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Ulysses Lecture III - Calypso & Lotus-Eaters (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-29 17:16:02
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls."

Today we're meeting Mr Leopold Bloom in the next two episodes of James Joyce's Ulysses: Calypso and the Lotus-Eaters.

In the Penguin Modern Classics edition, this takes us from pages 65-107.

Calypso Timestamps

  • 0:00 meeting Mr Bloom
  • 4:00 who is Calypso? Who is Molly?
  • 7:13 ‘Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish…’
  • 8:50 ‘Mkgnao!’
  • 11:00 concealing in ‘Calypso’
  • 13:00 Bloom wanders to the East
  • 15:00 Stephen & Bloom’s consciousness
  • 16:40 wandering & dead names
  • 18:00 the irreverence of James Joyce
  • 18:47 ‘Mrs Marion Bloom’
  • 21:41 metempsychosis
  • 24:20 rereading & reliving
  • 27:00 Milly & Rudy
  • 28:46 Bloom’s bowel movement

Lotus-Eaters Timestamps

  • 31:30 comparing Stephen & Bloom
  • 32:10 the scheme of this section
  • 33:30 the Homeric parallel
  • 37:00 Bloom pulled eastward again
  • 39:40 flowers in this episode
  • 41:30 the poetry of advertising
  • 43:30 Martha’s letter to Bloom
  • 45:00 Eucharist as narcotic
  • 46:40 Bloom’s consciousness
  • 49:13 Bloom takes a bath
  • 51:52 our next episodes
  • 52:00 encouragement & questions

Questions to Consider:

1) Have we lived before? Do you believe in rebirth?

2) What do you make of the characters we have met? Do you see anything of yourself in them?

Bonus: Please let us know which parts of these two episodes were most resonant for you!

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

Ulysses Lecture III - Calypso & Lotus-Eaters

0:00 meeting Mr Bloom 4:00 who is Calypso? Who is Molly? 7:13 ‘Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish…’ 8:50 ‘Mkgnao!’ 11:00 concealing in ‘Calypso’ 13:00 Bloom wanders to the East 15:00 Stephen & Bloom’s consciousness 16:40 wandering & dead names 18:00 the irreverence of James Joyce 18:47 ‘Mrs Marion Bloom’ 21:41 metempsychosis 24:20 rereading & reliving 27:00 Milly & Rudy 28:46 Bloom’s bowel movement 31:30 comparing Stephen & Bloom 32:10 the scheme of this section 33:30 the Homeric parallel 37:00 Bloom pulled eastward again 39:40 flowers in this episode 41:30 the poetry of advertising 43:30 Martha’s letter to Bloom 45:00 Eucharist as narcotic 46:40 Bloom’s consciousness 49:13 Bloom takes a bath 51:52 our next episodes 52:00 encouragement & questions

Comments

Josh LaMar, He-Him

As for the characters, I think I really identify with Stephen…. All of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was deeply moving to me and I see myself and my own story in his story. I identify with Stephen’s intellection - always being inside his own head and thinking and re-thinking things. He’s neurotic about over thinking. And the parallels and contrasts with Bloom are wonderful here. Bloom thinks and re-thinks as well, but without the same amount of depth as Stephen. Bloom’s thoughts twitter in and through him while he feels his body and the world around him in a way that Stephen seems to miss. Bloom feels to be a more rounded person, physically and metaphorically, and his social observations especially in the church during Lotus-Eaters are quite funny. He’s a Falstaff to the Prince Hal of Stephen. Molly: oh, haven’t we all had that feeling of wanting to stay in bed longer and lounging away the morning!? She’s so human in her eating in bed, laziness, and missing the slip of paper from the torn envelope in bed. Unapologetically herself. Honest, yet not revealing all. She asks Bloom to wait on her, but it doesn’t come across as malicious. She does seem to be the Calypso nymph in the painting above her bed.

Josh LaMar, He-Him

Also appreciating all the re-appearances of Dubliners characters. My commencement of Ulysses came after reading Dubliners and A Portrait. I only kept reading Joyce because I loved each more than the one before it and to read these three works next to each other is truly a gift to be able to have the time to put them together. Additional notes: I’m reading Homer’s Odyssey at the same time (Emily Wilson’s translation, which despite it’s simplicity of language is extremely readable and easy to enjoy the story), Gilbert’s book of analysis, Hastings’ The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated. I get intense pleasure when I catch an allusion - a treasure trove of allusions, here! - especially when I catch one of Bloom’s Bloomisms: not quite getting it right. A recent example was his mis-référence to Thomas Gray’s Elegy written in a country churchyard in Hades.

Elizabeth Madden
>>117205654

Josh, I also profoundly identify with Stephen, especially in his strong sense of personal alienation from everyone around him- something I certainly felt when I was his age. I have to admit that I share his intellectual arrogance and self-absorption traits, too. I am a neurotic overthinker. Joyce based both Stephen and Bloom upon himself as he was when he was youthful, then more mature. Although his thoughts were 'deeper' than those of Bloom, especially as he got older he became deeply interested in the many aspects of modernity that Bloom enjoys exploring, and he had something of a 'butterfly mind', so he was interested in absolutely everything and everyone he encountered.

Elizabeth Madden
>>117205758

I love how Joyce parodies himself through Bloom. While he would have got the reference right, he makes Bloom get it wrong not only to differentiate Bloom from Stephen but also to show us the 'type of person' Bloom is: an undereducated man who has done his best to try to educate himself out of intellectual curiosity. It is wonderful to see you engaging so deeply with this marvellous Book.