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Ulysses Lecture IV - Hades, Aeolus & Lestrygonians (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-10 20:00:03
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

"Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us."

Today we are journeying to hell and back with Mr Leopold Bloom, spending some time in the newspaper office, and then finding ourselves a spot of lunch in the next three episodes: Hades, Aeolus, and the Lestrygonians.

In the Penguin Modern Classics edition, this takes us from pages 107-234.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 Ulysses as universal & Irish novel
  • 3:33 the Hades episode
  • 7:00 Homeric parallels for Hades
  • 8:14 James Joyce’s schema
  • 11:12 the carriage ride to the graveyard
  • 12:50 Bloom’s thoughts of death
  • 14:00 the motif of the heart
  • 15:00 Dubliners in dialogue
  • 17:00 Stephen & Bloom’s crossing
  • 18:20 father-son meditations
  • 24:50 the suicide of Bloom’s father
  • 27:00 Joyce’s cinematic prose
  • 30:00 seeing a child’s coffin
  • 33:00 suicide, sympathy, communication
  • 37:00 refuting dismissals of Ulysses
  • 39:00 the banality of death
  • 43:00 otherness in literature
  • 46:16 the Aeolus episode
  • 47:00 the newspaper headings
  • 48:30 on aesthetic/narrative difficulty
  • 52:00 the Homeric parallels for Aeolus
  • 53:10 ‘We see the canvasser at work’
  • 54:00 rhetoric, assumptions, journalism
  • 57:00 Bloom, keys & home rule
  • 1:00:00 Joyce’s catalogue of rhetorical devices
  • 1:02:55 home rule & Irish history
  • 1:10:00 identity & returning home
  • 1:11:30 Jewishness, Irishness & the Greeks
  • 1:13:10 the Lestrygonians episode
  • 1:14:30 Homeric parallels for Lestrygonians
  • 1:15:20 colonialism & consumption
  • 1:16:30 fighting England with knife and fork
  • 1:20:57 Bloom disgusted by others eating
  • 1:22:28 “life is a stream”
  • 1:25:00 being chewed up & spat out
  • 1:27:45 “See ourselves as others see us”
  • 1:30:20 metempsychosis & parallax
  • 1:31:00 our next discussion/episode

Questions to Consider:

1) Does Ulysses help us see ourselves as others see us?

2) Is the novel style over substance? Or does the content influence the form? What is Joyce trying to say in Ulysses?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

Ulysses Lecture IV - Hades, Aeolus & Lestrygonians

0:00 Ulysses as universal & Irish novel 3:33 the Hades episode 7:00 Homeric parallels for Hades 8:14 James Joyce’s schema 11:12 the carriage ride to the graveyard 12:50 Bloom’s thoughts of death 14:00 the motif of the heart 15:00 Dubliners in dialogue 17:00 Stephen & Bloom’s crossing 18:20 father-son meditations 24:50 the suicide of Bloom’s father 27:00 Joyce’s cinematic prose 30:00 seeing a child’s coffin 33:00 suicide, sympathy, communication 37:00 refuting dismissals of Ulysses 39:00 the banality of death 43:00 otherness in literature 46:16 the Aeolus episode 47:00 the newspaper headings 48:30 on aesthetic/narrative difficulty 52:00 the Homeric parallels for Aeolus 53:10 ‘We see the canvasser at work’ 54:00 rhetoric, assumptions, journalism 57:00 Bloom, keys & home rule 1:00:00 Joyce’s catalogue of rhetorical devices 1:02:55 home rule & Irish history 1:10:00 identity & returning home 1:11:30 Jewishness, Irishness & the Greeks 1:13:10 the Lestrygonians episode 1:14:30 Homeric parallels for Lestrygonians 1:15:20 colonialism & consumption 1:16:30 fighting England with knife and fork 1:20:57 Bloom disgusted by others eating 1:22:28 “life is a stream” 1:25:00 being chewed up & spat out 1:27:45 “See ourselves as others see us” 1:30:20 metempsychosis & parallax 1:31:00 our next discussion/episode

