Thursday, 21 November 2019, Episode 3 (3.1 - 3.9)

We completed reading episode 2, and started with episode 3 (Proteus), stopping at
"Shut your eyes and see." (3.9)


Summary of the last part of episode 2:

After handing over Stephen his salary, and advising him to get a savingsbox and to save (his earnings),  Mr Deasy tries to impress on Stephen the value of money. He asks him, "Do you know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman's mouth?(2.243)" Mr Deasy himself provides the answer: "I paid my way (2.253)." A short discussion of the political leanings of Mr Deasy follows, at the end of which he asks Stephen for a favour. He has written a letter for the press (2.290) on the foot and mouth disease (2.321), and wants that Stephen helps him to get it printed and read before the next outbreak. He mentions that his cousin, Blackwood Price*, who has written to him that this disease is regularly treated and cured in Austria (2.340). While Mr Deasy finishes the letter on his typewriter, Stephen sits down and looks at the images of race horses hanging on the walls of the office and mulling over many things. At that time the English had imposed an embargo on Irish cattle. Perhaps trying to find a scapegoat for the embargo, Mr Deasy declares, "England is in the hands of the jews (2.346). . . . And they are the signs of a nation's decay (2.347)." He expresses more antisemitic views, harbinger of the coming times.

*Henry Blackwood Price was a friend of Joyce, and had corresponded with him about this topic. At that time the disease was spread in Ireland and England had imposed an embargo on Irish cattle. (Source: James Joyce by Richard Ellmann, p. 325.)

Summary of the beginning of episode 3:

After leaving the school, Stephen is walking along the Sandymount Strand. His mind is full of philosophical thoughts, of ideas (for example, on the form and colour of substances) he has read from philosophers such as Jakob Böhme, Aristotle, Dante Alighieri, . . . He recalls Dante's referring to Aristotle in his Divine Comedy as maestro di color che sanno (3.6) that means master of those who know. 

Thursday, 14 November 2019, Episode 2 (2.1 - 2.276)

We started with episode 2, Nestor, and read as far as "Croppies lie down." (2.276)

Summary:

After handing over the key of the tower to Mulligan, Stephen has come to the school where he is a teacher. During the course of the morning, he teaches history and literature, and even devotes some time to teach Cyril Sargent, one of the pupils, some algebra. (After all, according to Mulligan, Stephen can prove by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. (2.151)) Even as he poses questions on history to the class, part of his mind is busy with his own thoughts, among others, of William Blake, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Church, Bible, his mother's deathbed, etc. When the students disappear to play hockey and after Stephen shows Cyril Sargent how to solve an algebraic sum, he walks to Mr Deasy's office. It is the pay day. Mr Deasy, the headmaster, pays Stephen his salary of £3, s12. Stephen puts it all in a pocket of his trousers (2.224). On Mr Deasy's advice that he buy a savingsbox to store the money, Stephen answers, "Mine would be often empty. (2.232)." Mr Deasy says, "Money is power (2.237)", and extols the virtue of paying for one's way, for not owing anybody anything. This results in Stephen recalling in his mind the money he owes to various people. Mr Deasy continues his arguments, Stephen continues mulling over his thoughts. There is much reference to Irish history here.

Thursday, 7 November 2019, Episode 1 (1.523 - 1.744)

We have reached the end of Telemachus, episode 1, with the word 'Usurper'.

Summary:
At the end of our last reading we had left Buck Mulligan, Stephen and Haines going down for a swim in the fortyfoot hole (1.600), a bathing place in the Dublin bay. Mulligan is his usual self, joking and cheerful. Haines, who seems to be impressed by the lofty statements of Stephen, asks for his opinion of Hamlet, to be informed by Mulligan that he (Stephen) proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father (1.555). And he recites the poem,  I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard. My mother's a jew, my father's a bird. . . (1. 584). (Here Joyce has made liberal use of the poem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_the_Cheerful_(but_slightly_Sarcastic)_Jesus, by his friend Oliver St. John Gogarty.)
Steven too is his usual self, morose and serious. On being told my Haines, "You are your own master, . . . (1.636) ", he replies, "I am a servant of two masters (1.638) . . . And a third (1.641). . . " referring to the Imperial British state, the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church, (1.643) and Ireland.
Mulligan jumps into the water. Haines does not want to go swimming so soon after breakfast. Stephen leaves for his school. Before he leaves, Mulligan asks him to give him the key to the tower which Stephen had brought along after he had locked the door. Stephen does so. After all he had expected that Mulligan will want the key, had imagined that he will say, "It is mine. I paid the rent. (1.631)" This is one of the reasons that at the end of the episode, Stephen refers to Mulligan as the usurper.

Thursday, 31 October 2019, Episode 1 (1.177 - 1.522)

We read as far as "Are you coming, you fellows?" (1.522)

Summary:
Buck Mulligan who has noticed Stephen is brooding (1.235) over something wants to know the reason. He asks, "Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your nose against me?" (1.161) Stephen replies that when he had visited Mulligan the first time after his (Stephen's) mother had passed away, Mulligan had told his mother, who had asked who had come, "O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead." (1.198) This saying of Mulligan had deeply hurt Stephen as he had found it deeply offensive to himself. When Mulligan realises this, he gives up trying to cheer Stephen up, starts going down the stairs to prepare breakfast, after he tells Stephen, "Look at the sea. What does it care about offences?" (1.231)
Eventually Stephen follows Mulligan down to the kitchen carrying the bowl of lather that Mulligan had forgotten on the parapet of the tower. He remembers carrying a boat of incense at Clongowes (Stephen was a student there in The Portrait. Joyce too was a student of Clongowes Wood College.)
Breakfast is bread, butter, honey, fry and black tea. Black because the milk woman has not yet come. An old woman does appear soon bringing rich white milk (1.397). She reminds Stephen of the allegoric names given to Ireland: Silk of the kine [the most beautiful cattle] and poor old woman (1.403). Haines, the Englishman, starts to talk to her in Irish which she does not recognise. (I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows. 1.433) Haines brings up the subject of paying her. Mulligan after much searching his pockets produces a florin (a two-shilling coin). 
Meanwhile, Mulligan has praised Stephen in front of Haines, who is impressed by Stephen's sayings such as all Ireland is washed by the gulfstream (1.476), and wants to collect them if allowed. Mulligan has found out that it was pay day for Stephen. 
Breakfast is over, and the three young men decide to go for a swim in the sea.

One of the special features on these pages are the songs that Joyce has included. They are, (1) W. B. Yeats's Who goes with Fergus? (1.239), (2) A song from Turko the Terrible (1.260), (3) a coronation day song (1.300), and (4) For old Mary Ann, an anonymous Irish song (1.282).