The Wandering Rocks

I am not quite sure what to make of the fractured vignettes in the Wandering Rocks Episode. Surely it is and interesting and a well timed lull it what seemed to be a focus on Stephen and Bloom. So, in a way that is just what Joyce may be doing here- breathing life and giving depth to other characters and situations that up until not have remained on the periphery. In the first vignette with father Conmee – the third person removal is unavoidable. Nearly every other paragraph begins with, “Father Conmee this,” or “Father Conmee that,” if anything this chapter brings to the forefront the narrator’s role in the course of events and that perhaps he too is part of the story (or what enlivens it.) Through the narration of Father Conmee we see how the narrator proves to be quite editorial and omnipotent in his remarks- “ Father Conmee walked and walking, smiled for he thought on father Bernard Vaughans’s droll eyes and cockney voice.”
In particular these different insights shed light on the relationship between Simon Dedalus and his children. Simon is the absent father, the inadequate father and the father nominally and not in any other way. This, I think, is important to note in comparison to Bloom who longs to have had a boy to father in a close way. In a sense Bloom plays the role of a father to his wife Molly. He makes her breakfast in bed, buys her smutty novels, encourages her singing career and now that their relationship is no longer sexual he sees her in a more detached way.

Lestrygonians

What strikes me about Bloom, particularly in this chapter, is his preoccupation with other people’s families. His hyperawareness probably stems from the now sterile relationship he has with his own wife and the fact that his only living child doesn’t resemble him. Bloom finds this troubling – that Milly is a “watered-down” version of Molly when it is so easy for him to identify Dedalus’ daughter (“knew her eyes at once from the father”) – a case where there is no doubt about paternity. Through the chapter he goes on to reminisce about when Molly was pregnant and Milly was young and being washed in a tub, which is accompanied by the comment, “Happy. Happier then.”

What also struck me about this chapter was the plethora of common sayings and figures of speech that interject Blooms thoughts – “nature abhors a vacuum,” “mum’s the word,” “proof of the pudding,” “wear out my welcome,” etc.. They seem to wander into his thoughts as he wanders about town – thus perpetuating the wandering and “homeless” theme so closely tied to Bloom’s character. The only time in the Episode when we exit Bloom’s head is when Nosey Flynn’s conversation about Bloom dominates the text. The way Joyce treats Bloom’s interior monologue is somewhat matter-of-factly and distended enough so as to not elicit sympathy from us as readers. Despite the many pages we have spent in Bloom’s head I feel far more empathy and understanding for Steven even tough on the face of it his thoughts seemed more elusive.

HADES

While reading the Hades chapter I suddenly became aware of Joyce’s use of boat/water imagery, not only in this episode but previous episodes as well. Boat imagery, in this case, is a natural occurrence for the obvious river Styx allusions in a chapter centering on a funeral. But because of the constant presence and references to boats I am wondering if Joyce is working on constructing a complex symbol. Bloom at the end of the funeral, says to himself, “Beside him again. We are the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else.” Technically the “he” is Mr Kernan but it may be more prophetic in its intent – I think this could also be read as if it is Bloom sitting in the boat with Charon (the ferryman of the dead) – in his own vision of death. Earlier in this episode Bloom and the other men discuss the story of Rueben J. and his son who was rescued by a boatman after he falls into the water. Again boats and death are linked, however this time the boy is saved and brought to life by the boatman. This story is echoed in Telemachus when Stephen remembers a drowned man whose body was found.
Both of these instances makes me think back to the Proteus chapter, which ends with Stephen seeing a ship: “Moving through the air high spars of a three master, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.” This is especially cryptic – will the ship bring someone to rescue Stephen or will it usher him to some sort of demise? In addition to all of this Joyce has named the pub where Stephen is supposed to meet up with Buck, The Ship.

So far, images of ships/boats are linked to the transition between life and death or death and life. It will be interesting to see it Joyce will keep this up or change its meaning or drop it altogether.

CALYPSO

The first episode of book II invites the reader to draw parallels between Stephen and Bloom. Both Telemachus and Calypso open with a name and a description of an imposing and even frightening figure: Buck Mulligan and Leopold Bloom: “Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.” Bloom is described in a considerably more visceral way than the other characters we have encountered up until this point. Everything about him is bodily and pulsing – much more alive than how one imagines Stephen. Even their respective daydreams and thoughts are vastly different (though similar in their wanderings.) Stephen and Bloom seem like embodiments of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Stephen is clearly Apollonian in the way his thoughts are lofty and poetic while Bloom is concerned with bodily pleasures (wanting to watch the woman’s hips and finding satisfaction in his bowel movements.) Bloom’s thought process is rooted in the natural things he sees (wondering how the cat sees him and wishing to walk around the earth in front of the sun.)