Thursday, 22 September 2016

The group has started episode 16, “Eumaeus”, and read to: “anyhow, he was all in” (16.154).

Catherine Meyer, local artist and long-standing member of the reading groups, has sent a painting for this blog with the following words:

Of course “Circe”, chapter 15, has to have a conclusion and a final depiction. At the beginning, I painted a picture showing the first stage direction for Mabbot Street, the night town being dark, full of stunted men and women and children and strange facilities such as an icegondola or a lighthouse.

The end result, though, is a totally different sight: calmly Rudy's dead soul appears as a feather and that nothingness will soon fly away. For once I did not render Joyce’s stage directions but have tried to capture only a faint feeling that I imagine Bloom must have had.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 15 September 2016

The last reading stopped only a couple of pages away from the end of the episode: BLOOM: Night. (15.4907)

Catherine Meyer sends a picture to illustrate the last reading and writes:

At one point we experienced two voices: that of the blessed and that of the damned; the left side and the right side, the good ones and the bad ones, hell and heaven.

The voice of all the damned: “Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella!” (15.4708); and the voice of all the blessed: “Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!“ (15.4713). Then Adonai (meaning ‘Lord‘ in Hebrew) punned with Doooooooog and Gooooooood. (15.4710 ff.)

The “Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth“ is from Händel’s Oratoria “Messiah“. In an earlier chapter we had learned that this famouse Oratoria was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742.

While I was thinking about how to put this scene on paper, I realized that right and left, bad and good can be reversed – it depends only on the angle from which you're looking. From the painter’s point of view, right is on the right side. From  the painted Allmighty's point of view, facing the beholder, right is on the left side.

You can see from the picture which angle I have chosen and, of course, not only the many familiar characters that  appeared in the chapter but also the dogs (do all those different appearances of dogs mean that there could be many other Gods?) are captured in my painting.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich

Thursday, 8 September 2016

The last reading stopped with Stephen's words: “I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull” (15.4497)

Catherine Meyer has made a drawing to illustrate a passage. She writes:

My drawing for the blog shows a slightly drunken Joyce standing at a bar in Dublin and, as the joke goes, the barman says, “you have taken a drop too many Mr. Joyce. Non serviam”.

Of course Fritz told us this joke when we had read Stephen saying “with me all or not at all. Non serviam”. He added that Lucifer didn’t want to serve and Joyce certainly didn’t. The same goes for me – I don’t like it too much either.

So, in order to make a “non serviam“ drawing I chose to do Joyce standing at the bar. After all, this genius of man hasn’t appeared once on any of my paintings. Now is the time to show him in a casual posture.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 1 September 2016

The reading stopped with Stephen at, “he stops dead” (15.4154).

Catherine Meyer sends the painting she made for the last reading and a few words about it:

The Thursday afternoon is very well attended and the group is still in a jolly good mood, although Fritz Senn keeps telling us he is bewildered by this chapter. Nevertheless, he was amused by adverbs like “yellowly” and “japanesily” in, Bloom “smiles yellowly at the three whores”, and “Mrs Cunningham … in merry widow hat and kimono gown … she glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily” (15.3831–58).

I quoted “yellowly” and “japanesily” (the smile and the kimono) and combined the two words with what I liked most: “the morning hours run out, gold haired  slimsandalled, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands” and “the hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms” and “the night hours … steal to the last place”. They are masked with “daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells” (15.4054–83).

The idea that the different hours are dancing and waltzing away is terrific, I think. They do that every day. They come and go in our common life, sometimes we appreciate their appearance, sometimes we hope they will never come. So, the picture is a mixture of all of these topics provided by Mr. Maginni, who “clipclaps glove silent hands” (15.4060).

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016