Saturday, September 11, 2010

Ruby Ithaca Ulysses # 21




Jaeren this week.

The chapter about both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus returning to 7 Eccles Street, the Ithaca of Dublin is called the chapter of questions and answers. Maybe because of the painful things Bloom presumed waiting for him at home, he searched for every way possible to distance him from the
real fact, and in all possible ways procrastinating the moment he had to face his fears. (Had Molly been unfaithful or not?)
The first 3/4 of the chapter, Bloom and Dedalus, (He and he), discuss everything under the sun in minutiae details. All actions are also described the same thorough way.
I wondered where have I read a book in similar style? A.A. Milne, (the Disney version doesn't count), and his stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.
So this week I have been reading Joyce by daytime, (lots of words used in this chapter, which even giant Webster had trouble to explain, and I could not lie in bed with two tons of books beside me). Therefore A. A. Milne became my bed buddy, and the conversations between Piglet and Pooh as always gave me many good laughs and sweet sleep.
I did in fact look up to find out who of the two great authors inspired whom. Joyce won the price or race here too. Ulysses was published in 1923 and Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926.

The little white chair from my childhood, my teddy, Serina's book.

While Bloom was making Dedalus cocoa they discussed every topic under the sun, in the universe, as a matter of the fact, macro and micro cosmos, religion, psychology, politics, agreements and disagreements. They laid plans for the future and by sunrise said goodbye. The only thing Bloom could not offer Dedalus, was a "shelter from the storm," a room for the homeless.
He had to literally face the music, find out what had been going on, while Molly and Boylan had been rehearsing for the upcoming concert.
Did he find evidence of foul play?
He did.
Even so he did not confront his wife, but laid down beside her, fearing that his enemy had been there just some hours earlier.
Why?


Yours truly seeking shelter, while reading Ulysses on a local beach. Shortly after, I fell asleep.


"What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier returning to the range, admire?

Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection: its umplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8,000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: Its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including billions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents: gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs, and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe) numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90% of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon." James Joyce



If you double click some red attached to the divers foot.



This matchbox lay in the car Serina inherited after my dad. As the car was handed over to a cousin, Gunnar put the box over in our Land Rover. We were camping this week, and needed light. Gunnar fetched the box, and we suddenly met my dad again. One safety pin, one paper clip and some valve parts put there for emergency use. Ten years ago.

"What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards applied, rather than towards pure, science?

Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once revolutionary for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump."James Joyce


Boat passing lighthouse at sundown

"He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations.

As in what ways?
From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received: existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived." James Joyce


Originated by MaryT, check hers for today

23 comments:

maryt/theteach said...

Love all the RED, Felisol! Thanks for participating so loyally in Ruby Tuesday all this time. Now you make me go and take a look at Joyce again. :)

reg said...

fantastic pics here, The first reminds me so much from were I lived a large part of life in Nova Scotia, Canada. I fall asleep reading books, it is so relaxing

Lola said...

Happy RT - lovely blog!

Nora & Lola:)

Jada's Gigi said...

As always..your photos are phenomenal!

marcia@joyismygoal said...

very nice shots I love the clarity in the closeups and the match still life is very nice

Amrita said...

Good to see the sun and sand and memories.
You preserve things so well. The chair teddy and book are so precious.

I also have books from my childhood. Many are lost or destroyed.

I also love going back and reading books again.

Hope mother and Serina are doing well.

Anonymous said...

Your photos are just awesome. Where in Norway do you live?

EG CameraGirl said...

I'm impressed that you have continued with Ulysses. My copy is on the floor beside my bed. First I have to read another tome called Shanghai (900+ pages) because the author will be giving a talk to our group in a few weeks. When I finish this book I will get back to Ulysses!

EJ said...

What a profound post for RT. Love those photos!

My Ruby Tuesday

Felisol said...

Dear Ilanadavita,
I live in the south western part of Norway, county Rogaland, town Haugesund by the island of Karmoy.
Last week we made a trip 120 kilometers south to Jaeren, still in co Rogaland.

Robin said...

What a wonderful series, I love that first photo, and the one of you reading too (though that looked like a terribly uncomfortable position, I guess not though if you fell asleep shortly after).

By the way, Carletta identified the flowers on my blog as a Strawberry Fields plant (I knew it looked like strawberries!) or more officially a Gomphrena Haageana. I don't know if they're edible or not though.

-----------------------------------
My photography is available for purchase - visit Around the Island Photography and bring home something beautiful today!

Ralph said...

The sea is beautiful, the shame for you that a coat is needed to keep warm on the beach. Short season I suppose...Winnie-the-Pooh is adorable, the classic fuzzy friend little ones love to take along. The sunset over the far side of the sea is a bold and brilliant ruby one can capture - Bravo!

LifeRamblings said...

nice shots for Ruby Tuesday. the first shot is awesome, the place looks calm and serene. love the shot of you enjoying your book too.

Junneth said...

Gorgeous post!

Leora said...

Love Winnie the Pooh. Glad you came to visit my peas post... I've been busy like crazy with work, in between all the Jewish holidays.

Ulysses still sits on my coffee table, but I haven't opened it recently!

So Dedalus is supposedly like a younger Bloom? And the two obviously enjoy going on and on about similar things. I love a good discussion like that. Though I probably would not discuss oceans and frigid zones. Maybe Pooh and V. Woolf.

Carletta said...

Love the shot of the lighthouse - nicely done through the fence.
I was thinking as Robin in that your position on the beach looked uncomfortable. :)
I adore the little vignette of your chair and teddy and the book!!!
Continued praise for staying with Ulysses.

Terry said...

hi felisol..i love the lighthouse with the little red roof on it in the first picture...IS it a lighthouse?
the picture that some one took of your curled up with your book is adorable but it would of been ever so more sweeter if you had teddy in your arms instead of your book my felisol!
hopefully i will be able to make a ruby post next week. i really miss the teach but this week i am trying to catch up now that mom golden is feeling all right!
i am hoping that i can give her her wish to drive to sonny's home town for a visit to him!
love you my friend...love terry

John Cowart said...

I think the matchbox photo struck me most; I keep little things in boxes like that. Trouble is, I can't always remember which box when I need them.

I also liked to see you reading on the beach--a sure sign winter is coming.

Magical Mystical Teacher said...

Reading Ulysses—
enchanting as fresh lotus,
even on a beach…

Your Lover

Deb said...

Okay - now I want to go curl up with a good book!!

Unknown said...

I love the box of matches with the safety pin and paper clip. It's loaded with meaning and nostalgia.

Pagan Sphinx Ruby Tuesday

Trish said...

Dear Felisol...I know that i tell you over and over again that your Norway is beautiful...but that's what I think every time I visit your blog! To live by the sea and snuggle up on the sand with a book....how blessed you are!
And of course, your photo's are amazing...sigh.

Crown of Beauty said...

Lovely pictures, and great connection to A.A. Milne... you are able to write about these things so beautifully.

To hear water described as such... really the work of a genius.

I loved the matchbox with the paper clip, safety pin and a few valves mixed in with the match sticks.

The chair, the teddy bear, with the Pooh book open to one of my favorite pictures of Pooh and Piglet...all in a wonderful background of white wood. So artistic.

You have once again put together an amazing Ruby Tuesday offering.

Remarkable.

Love
Lidj