Comments

Elizabeth Madden

You asked me a while ago about my favorite Literary villains: oh, unlike my favorite female writers, my list is very long indeed! Of my top five, I would say 1: Pinkie, from Brighton Rock by Graham Greene: such a tortured, complex character, and another lapsed Catholic like Stephen. 2: Humbert Humbert, from Nabokov's Lolita. 3: Richard the 3rd from Shakespeare's play. I adore how he revels in being bad but also has a difficult backstory from which his evil gains motivation. 4: John Self, from Money, by Martin Amis 5=: Iago: I enjoy how he fools Othello, and I enjoy trying to work out why! / I have to confess, Buck Mulligan is such an excellent villain: he is so funny and attractive, but when one examines his conversations with Stephen and in Stephen's presence, the malice is clear IMO. Who are your favorites?

Jonathon Glover
>>115355951

I too love Iago and Richard III. Iago’s final lines are absolute perfection - “Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth, I never will speak word.”. I haven’t read Brighton Rock. I did read the Third Man earlier this year and liked it very much so will try to find some time for some more Graham Greene going forward. I think Judge Holden from BM is one that has stuck with me. Thenardier from Les Miserable is one that I genuinely detest, and it still angers me that he gets to leave France to become a slaver in USA. There is a wonderful villain called Kennit in a fantasy series called the Liveship Traders that is wonderfully fleshed out and developed over the course of the trilogy. And I really enjoy the malevolent plotting and actions of Hedda Gabler.

Elizabeth Madden
>>115355951

Iago is such a mystery, isn't he? Such fun to try to find out what motivates him. Is 'pure evil' a thing? Is he a pure Psychopath? I have spent ages comparing his words and actions with the various categorizations of the Psychopathic Personality, trying to work him out. Hedda is another one of the same ilk. Ibsen never lets us in on her motivations, other than a desire to 'be' her father, General Gabler, but we don't know why, unless it's, to use another Freudian Category, an Elektra Complex she is acting out. I really didn't like her when we read the play, and I couldn't work out why people had sympathy for her or empathized with her. Ibsen presents her as a 'Troll' a monster from Norse Myth, so I guess, in his mind, she doesn't NEED any motive: malignity just comes naturally to her. There is, possibly, an interesting comparison to be made between Hedda and Iago.

Jonathon Glover
>>115355951

We once did a comparative study of Iago and the Talented Mr Ripley. A lot of fun! Hedda Gabler would work fabulously too. My favourite way of thinking about Iago was actually found in ‘The Dark Knight’ and the representation of the Joker, with this wonderful little anecdote delivered perfectly by Michael Caine. ‘Some people just like to watch the world burn…’ https://youtu.be/SIYkhb2NjfE?si=Go10nzFUInxW1gbX

Josh LaMar, He-Him

These were a few big episodes and it looks as if the episodes just get longer. Lots to unpack… I’m also reading a few other guides on each episode, so I’ll mention a few things that came up from those that I loved :) Lestrygonians Penguin p. 214 - two lines that Joyce apparently spent an entire day composing: “Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.” First off, wow. And the commentary from Hastings notes that this sounds like another person - it’s not the inner monologue we’ve come to associate with Bloom but someone they’re calling “The Arranger,” not quite Joyce, either. We saw the introduction of the Arranger in Aeolus - it is the Arranger that adds the headlines to each section-the meta-analysis of the content contained therein, as befits a newspaper article. I think quite a bit about “soundbite culture” or the (former) Twitter-ization of complex thoughts and ideas into 140 characters. In a time of information overload, we need to boil down ideas to snippets, tweets, headlines…. And all that matters is so reduced that complexity cannot be found. You have to have read Ulysses in order to read Ulysses. This has been mentioned as well… we see things come back - recurrence - and we don’t know upon a first read what is important until later, when we see it come back again. The advertisement that keeps coming back. The phrase Agendath Netaim. But that’s like life.