

There’s clearly something happening here with the evolution of Bloom’s character– besides the allusions making him a kind of Christ-like figure he also wins a 20-1 (Ulysses was gone for 20 years) bet on a horse called “Throwaway” which echoes Ulysses’ escape from the Cyclops by punning that his name is actually “No Man.” I’m just not sure what that something is.

Tags: cyclops, james joyce, reading, ulysses