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Sunday 15 March 2020

IMPORTANT NOTE


Due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, all reading groups are suspended until further notice.


Friday 13 March 2020

Thursday, 12 March 2020, Episode 7 (7.313 - 7. 603)

The reading stopped with ". . . Stephen said." (7.603)

As Bloom waits in the offices of The Telegraph to go inside the inner office of Myles Crawford to make a phone call, Simon Dedalus and Ned Lambert leave to have a drink. Professor MacHugh is still there. He is joined by Lenehan who brings Sport's tissues (racing forms by a weekly paper, Sport). He tosses them on to the table which get caught in the draught caused by the opening of the door and fall down to the floor. As Lenehan bends down to pick them up, Bloom comes out after making the phone call, bumps against Lenehan. He hurries out after apologising for hurting Lenehan's knee.

Soon Stephen comes in with Mr O'Madden Burke. Stephen has brought the letter on the foot and mouth disease that Mr Deasy had given him that morning. Both Professor MacHugh and the editor, Myles Crawford, know Mr Deasy and his wife. They start talking about Mrs Deasy's wife. Stephen's mind wanders off. He recalls what Mr Deasy had said that morning: "A woman brought sin into the world." Meanwhile Professor MacHugh discourses on the Greeks, Lenehan recites a limerick on MacHugh, and poses a riddle: What opera is like a railway line?, giving its answer himself when nobody pays any attention to it.

Their attention then turns to the loose ties worn by Stephen and Mr O'Madden Burke. 

Friday 6 March 2020

Thursday, 5 March 2020, Episode 7 (7.1 - 7.312)

The reading stopped at "Hail fellow well met the next moment." (7.312)

Summary:

Book 10 of Homer's Odyssey describes the visit of Odysseus and his crew to the island of Aeolus, the keeper (god) of winds. In Joyce's Ulysses, Aeolus is the unofficial name given to episode 7. This episode is quite windy with words, often hollow words. Joyce has assigned the office of the newspaper Freeman's Journal, the oldest newspaper of Dublinas its location. Its various sections/paragraphs have titles just like the headings of topics in a newspaper.

The episode starts in the heart of Dublin, before Nelson's pillar with the clanking of trams on their way. It is 12 noon. Bloom has come to the newspaper office with the intention of getting an extension for an advertisement from Alexander Keys. He talks to Red Murray, watches William Brayden the editor [passing] statelily up the staircase, goes inside, talks to Nannetti (a master-printer) about the advertisement, . . . He stands by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the silent typesetters at their cases.

Bloom then walks into the office of the Telegraph which is in the same building. Simon Dedalus, Ned Lambert and professor MacHugh are there. Bloom is noticed only by MacHugh. The other two do not pay any attention to him. They are too busy having fun, reading a passage in that day's newspaper.

(Summarized from the book, Ulysses for the Uninitiated.)