Thursday, 24 March 2016

The reading has advanced to, “Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium till she was there unaided” (14.348) but will probably pick up again from the beginning of the paragraph, “To be short this passage was scarce by” (14.323).

Catherine Meyer sends this lovely drawing for the blog with a comment:

Poor bat – it is used for all kinds of mysterious phenomena, gloomy films and, last but not least, for the immaculate conception. In Stephen's long monologue he quotes  the church, the two philosphers Averroes and Moses Maimonides and reflects about how conception could have taken place without committing the great sin: 

“by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, effectu secuto, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides” (14.243).

Thank you very much – I prefer the sin. But, in the drawing, there is a bat trying to kiss the bride. The little mark in its throat shows the cross signifying its inevitability. The girl is lying on a virginally white cushion covered with a blue garment, which stands for the Virgin Mary.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Note for Thursday, 24 March 2016

Next Thursday, 24 March, the group is meeting as usual, regardless of the public holiday.

Since there was no reading last week, Catherine sends a painting inspired by a previous passage from “Oxen of the Sun” “to fill the gap”. Remembering a reference to “the spaceless labyrinth of the human conscience and the physical space of the womb”, she adds that:

“Beside the difficulties of the language,  the chapter will treat anothere big purpose in life, which is birth. This is the link to the picture.”

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 10 March 2016

The reading of episode 14 has started and got as far as: “and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead” (14.159).

Note that next Thursday, 17 March, due to Fritz Senn's absence the group will not be reading but watching a film.

Catherine Meyer sends this painting for the blog with a note on the process of its making:

not understanding one thing might be a good requirement to try to paint the first few pages of “oxen of the sun”.

With no clear idea in mind I worked my way through dark colours to very shiny ones, wiped and moped till the paper got pulled to pieces, and I was not happy at all with the result.

Not understanding Joyce I looked for some explanation in Frank Budgen's James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses. I wrote down two of his comments and, with this help, I fought my way through to the attached painting.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 3 March 2016

The group has now finished “Nausicaa”, episode 13.

Catherine Meyer – artist, regular attender of the reading groups and by now regular co-blogger – sends this painting. It emerged from the reading and she explains:

My challenge was to summarize the chapter in one picture. I patterned the picture with a sense of the chapter's closing lines:

Mr Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a few

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Because it was a little canarybird bird that came out of its little house to tell the time and Gerty Mac Dowell noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

I love the idea that the cuckoo might be  the holy ghost, hidden in the dark of its little house and, knowing and seeing everything, tries to coo its revelations, repeating them every hour – and nobody will ever understand it.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016